Where and what to eat in Norway, Bergen

In our Norway in a nutshell, we started tour from  Oslo- Bergen-Myrdal-Flam- Balestrand-Bergen afterwords,  Bergen-Stavanger-Kristiansand-Oslo. In all these different places we tried mostly local tastes. Especially, I’m a fish and sea-food lover, I never had any disappointment during entire trip.

Let me start to tell from one famous place in Bergen, Fish market, it is a must place to visit. Especially, if you’re starving in the harbor area and it is raining crazily, 

be better go there taste delicious seafood and have a drink.  

Familiar  Mediterranean smells and talkative&friendly Italian and Spanish staff looked us so friendly and immediately ordered various things.

My plate with was big enough to make me happy!

You may think this is a steak pieces. It is wales! A totally different thing for us but  my husband enjoyed it. In that cozy atmosphere, we didn’t care about the  simple service with plastic plates and plastic cutlery.

After touring old Bergen area we decided to have dinner at Bruggeloftet&Stuene, it was around 8:30 p.m., glad there was a table for four of us. Our first  impression was so nice for being there with their nicely decorated cozy atmosphere and friendly staff.  

I started with fish soup, Bergen style soup was delicious, creamy and had various fish and shrimps in it. 

My main course was a local fish with mixed veggies. 

My husband’s selection was rein deer, he was so happy with his order. Its sauce and side dishes were looking so good. I've already shared my reviews at Trip Advisor, too. We had good food, enjoyed our time in this cozy restaurant at our last evening in Bergen. 

I would like to share another place that we had a light lunch after another rain shower in Bergen was Harbour Cafe.  We noticed that especially local people were eating there!  We had a lunch there. Our orders came almost after 45 minutes but my fish soup and  mixed sea food salad were worth to wait it.

 The soup was creamy with lots of various fish pieces in it. Only soup could be enough for me, with home made breads&butter.

 Also sea food salad was a big portion with  crabs and jumbo shrimps and mussels. I couldn’t finish it shared with my husband.  The prices were reasonable for that quality and portions.  When I compare prices with this quality and big size portions with some other European countries, including my homeland Istanbul, our total bill was so normal.

Travel Notes, Chapter#7, Back to Bergen

We completed the round trip Sognefjord in a nutshell and came back to Bergen.  Now, let me give some brief information about Bergen as I promised in my previous post, before we left for Flam.

The city center of Bergen is located west in the municipality, facing the fjord of Byfjorden. It is situated among a group of mountains known as the Seven Mountains, although the number is a matter of definition. My beautiful city Istanbul is known with its seven hills, too.

Bergen experiences plentiful rainfall in all seasons, this is because the city is surrounded by mountains that cause moist North Atlantic air to undergo orographic lift, yielding abundant rainfall. 

This photo taken in July! The weather conditions change so fast, but it was mostly cloudy and heavy rainy when we were there.

I hope this photo is so meaningful with the general weather conditions in Bergen! A boat with the name of  "Sunseeker"!

However,, Bergen is well known for having the mildest winter climate, though with a lot of precipitation, of all cities in the Nordic countries.  The Gulf Stream keeps the sea relatively warm, considering the latitude, and the mountains protect the city from cold winds from the north, north-east and east.

Due to weather conditions we've had to postpone our Mount Floyen tour next day.
We went to Floibanen funicular queue next day, early in the morning, however it was crowded, waited for a while. It was a breathtaking view from top. 

Glad it was sunny when we reached there, afterwords rain started but we took good photos in that short period of time.   

In that heavy rain, we enjoyed to follow-up the synchronized model funicular wagons on the roof of the old station building. We also liked those lovely  goats, they were in nature and looking happy with the high attention of the visitors. They 

The funicular was too crowded, especially in our return, it  was completely full, the door closed hardly, it was impossible to move. Maybe it could be better to have a limitation for each chamber during high season periods. Anyway, it was so nice experience, worth to visit to see that wonderful panoramic view.

I would like to share one interesting place which is Gamle Bergen Museum, it is worth to visit, especially if you are a history, antique, vintage staff lover like me, this is perfect address for you. 

But, visit before 14:00 to complete tour and join actors performances.

It was really an enjoyable tour wandering around the historic buildings which have been restored and filled with original items from past eras.

This photo shows the decorations style of little girl room from past era! I really enjoyed this museum, I wish we could go there earlier to visit more places like this one. They close at 16:00 p.m.

Its garden is so nice too. We went there by bus from Fish Market, an easy transportation, indeed.

By the way, Fish Market is one of the famous place in Bergen. I'll write details about it later in foods chapter.

There are so many statues, monuments in Bergen, one of the is Seamen’s Monument,  located at Torgallmenningen.

created by the sculptor Dyre Vaa, was unveiled on 1950 in honor of Norwegian seamen’s achievements through the ages, their contribution at the ocean since the Vikings.

It is so obvious that, sea, seamen and ships are a part of their life in Norway.  

They precisely protect their past, this an old vessel still works in good conditions as a sight-seeing tour boat.

This photo is from our hotel room!

As I've explained  before, after completing a round fjord tour we arrived back to Bergen by ferry from Balestrand and reached to hotel in a few minutes from ferry dock, Hotel  Augustin  was a good choice, indeed.  It is just a short walk from the harbor and the old town. Our room's panoramic harbor view was so nice, I wish we could stay longer, I could watch daily routine of the harbor life!  I come from a naval family, sea&ships have a special place in my life. 

Lille Lungegardsvannet is a small artificial lake in Bergen.

A view against to Mount Floyen at dusk during white nights in July 2016.
So, I hope these are enough to tell Bergen shortly. I still have lots of details, the next chapter will be Stavanger!

Travel Notes, Norway, Chapter One!

I neglected my blogging in the recent months, I keep share some important issues or photos via FB or Instagram. 

My followers know how much I like to take photos, it became more serious hobby in my life since last year... I attended a photography course last year to enhance and improve my knowledge. Therefore I started to visit places to take photos.! My friends/followers wanted to learn more about my trips, details about what to dos, where to eat, what to eat issues as well....

Some friends encouraged me to write trip notes.  So, I decided to start from recent one, your feed-backs are always very welcome.

As I told you I want to make start from our last trip, afterwords I’ll write Italy, Scotland, Germany memories.

We were planning to go to Tromso, Norway but one of our Norwagian friend told us that it won’t be a smart idea to go there this time of the year. She was so true because we won’t be able to see the northern lights in July. Therefore,  we postponed it and started to plan a round trip starting from Oslo. Long years ago we went Oslo, I stayed there for a Patchwork Exhibition and my husband made a fjord tour. He made a really good program for this year with his previous experiences, one of his class-mate and his wife joined us, as well. So, our 10 days program started with a great excitement.
Norway has some of Europe's most spectacular scenery, with fjords, mountains, glaciers and waterfalls. To be in this wonderful nature was fantastic, I'll try to tell my Norway experiences as much as I can.

We directly arrived to Oslo and same day to Bergen by plane. Oslo Airport is small and well organized.

Usually Oslo to Bergen leg of the “Norway in a Nutshell” is classic tour, which is a combo of train, boat and car travel. But, we independently added plane option to reach Bergen in short time and start fjords tours at first.

Domestic lines section has some practical applications, such as their luggage acception is  “do it yourself” to minimize costs. We printed bag tags at the check-in machines, attached them on to our luggage and hand it over at the counter marked “bagdrop” and pur them on to the conveyor. Do it yourself and go to gate!

It was  50 minutes flight, it was heavily raining when we proceed to plane at Oslo and another rain shower welcomed us at Bergen due to the long waiting time for our luggage, departure from airport took long time.  

We easily came to Central station from airport by bus and reached to our hotel. Hotel Terminus an old building, its entrance, nicely furnished bar&lounge is so nice, indeed. This hotel is a good option with its great location, friendly stuff, classic style and well furnished atmosphere, clean and quiet rooms.

Hotel's interior decoration was so elegant, to have a cup of coffee in that atmosphere after a long trip was so nice and relaxing. 

 How nice that they protect their old buildings precisely, you may see this "Historical" label on the buildings in Norway.The main reason of our selection of this hotel its location, just beside the  Central station, so it was nice for us to  cross the street and to enter the station for the train in the morning.

We had to leave hotel early in the next morning before standard breakfast time, we asked for a quick breakfast possibility. Our take-away breakfast bags were ready in the front desk when we checked-out early in the morning. This hotel so ideal option especially if you’re going to catch an early train to go to Flam from Bergen as we did.

I’ll write more details about Bergen later in my Bergen chapter.

We got used to live “white nights” from previous trips. We spent our each moment precisely to complete harbor tour and discover other places till late hours.

In the morning our train adventure started, all early risers were waiting departure with great excitement.