Bergen!

What a beautiful city. I think I'll probably say that about every Norwegian city, but Bergen really is something to see. I'm so glad we made it one of our stops. Apparently it rains 275 days of the year (not 340 Dad, that's crazy) so we expected a wet day. It certainly sprinkled quite a bit but it was off and on, and when it was off, it was sunny and nice. Here's what we saw:

A lot of the houses in Bergen by the water were rebuilt in the 1800's after a huge fire wiped out 7/8ths of the city. That's still really old for houses, and you could see them all wonky and leaning into each other. 

This could have possibly made Jeff's trip to Bergen. A unicorn statue with a boner. 

Norway has a lot of weird naked statues. These wouldn't fly in the states.

This church was the one from the 12th century that I wanted to see. They were in the middle of restoring it though (on the front end) so we couldn't go inside. Ah well.

This kitty lived at the church. He was a salty little thing. A pigeon landed right in front of us and he got all puffed up and made those chattering noises cats make when they stalk prey. He was quick, but not quick enough. The pigeon survived.

We went to this fortress next on the edge of the water. The building above was built in 1560 and the building below (Hakon's Hall) was built in the 12th century!

This was the dungeon! It was crazy spooky in there. They had electric lights but back when it was in use, all of the light and air came from this little slit in the stones. It was awful. Jeff is making a bad joke in this picture, which pissed off the spirits. The paranormal activity made my picture fuzzy. 

We were allowed to go all the way up to the top of the fortress which gave an awesome 360 degree view of the city and harbor. 

After lunch we went to the Leprosy Museum! It was pretty sad. They cordoned off all of the Norwegian lepers into this hospital in the 17 and 1800's. A lot of research was conducted here by Dr. Hansen who named the disease after discovering the bacteria that causes it.

After lunch we went to the Natural History Museum (closed) and the Cultural Museum of Bergen (open) which was next to the botanical gardens. It was higher up than on the harbor so we had really pretty views (and a good work-out walking up and down).

One of the many gorgeous old churches in Bergen.

This one's for you Jan! Although now that you're practically vegetarian, I'm not sure how down you'd be for 64 tubes of Baconost. 

Tomorrow morning we're off early on the Flaggruten to go south to Stavanger. Adventures!

P.s. To see the rest of the Bergen shots, click here to see my Flickr album!