After breakfast this morning we set off for Tourist information to see if they had a walking route around the Bryggen which is the old warehouse area of Bergen and a UNESCO world heritage site. We also asked about where to get the ferry from in the morning as we are on a trip tomorrow which leaves at 8am! Armed with a number of maps and the relevant information we set off for Bryggen. These are traditional long narrow buildings facing the sea and separated by passages which were first built around 1070. During the first 300 years of Bryggens history the bay areas were filled in, this was done to increase land areas and followed the original boundaries of the long narrow properties. From the original shoreline and reaching outwards for 140 metres new land was built and by 1500 it had reached the level we see today. In the 1230s German traders came to Bergen, but it wasn’t until 1278 they were granted permission to spend the winter in Bergen, given salvage rights and permission to buy property but foreign ships were forbidden to sail north of Bergen which cemented its position as an export centre. The plague in 1350 caused German trading cities to join together and they formed the Hansa Association which owned the monopoly on trade and they created a network of trading stations and trading partners providing credit and access to capital, Bryggen was one of the Hansa Associations foreign stations along with Novgorod, Brugge and London! As the buildings were all wooden there were a number of fires and all of the buildings were re-built after a fire in 1702 when the whole city was burnt to the ground. Another extensive fire in the 1900s meant that only one in four of the buildings remained, these 61 houses are legally protected. An ammunition ship exploded in 1944 and all of the roofs caught fire and only the solid timber cores of the houses remained, because the houses were all that remained of a German period of history of the city the occupation forces were active in the reconstruction. A major fire in 1955 resulted in archaeological investigations where the remains of several hundred buildings were identified. From here we walked down to the Rosenkrantz Tower, which is an old medieval tower erected by King Magnus around 1270. An extension was built around 1520 which included a portcullis, a moat and drawbridge and finally in the 1560s Erik Rosenkrantz, the feudal overlord, joined all the separate structures together adding three new floors which are reached by a spiral staircase. On each of the floors there is evidence of where the floor levels have changed over time as fireplaces or windows are in the wrong place. We should have been able to go out on the battlement (according to the brochure) but the building is undergoing some restoration so we couldn’t probably much to Chris’ relief! We had picked up a booklet called the Fortress Trail which described the buildings within the Castle complex so we walked round to the Castle Courtyard, the buildings on three sides have all been whitewashed and comprise the residence of the captain commander of the watch, the Commandants residence and the stables. On the fourth side stands Hakon’s Hall which was erected by King Hakon between 1247 and 1261. It served as a royal seat during the Middle Ages with the Kings Great Hall on the upper most floor. Unfortunately there was an event taking place today so we were not able to walk round the hall but if we get time we may go back and have a look. The other buildings in the area were the Bunker, built by German forces during WW2 and used as a communications bunker, the Regimental building which was completed in 1931 and served as combined living quarters and offices for the two regiments from Western Norway. After walking round this area we set off for the Leprosy museum. Between 1850 and 1900 Bergen had three hospitals for leprosy patients, the largest concentration of patients in Europe. The city’s oldest hospital was St Goerge’s hospital and is home to the museum. The last residents of the hospital died in the 1940s which is when it was closed and ultimately turned into a museum. The rooms tell the story of how people with Leprosy were treated, they were basically forced to live in hospitals or institutions and the research that was carried out to try and identify the cause of the disease. The kitchens were massive and had at least three massive ranges in them, it is not clear if the final residents had to look after themselves or if there were nurses to help them. After we finished walking round this we decided to go and grab some lunch then set off for the Funicular railway which takes you above the city and provides fantastic views of the town and the surrounding coast line. We had decided to go up today as it wasn’t raining and in this area you seem to need to take advantage of moments like that! After walking around the top and admiring the view we came back down and called in at the supermarket on the way back to the hotel to pick up a packed lunch for tomorrow as we are on the go for most of the day and it isn’t clear if we will get a chance to buy something or not, it was then a case of heading back to the hotel to relax and watch the world go by out of our window!
