Bergen, Norway

 Welcome to Bergen, Norway!

Day 1

When we got off the Hurtigruten ferry in the afternoon, we arrived to the city of Bergen. We were instantly happy with the weather, the beautiful city, and the surrounding hills. Finally some warmth and sunshine!

We checked into our "Scandic Byparken" hotel. It turns out it is one of the best hotels we've ever stayed in, and if you are traveling to this area, we highly suggest you consider booking one of the "Scandic" hotels. More on why below.

There was a 'games festival' going on for the weekend, so we quickly left the hotel to check it out. Jason figured out that there was a Lego festival for the afternoon, so we went and played with some Lego in the sunshine!

We walked around town and found the fish market and Bryggen quite quickly. We each picked something from one of the many stalls for an early dinner.

Bryggen, the most famous part of Bergen. These old buildings on the pier used to be store houses.

We didn't pick the paella, but I enjoyed watching him cook it in this enormous pan!

Rachel chose a moose burger!

I had a lox bunwhich

This beautiful pond was right next to our hotel and major transit.

After dinner on our first day, we found a pool because Ava was really missing the water. Our salt water swimming pool was next to a roped off area of the ocean water, so people (incuding Ava) could jump into the ocean and then come back to the pool and go back and forth. Rachel and I stayed in the salt water pool (comfortable temperature) and I did some laps. Ava did some diving off the diving board but wasn't into braving the 5m platform into the ocean.

Can you see the salt water pool at the ocean's edge?

After our swim and walk, Rachel and Jason went to listen to an outdoor concert we could hear a little bit further away at a fortress in town. It was a 80s theme concert, and they heard bands like Aqua playing. I think the highlight was that Jason and Rachel shared an electric scooter home, and Rachel was pretty excited to get to ride on one.

Going to bed that night, I still felt woozy from being on the boat, but otherwise we were feeling pretty happy with life and happy with Bergen.

Day 2

Today was a sunny and warm day! Woo-hoo! 

It's summer and hot for many of our readers in North America, but we haven't really had much hot weather (except for our time in VA) since the summer of 2021. So today we took a lot of photos and really enjoyed the blue sky.

But before we went outside for the day, we had a treat. The hotel included breakfast, and this was the BEST breakfast we have ever had at any hotel. Maybe even at anywhere, ever. It reminded me of the brunches at fancy hotels I used to look forward to when I was a kid on holidays like Mother's Day with brunch at the Empress Hotel. We just ate and ate and ate. It was insane! Crepes, waffles, croissants, eggs, ham, sausages, cereals, fruit, yogurt, juice, vegetables, cheeses, more croissants... amazing. I'm not sure if every Scandic hotel does this, or if this was just this particular one, but it was legendary. And we picked this hotel because it was central and (relatively) affordable... so that's even better!

With our very full bellies, we went for a family hike up Floyen. Many people catch the funicular, but we wanted to enjoy the walk. At the top, Jason went for a longer run and I hung out with the kids exploring the Troll Forest, the playground, and the views. Then, in order to get my own running workout in, I made our hike down include hill repeats here and there. The girls were good sports and cheered me on while I turned around and sprinted back uphill 14 times throughout our hike down.

A slide on the hike up

The official 'rest stop' that is part way up on the hike.

The funicular coming down

Views of Bergen from above

Ava playing in the Troll Forest

The view from the top of the Funicular. Lots of tourists!

The largest tree in Norway - a Sitka Spruce

Happy to have done a hard hill workout on the hike down as the kids cheered me on

While we were playing and then hiking down, Jason went on a beautiful run from Floyen to Ulriken. Another popular spot, there is a cable car to the top of this mountain. 

Just as we got back to the hotel, I received a text from Jason... the kind of text I dread getting.

Jason: "I fell. I think I'm ok but I definitely hit my head. I'm walking down now. Please call me."

...

So I'm an ultra-spouse and I know that there are many positives from this information. Like:

- he can text 

- his text makes sense

- he can walk

- he is making downhill / forward progress

- he isn't too far from people today, as he was recently at the cable car area with loads of tourists

But it's still alarming to get these kind of things. It turns out he was on a sketchier smaller downhill path and slipped on a boardwalk and scraped up his knee, elbow, and shoulder before hitting his head. 

So I left the girls at the hotel and figured out where he was and ran to go and meet him. By the time all of that was organized, he was only 2-3 km from the hotel and he was doing pretty well. We just monitored him for the next while and made him take it easy for 1-2 days. He was just fine.

 

Day 3

Day 3 reminded me of my brother Jeff over and over again - I feel like he really would have appreciated many things about this day.

I woke up at 6:45am and got myself ready to go out for my long run. The hotel breakfast started at 7am and went until 10am. So I had a bowl of cereal at 7:00am and then headed out, I was really proud to run 12.5 miles / 20 km, with some decent hills, which is my longest run in quite some time. Overall I felt pretty good, and I'm really thankful that (a) I have good podcasts to listen to while running and (b) I get to explore new places to run all the time right now, which is motivating for me and (c) my body is holding up with marathon training. I do have to look at the map quite often to figure out where to go, so I'll 'blame' that on my slow pace these days!

Fun scenery on my run

I was able to wrap up my run, just as the rain started, and in time to change out of my running shirt and head back to the hotel breakfast and "gorge the bunny". The girls keep saying that whenever we find ourselves at an 'all you can eat' place. It's a reference to a board game we love called "Killer Bunnies" and it has a drawing of a bunny with a huge stomach who has clearly just eaten way too much. So I finish my run and sit down for 'second breakfast' and the kids say 'ok, Mommy. Great job running. Now it's time to gorge the bunny!'

After a shower, we bought bus tickets and headed just out of town to go explore the waterslide park. It's an indoor 'water world' that's a part of a mall, with about 5-6 slides and several different pool options. Unfortunately it was the first day back to school. So I thought 'summer hours' were still in effect and they would be open at 11am, but in fact they were not open this day until 4pm. Oops.

Well, it turns out that there was also minigolf, bowling, curling, a library, and a shopping mall at this place. We inquired about the indoor minigolf and the attendant said that, because it wasn't busy at all, we could pay for one round but stay and play over and over again as much as we wanted. 

So we did. 

I think we actually played minigolf for 3 hours! It was really fun. We played holes over and over, trying different strategies and enjoying different ways to solve the holes. It was raining hard outside and we didn't have anything else to do, but we really enjoyed it.

We also learned they had English board games in the library, so we played a round of 'Harry Potter Clue' before we went to the water park.

Rachel is the bravest of us all. There was a 'whirlpool' themed slide that went REALLY FAST and at the end you got shot out to a huge mixing bowl that you went around and around until you fell out the hole in the middle at the bottom. She might have done this slide 20 times in the 2.5 hours we were there. I didn't even try it. I opted for a perfectly safe and fun slide that went fast enough, but Rachel called it slow... oh well! We all had our own version of fun.

Side note - we keep pool temperature water way too cold in Canada. People in Iceland and Norway know to keep their pool temperatures a little higher and it's lovely.

Lego tiger at the mall

Part of the minigolf was glow in the dark, Viking themed

Curling themed minigolf

It wasn't easy to get the ball in the penguin's mouth!

Playing 'Magic Maze' (and later Clue) at the library

The water world was really fun. We highly recommend it!

So that's it for Bergen, Norway. We really enjoyed this city and think you should include it in your plans if you ever come to Norway.

Next stop: Oslo!