Frankly, I had never heard of Bergen until we decided to take a trip to Norway. Here are pictures of what we found.

Bergen is a city on the southwestern coast of Norway, its second largest.

It is surrounded by mountains and deep vast fjords.

We spent most of our time on the city’s wharf which is called Bryggen.

Bryggen is known for its colorful wooden houses, which were actually warehouses.

It was once part of a great trading empire, and they traded from these warehouses.

Their greatest economic product was dried or salted cod and cod oil.

We spent two days in the city and it rained both. Bergen is the rainiest city on earth, raining 240 days per year.

On the second day we visited the home of Edvard Grieg, the famous Norwegian composer and pianist of the Romantic era. He called his home Trodhaugen, the troll’s house.

He thought he rather looked like a troll. He was only 4’7″ tall.

His “In the Hall of the Mountain King” was used by Disney in some of his work, as well as other compositions.

https://youtu.be/dRpzxKsSEZg

We also visited a medieval Norwegian Church.

Known as Stave architecture, it is made entirely of wood.

Only a hand full of these churches are left. They are very susceptible to fire. Instead of gargoyles they have dragons.