Bergen

Bergen was my gateway into Norway. I flew in and out from the airport here as it has the closest access to the hikes I wanted to do in Norway (featured in the previous posts). It is the second largest city in Norway, situated on the west coast in between the fjords. I was able to spend a couple extra days here and it was really beautiful. The city itself is surrounded by mountains on all sides which I really liked as there were plenty of extra hiking opportunities there.

These are some of the pictures I took while walking through the city centre of Bergen.

Near the funicular there are some really narrow streets that I walked past. I really loved them as they gave a very cozy feel to the city.

Fløyen

Right next to the city centre of Bergen is a funicular. In this image you can see the track going down the mountain, with the Bergen port and fjord in the background. This funicular goes up to mount Fløyen, and connects to a large hiking area with many viewpoints.

At the top of the Funicular is a viewing platform looking out over Bergen.

As I looked over the scenery, I saw a ferry docking at the main port. This is the same dock where I had arrived in Bergen the previous day.

The goats of Fløyen. I read that these goats had a virtual pen, an area of the park that they were free to roam around and graze in. They wear these 'Nofence' collars that vibrate when the goats get too close to the edge and they quickly learn to return into the virtual pen.

There were so many different hiking paths throughout the forest on Fløyen. I didn't have time to explore them all but I marked out a short loop I could complete. The forest was beautiful and serene. What stood out to me the most was all the green moss that covered rocks and trees. I found it so beautiful, and I took so many pictures; above I have selected some of the nicest.

While it may not be very obvious, this image showed one of the paths I hiked along. This was a smaller path with just some extra stones to mark the way, while other paths in the area were fully tarmacked roads.

My route took me past a few beautiful lakes. These two were quite close to each other and both situated near the top of a rise in the landscape, rather than at the bottom.

I cam across these wooden carvings near the lake. I'm not sure what they were for but they looked cute.

A few more forest pictures highlighting just how green the forest was. I took these on my way back to the funicular.

Ulriken

Ulriken is another mountain near Bergen that can be accessed by a cable car. There is also a trail going up the mountain, as you can see in the above image, but I took the cable car.

I took this panorama from the lookout next to the upper cable car station. Because this mountain is higher than Fløyen and further from the city centre I had a much wider view of the entire urban area. From here, I could see how the city fills and perfectly follows the valley floor.

Here there were no forests on the mountains, instead just rocky outcroppings and reddish brown grass. Like Fløyen, there are several footpaths that extend from the cable car and explore the mountainous area beyond.

I did not have a lot of time before my flight, but I wanted to at least hike to the top of Ulriken, picture here from the trailhead.

This is looking back to where I started at the upper cable car station.

The path I picked had a large snow drift I had to climb over.

As I rounded the mountain, I had this beautiful view scattered with snow and dotted with icy lakes.

Here is a quick panorama I took in this area. I did notice that those clouds were fast approaching, and so I hastily made my way the final few minutes to the mountain top.

I reached the summit of Ulriken, this is the cairn that marks the peak.

This is the view from the top looking back towards the cable care station.

In less than five minutes the clouds caught up with me and obscured the view. They came with a strong wind and I was feeling very exposed on the peak. So I turned back, putting my raincoat hood up as the snow/hail began to fall.

It wasn't quite snow, but it also wasn't fully hailstones that rained down on me as I walked back. The snow/hail quickly accumulated, dusting the path I walked on with specs of white.

I took a different, longer, route going back as I still wanted to explore some of the scenery. I loved how beautiful the grassy hillside looked with a light dusting of snow. Although, the path was muddy in places so I had to trudge carefully.

I would have loved to hike all the way to this lake I could see in the distance, but alas I would have to save it for another time.

The snow shower did pass and I was able to get a couple more pictures of this mountain plain, viewing the red hut from different locations.

Ulriken was the last place I visited in Norway before returning to Gdańsk.

Ferry to Bergen

On Friday I left Bergen by bus to get to Odda, but returning to Bergen on Monday I took the scenic route by ferry. Here I wanted to share a few pictures I took on the way.

These photos were taken early on the ferry trip looking pack to the mountains I had left. The ferry left from Rosdal and I had to get there by bus from Odda. The route included a long tunnel that went under the mountains. The bus arrived in Rosdal with about five minutes to spare before the ferry left.

We went past this beautiful set of mountains. The entire ferry journey was within the fjords so there was always some sort of land in every direction, such as islands or peninsulas.

The ferry stopped at a number of towns along the way, and as we neared Bergen there were more and more houses along the coast.

The ferry went past the airport and under a bridge.

Here the ferry is arriving in Bergen, I took this photo as it was entering the port area. You can see both mountains, Fløyen and Ulriken, in the background. There were so many ships docked in the port here, many of them looked like they were industrial type ships.

The ferry took about 2 hours to get from Rosdal to Bergen and I enjoyed every minute of it.

Bergen is a really lovely city and I will most definitely make my way back here at some point. Visiting Norway was perhaps the highlight of my entire time in Europe so far, the scenery really was fantastic and there is so much left to explore.

Thanks for reading – Edward

Written 16th of June 2024

A couple of bonus pictures I found when reviewing my photos. These were taken on my phone as I first arrived in Norway on Friday.