31 Aug 2010 Bergen

In the morning we found out who bought all the tacky Norwegian souvenirs.  There were about 3 large tour buses parked at the entrance and all the passengers were mingling around the waterfall and the shop stalls.  I guess the buses did not frequent rafting centers.

Today we were headed to Bergen so we decided to try to find a reasonably priced B&B before we left the campsite and did not have internet again.  All the semi reasonably priced B&Bs were fully booked of course and Bergen seemed like the most expensive city yet.  We decided to stay in a campsite a bus and tram ride away from Bergen and it was the most expensive cabin we had stayed in and also by far the worst. It was sub-par and the facilities were dirty.  It took us 40 minutes to get into Bergen but, once there, it was quick to walk through the center to the fish market for lunch.

We had high expectations reading so much about it in all the tourist books, that when we got there we were stunned at just how small it was.   It only consisted of two clumps of stalls, every single one of them selling the same thing yelling at tourists to sample their products.  It was far from what we had envisioned of a dead sea of various creatures as far as the eye could see.  We walked around it in 5 minutes.  Nevertheless, we bought sandwiches there anyway and were not too impressed.

We visited the Hanseatic Museum and Schøtstuene after, which focuses on the German traders who lived there between the 3th to 17th century.  It was one of many museums in Bergen but probably one of the most interesting ones.  One thing we noticed about Norwegian cities and towns is that there will always be some sort of museum there, no matter how small or insignificant, baiting tourists.  Most were folk museums, but we also saw fishing and road museums.  Since Bergen is the cultural capital of Norway, it was expected that they should have lots of museums, so this one was probably more worthwhile than many of the others such as the knitting museum.  While AU has its big things, Norway has museums.

The old Town of Bergen was adorable.  Particularly eye catching was the well endowed unicorn.  We ate Chinese food for dinner since our guide book said that Chinese food was the most reasonably priced and we agreed, though reasonable for Norway, not for any other country.  Despite the charm and museums we were slightly disappointed in Bergen and this seemed to be the common trend of Norwegian towns and cities so we decided to skip Skundeshaven in lieu of more nature.

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