Marg's Norway in a Nutshell etc...: Bye bye Bergen

It's not raining! Bergen is a city where it rains about 300 days of the year. We lucked in on of of the 65 days where it didn't rain! We realized that we probably walked all of Bergen yesterday so today was a bonus day to visit the Hanseatic museum and take a funicular up to Mount Floyen. The Hanseatic (info on this from yesterday's blog) museum was founded in 1900 to preserve a tenement interior and today offers the best possible look inside the wooden houses that are Bergen's trademark (pics of Bryggen yesterday). It has creaky old rooms with hundred year old cod hanging from the season (which are still smelly today). It was very authentic and you could still feel that folks live there. It was so interesting to see pics of that area of Bergen then:

Compared to what it looks like today:

Some more photos from the museum - notice the painted walls - like a paint wash, very common in these homes in that area and significant - if there were flowers and birds in the painting it meant there was life there, if not, well ...

Next we made our way up to Mount Floyen to view the town, surrounding islands and fjords. Look at these views.

A short walk along a very creative path with a few strange inhabitants..

Of course a coffee refuel....

On the return trip down the hill we excited a bit early and walked our way down the windy roads through a lovely part of the town which led us to bergen's main church dedicated to St Olav- patron saint of Norway which dates from 1301. Apparently the church is slightly lopsided and has one aisle. It was unfortunately closed so i can't confirm neither fact! Look at the wooden structure in one of pics - I can't tell if it's a Bergen style kids play Fort at the side of a steep embankment or an actual structure reinforcing that part of the road!