Bergen, Norway

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Today I had a good day in Bergen. I toured several sights that I wanted to see and learned some history along the way. First of all, I took the 90-minute tour from the Bryggen Museum which concentrates on the history of the city, especially the period when the town depended on trade with the Hanseatic League in the late Middle Ages. Codfish was the big commodity and one museum had a dried cod hanging from the ceiling. There is also a giant cod statue nearby that doesn’t mind a little rain. Walking around town, I came upon a large monument in the middle of a square that apparently memorializes the town’s Viking and pirate history. At the end of the day I visited the city’s art museum whose paintings feature peaceful landscapes and pastoral scenes. Unfortunately the works by Edvard Munch, Norway’s most famous artist, were off-display in preparation for a major exhibition here next month. Too bad for those of us visiting THIS month!

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