We visited Bergen in Norway in May 2022 for my 30th birthday. I have a love for Scandinavian culture & history so I was really excited to get to visit on my milestone birthday!
This was actually the very first foreign holiday we'd been on together! (we had spent our twenties not really being able to afford travel, plus I had a bit of an ordeal getting my first adult passport!) Because neither of us had ever booked flights before, I kind of messed up & booked an overly convoluted journey involving us flying from London to Amsterdam, then from Amsterdam to Bergen
We flew on KLM, who remain to this day the best airline I've ever flown on! Comfy plane with good legroom & brilliant customer services, highly reccomend!
Our journey begins bright & early at Heathrow airport
Very tired, excited & a little nervous to begin our journey!
This was the first time I'd been on a plane since I was 17, I was feeling very nervous...
Time for take off!
After taking off & landing four times in one day it kind of got me over my fear of flying!
After a brief stop in Amsterdam (& a VERY thorough security check process involving a fancy body scanner & a good pat down by the security staff... we finally arrived in Bergen!
We booked a bus to take us from the airport to our hotel, but in hindsight there was no need, there is a train from the airport directly into the city, Bergen has brilliant public transport!
Our hotel was very nice, right next to the fish market & just a short walk from the beautiful & historic Bryggen! We wasted no time in throwing our bags down & hitting the streets!
Bryggen is a historic harbour district in Bergen, all the buildings are made from wood with beautiful incricate designs, such as this jolly little fisher-fellow
Immediatley we popped into a shop to buy some yummies, my absolute favourite pastry of all... the kanelboller (cinnamon bun)
& who can forget salmiakk! Delicious salty licorice, a tasty treat that isn't too easy to find back home
We carried on strolling through the city, Bergen is a very beautiful city & extremely clean!
It's quite surreal (for us anyway, being from a non-mountainous part of the UK) to be in the centre of a city, but surrounded by stunning mountains!
We wandered around a bit more & saw this pretty church, before deciding we needed to source some dinner
Eating out can be quite expensive in Norway, so we decided that for this holiday we would eat out at a restaurant on my actual birthday, so we hit up the shop again for some fodder & decided to go for a simple picnic of lomper (Norwegian potato flatbreads, very yum) houmous & crisps
& of course some beer! the name of this one made us chuckle
After our feast we settled in for the night, exhausted from our travels, getting ready for some more adventuring the next day (my birthday!) We enjoyed watching some local television (something we've come to enjoy during our holidays) watching TV in a language you don't speak is quite interesting, trying to make out little words here & there to see if you can understand what is going on! We watched a cute gardening programme where the hosts turned old scrap into interesting pieces to decorate the garden. We also watched a championship tournament of orienteering, which is a sport where contestants run around with a map & compass finding certain areas, it was interesting as it's not a popular sport back home!
The next morning we walked to the Floibanen station, where a cable-train would take us to our special destination of the day...
Floyen! One of the seven mountains that surround Bergen! We enjoyed the gorgeous views, then decided to have a walk through the woodlands
We kept joking that we were in the real life Skyrim (such nerds lol) We then walked to the Skomakerdiket lake & relaxed a short while, taking in the stunning scenery
After walking for a few hours, we decided to head back to the main area by the cable-train station & grab a coffee from the cafe, we saw this cute sign
Coffee in hand, we had a quick video call with Luke's parents & enjoyed the view some more before heading back down the mountain
We couldn't of course miss the gift shop! I bought this cute little mountain troll (I joked that she & I have the same hair lol)
We always love to visit museums when we visit destinations, we are both history buffs & Norwegian history is of course super interesting
I loved the ravens in Norway, they are different to the all black ones at home, we joked that it looked like they were wearing little grey waistcoats, very dapper!
After much walking around it was finally time for some grub! We hit up this cute little vegan cafe called Vegan Vacation, the lady who owned it was so nice! We spent a little time talking to her about her upcoming trip to the UK!
I decided to try the fiskesuppe as a starter (fish soup, sans the fish) it was really nice & I still occasionally make this soup myself at home
We both ordered tofu "fish" style fillets with potatoes and vegetables (I was vegan at the time, but I wanted to try the closest thing to authentic Norwegian food whilst we were away!)
We also ordered cheesecakes for pudding, but we ate them before I could take a picture lol, after dinner we had one last walk around the city before we'd have to be up early in the morning to start our journey back home, we saw a cute shop window with Moomins painted on (was anyone else freaked out by Moomins as a kid?)
We found another little lake called Lille Lungegaardsvannet to sit by & eat the pastries we bought from the shop (seriously, if you come to Bergen you must eat all the pastries!)
Another pretty church!
We got back to our hotel & finished off the beers, cheers!
Sigh, home time...
Bye bye Norway!
All in all, this weekend away was an amazing trip that I will never forget! A beautiful, clean city with lots to do (& eat!) stunning nature surrounding you & the Norwegian people are friendly & helpful without being in-your-face & pushy which to me is perfect!
I'd love to come back one day & do the things we didn't get a chance to do, such as visit the Fantoft stave church, climb more of the mountains (& now that I am not a vegan anymore, I would like to try the famous seafood!)
Jeg Elsker Norge!
