This week’s travel dream: Norway’s impeccable second city

I’m starting to believe that there’s no bad side to Norway’s second-largest city, said David Armstrong in the San Francisco Chronicle. “I have arrived in Bergen by air (the fastest way), by sea (the prettiest way), and by train (the most interesting way),” and I have never found the 943-year-old port less than charming. Set on a fjord on the North Sea coast and separated from the rest of southern Norway by mountains, this city of 270,000 with a rich cultural life and vibrant harbor is big enough to intrigue yet “small enough to get your arms around.”

From the harbor, it’s just a 10-minute walk to the city’s historic fish market, which usually teems with life. Visitors browse among the crafts and suede-collared wool sweaters, while office workers on break sit at long tables eating sandwiches and seafood. One Saturday, while wandering among tables laden with smoked whale meat and reindeer sausages, I watched a fisherman and his young daughter pull up to the market docks in a dinghy to unload his morning catch. The most historic part of town, the Bryggen section, lies just across a narrow harbor. Built in the 14th century by a merchant group, this small warehouse district is “composed mainly of sagging wooden houses arrayed along narrow, plank-floor lanes,” but you can eat well there too. Find a 1708 clapboard house bearing the sign Bryggen Tracteursted and you should stop in for an aquavit with herring or salmon.

Seeking some “food for the soul,” we headed to Troldhaugen, the Victorian-era summer home of Edvard Grieg, Norway’s most famous composer and a friend of Henrik Ibsen’s. A 200-seat chamber music hall stands nearby, evidence of Bergen’s continuing role as a cultural center. In a month or two, the concert schedule will still be busy as snow blankets high peaks outside town, “transforming the mountains into Candyland until well into May.” That’s my favorite time to visit, arriving on a train that cuts across meadows and climbs through white peaks before descending on Bergen. This place has “charm to burn.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

At Bergen’s Clarion Hotel (clarionhotel.com), doubles start at $248.