September 2024
You have to love a town that takes this much care with its bandstand in the public park. The music pavilion is cast iron and was given to Bergen by F.G. Gade in 1899.
St. Jørgen´s Hospital
St Jorgen’s Hospital
St. Jørgen´s Hospital has existed in Bergen since the 15th century, but nothing remains from the medieval hospital due to several city fires. Between 1850 and 1900, Bergen had three hospitals for leprosy patients and the largest concentration of patients in Europe. St. Jørgens Hospital had patients until 1946.
In 1873, Bergen doctor Gerhard Armauer Hansen identified the leprosy bacillus. Because of his discovery, Hansen is one of the most famous Norwegians in the world, and in many parts of the world, leprosy is still commonly known as Hansen’s disease.
Witches Stone
The Witches Stone
At the top are the words hekse steinen or witches stone. The stone was erected as a monument to the victims of witch trials in Norway. The inscription at the bottom of the stone translates to 350 bonfire victims to miscarriage of justice 1550–1700. These numbers are representative of the number of witches burned across Norway. As many as 1,000 others were imprisoned, fined, or exiled.
What is a visit to Norway without seeing a troll?
You still see phone booths in Bergen.
The phone box design was the result of a design competition by Oslo Telefonanlegg in 1932. The winning design was by the architect Georg Fredrik Fasting from Bergen.
The jury wrote the following about the winner: “No. 80 “Riks.” The draft shows a completely striking, simple solution to the task, which in both a technical and aesthetic way is well worked out. It solves all the problems of the programme in a satisfactory manner. The author has hit the mark both in the layout and the build. The draft has such a shape that the booth can be placed almost anywhere. The user guide can be put over the telephone and the suggested method of hanging can also be approved. The door must open outwards.”
Early morning street sweeping in the rain on Østre Murallmenningen, a quirky twisting zigzag street in the Strandsiden neighborhood.
The photo gives no clue as to how steep that little narrow street in the Nordnes neighborhood actually is.
Another steep little street in the Nordnes Neighborhood.
Fredriksberg Fortress in Nordnes. The grounds were used as a place of execution until the Swedish counterfeiter Jacob Wallin was executed in 1876.
A divine dinner was had at Pinocchio’s—a wine bar with a two-star Michelin chef from Chicago and his Norwegian wife.
The restaurant is in a 1600s jail and is just a divine atmosphere of stone and ancient wood.
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Staying at the Bergen Bors Hotel. It is a late classical building initially designed by Franz Wilhelm Shiertz in 1862 and redesigned by Lars Solberg between 1890 and 1893. It was renovated into a hotel in 1970.
Inside the main room are frescoes by Axel Revold done in 1923.
