Bryggen
The Hanseatic wooden warehouses, leaning over the harbour for six centuries.
Duration
45 min – 1 hr 30 min
Best time
Early morning
Open
Every day
Entry price
Free
Bryggen is what remains of Bergen's Hanseatic trading post, founded in the fourteenth century: German merchants stored the dried cod from the Lofotens here, which made the city's fortune for four hundred years.
The fronts are rebuilt — the quarter has burned about a dozen times, most recently in 1955 — but always identically, on the same timber foundations. The buildings lean because the piles sink unevenly into the mud, and the narrow covered alleys between them are the part to see.
Getting there
On the north quay of the Vågen, in central Bergen. The whole centre is walkable from the fish market.
What to bring
- Walking shoes
Rules on site
The inner alleys are timber, narrow and slippery in rain — frequent in Bergen, which has over two hundred wet days a year. On cruise-ship days the quay is packed.