We had been repeatedly warned against Holdt’s Hotel, so we went to the Hotel Norge, a new and large establishment, where, at about four times the price, we found fewer real comforts than in the village and station inns; in fact, the only poor bread we ate in Norway was served us here.
Several lines of steamers connect Bergen with England, Scotland, Germany, and other European countries, and the chief steamboat lines of Norway centre here, so every traveller is almost certain to arrive at Bergen during some part of his journey. We were thankful our first impressions of the people and country were not received here, and that we could soon forget the closing experiences of our journey, and remember only the delightful ones we had previously enjoyed.
Certainly the chief hotels, as well as the porters at the steamboat landings, and the class with whom travellers come in contact, bear a most unenviable reputation, though the residents may be the most delightful people in the whole country.
As we had found Norway a land of almost perpetual daylight, we had had no use for lamps nor candles, but on our first night at Bergen the heavens were covered with such thick clouds that it grew dark early, and we prepared to retire by the flickering light of a candle. To show how quickly one becomes wonted to what at first seems unnatural, it is only necessary to state that it was a strange sensation, after five weeks of almost constant daylight, to once more come back to artificial light. Under the circumstances, the innkeepers in Norway have not the slightest ground upon which to take in the traveller with the bougie gouge, which is so dear to all European hotelkeepers’ hearts, and thus far, as we had seen no candles, we had been charged for none. But we found, on our bill at the Hotel Norge, candles charged at the regular Parisian price of thirty cents apiece, and as you can purchase a dozen for that sum at a shop in Paris, very likely you would be furnished with a dozen and a half in Bergen, a small city of thirty-three thousand inhabitants, where everything is naturally much cheaper; so the landlord’s profit on candles was equal to that of a heartless monopolist’s.
The average yearly rainfall in Bergen is seventy-two inches, and it easily heads the list of rainy towns. Every babe who is born in this “weeping city” is provided with a waterproof and umbrella immediately upon its arrival, which are renewed at frequent intervals during its municipal existence. The sun shines occasionally, but the rainy days far outnumber the pleasant ones. The two days we spent there it rained almost continuously, the water coming down in torrents, flooding the streets and making it very disagreeable getting about, which partly accounts for our unpleasant recollections of the place and our frequent fervent exclamations, “From Bergen, henceforth and evermore, good Lord, deliver us!”
We visited the weekly fish market, held upon Friday morning, and found it an interesting scene. At stands in the large market place, or from baskets on the pavement, women in costumes, and wearing a striking white head-dress, were selling an endless variety of fish, and on a few stands there was a limited display of vegetables and flowers.
An immense collection of boats, of all kinds, were closely packed in together along the sides of the quays, containing an apparently inexhaustible supply of fish of all sizes and varieties, from large cod and salmon down to silvery little fish, a few inches long, sold by measure. The vendors stood knee deep in fish, passing them up to the purchasers on the quays, and during the day the whole supply disappeared. Every housekeeper in Bergen must have been present on the scene, each filling a large basket with a varied assortment of fish, purchased from the women in the market place, or from the boats at the quay, until they appeared to have a sufficient supply for a week’s consumption. Later in the morning small steamboats loaded with peasant girls and women steamed down the harbor to neighboring settlements, and before night all the fish-laden boats had disappeared.
We spent a large part of our time in the shops along the Strandgaden, the principal business street of the city, which contain many articles the traveller will wish to carry with him as souvenirs of his visit to Norway; among which are small models of carrioles and stolkjærres, and peculiar oval wooden boxes, gayly painted, or decorated with figures burned into the wood with hot irons; there are also dagger-shaped knives, such as are carried by the peasants, wood-carvings, figures in costume, ancient silver jewelry, pretty silver filagree, quaint tankards, and rich furs.
During our journey through Norway the advertisement of Beyer’s photographs had greeted us everywhere—from rocks, fences, and barns, much like the patent medicine announcements in America; the best memento of one’s journey is a collection selected from the finely finished photographs in Beyer’s large store in Bergen.
The museum is a handsome building standing upon the brow of a hill, and contains a valuable collection. There we saw the interesting carved wooden portals of an old church, dating from the sixteenth century, several Runic monuments, domestic and ecclesiastical furniture, silver tankards and drinking horns, a variety of old style weapons, and an array of figures in Norwegian and Laplander costumes.