In the cool air of a summer morning in Bergen, the streets around the university were quiet after the revels of the night before. It was the equivalent of freshers’ week in the Norwegian city, and our hotel had offered all guests free earplugs at the reception desk by way of advance apology. But where they had been full of young people in costumes and name tags, at varying degrees of inebriation the night before, the streets now were calm and quiet.
From the moment we arrived on the overnight ferry from Hirtshals in Denmark, Bergen felt like a city for us. We approached along the fjord, passing beneath soaring bridges and housing estates clinging to the forested slopes, small islands with a single house and islets containing nothing more than a warning sign for the boats not to crash. Behind the city the hills rose up towards mountains. How easy they would be to reach would become clear the following morning.
From the university we descended through the sleepy city centre and past the old harbour, the wooden houses of the Hanseatic period providing the backdrop. A short walk further and we reached the lower station of the Fløibanen, a funicular railway that lifts you 320 metres above the city in about six minutes. Our fellow travellers were a mix of sightseers, families and others who were clearly on the way for an adventure.
Trail runners with their water backpacks and fold up poles, skipping the first steep slope of the run. Photographers letting the railway lug their equipment up to the most famous viewpoint in the city. Hikers, ready to set out on one of the many walks that leave from the upper station, including the long, horseshoe trail over the mountain to Ulriken. An eighteen-kilometre hike through mountain terrain, accessible from the city centre with a six-minute train ride.
Our ambitions were more modest, a 2-3 hour loop out from the upper station and back again, taking in the first stretch of the Ulriken hike before following a narrow trail through the mountain landscapes, passing by high lakes and down through the forest, until we got back to where we started. But first we had to take in the view; the view of the city and the fjord, as spectacular as on any advertising brochure, and no less magical for being shared with countless others who’d had the same idea.
In any case, with each step along the trail the number of people we shared it with became less and less, especially once we’d turned off the well-worn route to Ulriken. Following what looked like a goat or sheep track, we plotted a route between two lakes in the shadow of the hulking Blåmanen, a mountain that now separated us from the city.
Here, it was hard to imagine that Norway’s second largest city was just on the other side of the summit. That technically, we were still ‘in’ Bergen. With each step we took through the heather and gorse, discovering a tiny art gallery in an old stone shelter beside the path, crossing muddy patches on thoughtfully laid planks of wood, the harder it was to imagine that this was all within an hour or so walk from the museums, quayside cafes and city centre shops down at sea level.
Later, back down in town, where the only downside of life in Bergen appeared to be the price of pizza and a beer, we tried to work out how many options were available for the trail runner, the hiker or the Sunday stroller who caught the Fløibanen up the hill of a morning. It seemed like the options were endless. There were mountain huts and lookout points. Summits and ridges. Open mountain and forests where the path wound its way through moss-covered ground. You could camp pretty much anywhere because, well, this is Norway, and if your knees couldn’t face the final descent into town, the train would be waiting to take the strain.
It seemed hard, at that moment, to imagine another city in Europe with such ease of access to the outdoors. Up for the hills or out onto the water. On a bike or on foot. A kayak or a paddleboard. Just watch out for the ferries and cruise ships. Checking the travel budget to see whether it would stretch to a second beer, we idly switched from counting walks to looking up rental prices somewhere close to the city centre and whether our local removal company knew its way from Berlin-Wedding to the west coast of Norway. Forty-eight hours in the city, and we’d fallen somewhat in love.
60°23’42.3″N 5°20’39.3″E
Pictures: Katrin Schönig
Words: Paul Scraton
The Winding Trail 