Hiking in Bergen, Norway

Date: June 22, 2018
Location: Bergen, Norway

Bergen is surrounded by mountains. Brian and I had planned to take a bus to the Ulriken cable car, then take the cable car up and then hike to Fløyen via Vidden. Unfortunately the Ulriken cable car was not running because of the strong winds that day. We found that out before taking the bus, but after we had purchased snacks and prepared for the hike. It was cloudy out, but we expected that it would clear up in an hour or so.

So we decided to start our hike where we had originally planned to finish it. We walked up to the top of Mount Fløyen, instead of taking the funicular to the top.

The top of Fløyen overlooks the city of Bergen.

At the top we also got a map of the trails in the area and picked a loop to hike. I wanted to go on some of the footpaths (the black dashes) and not just the trails (the green lines). The trails were a few feet wide and were packed dirt or pavement. The footpaths were single-track trails over rocks and tree roots.

We first went to the top of Rundemanen. On the way up, there were many views of the city.

On the trails we saw many people with strollers.

From Rundemanen we took the Blåmansløypen trail by Lille Tindevatnet pond.

We then went to the Lørdagsknausen lookout. From there, we could see Ulriken and see that the cable car was operational again.

My favorite part of the hike was going to Fjellhytten, as there are many wood plank bridges to walk over.

We tried to take the footpath down to Starefossen. On the map it was smaller black dashes and the map defines it as a footpath, where the bold black dashes are defined as marked footpaths. The trail had a lot of trees down on it. It was very steep and hard to follow, so after a little bit we turned around to take the marked footpath that would go towards Fløyen.

We went by Skomakerdiket pond and then down the switchbacks we had initially gone up. The hike was around 10 miles, plus another couple of miles to go through town to the Airbnb we stayed in.

The Airbnb we stayed in was a small studio, but it worked well for cooking and sleeping. This time of year in Bergen the sunrise is at 4 am and sunset at 11 pm. Europe does love their soccer, and with the World Cup playoffs happening now, a large screen and beer garden was set up just outside of our Airbnb.

To us, Bergen felt like a cruise ship stop with many souvenir shops. It was nice having the hiking trails so close.