0324 A day in Bergen

10^th Aug 2015

Funiculars, whale meat, and a Stave Church

Today we drove the 1 hour into Bergen to play tourist – It is Grete’s home town and she was keen to show us around.  We drove in, and as we went we stopped at a couple of shopping centres to do some shopping that both Janet and I and Reagan and Grete needed – For us it was things like spare camping-gaz cans, I had some UK car papers to mail back to the UK (I have to remove the car from the Euro zone within a certain time frame in order to comply with Customs regulations, and by coming to Norway it gave me the chance to do that), and I needed to buy a waterproof cover for my back pack – It looks like we are going to get some fairly wet weather as we head north, and a dry back pack will make it that much more bearable ! As a result, by the time we got to Bergen, we had completed all our shopping and could just concentrate on playing tourist !

 

On arrival we parked the car, and headed straight over to the Floibanen – A funicular railway that has been in place since 1918.  The mountain it ascends, Floyen, is one of 7 peaks around Bergen, and is named for a big weather vane on the top of the mountain that has been in place for centuries, showing wind strength and direction for the benefit of sailors entering and leaving the harbour below. 

After a bit of fun in the gift shop at the top, we came back down and went down to the wharf area, known locally as the Bryggen,

where there are fish markets and old warehouses where the fish trade has been conducted for hundreds of years, largely by Germans. Many fires have occurred over the years and today only 10 of the original wooden buildings remain – Now being a centre for artists and  popular restaurant area.  The stalls at the end of the harbour now concentrate more on cooked fish meals, and there is a fine array of crab, mussels, salmon, whale, reindeer, moose, etc available for sale – Albeit as a pretty high price, even for expensive Norway.  In fact we ended up having reindeer hot dogs because they were much more reasonably priced !!

We then wandered through the Bryggen area, and just enjoyed the warm sunshine for a change !  After exploring, we returned to the car and went for a drive around some of the more scenic old areas of Bergen – Many of the older areas and houses got pretty run down over the years, but they are now becoming popular again and being redecorated and so attracting more “trendy” tenants again.

We then visited the Fantoft Stavkirke – A Stave Church from the small village Fortun in Sogn.  Here some facts about this old church:-  

The church was built in Fortun in about 1200 and worked as a church for the little place at the foot of Fortun Sognefjellet until the end of the 1800s. Originally, there were approximately 1000 stave churches in Norway, but eventually they had to give way to larger and more modern church building. This happened also with the stave church in Fortun, which eventually had become too small.  A new church was built in Fortun, and the old church could not afford to be maintained anymore, and people started to remove parts of the building from the church that could be used on farms. Among other things, the baptismal font was used as troughs for livestock on a farm. Today this may sound strange, but we must remember that at that time there were hard times in Norway, and people struggled

to get enough food to survive. Curator Lorange in Bergen was aware that the stave church in Fortun was threatened by demolition. He gained financial support of the Consul Gade who owned Fantoft farm, to plan and implement the relocation of the church in Fantoft. The church was moved to Fantoft in 1883.

The strips
Stave churches got their name from the distinctive architectural style in which the rods ie columns that characterize the nave and chancel are the central element. A church should be tall ie rise markedly towards the sky. This could be achieved by raising tall, straight pines in a rectangular system, and binding them together with horizontal bottom and sticks in the ground floor and staff hires at different levels in height.

 

Dragon Heads / Norse mythology
The ancient churches have elements that show the conflict that existed between Norse mythology and the Christianization of the country. In 1100 it was felt it was best to bring something from the old superstitions into the church. People were accustomed to the belief

that dragons could keep evil spirits away. The Viking ships had dragon heads in the bow and stern. The dragon heads on the church would continue to assist with this for some time. Similarly, we see that the carvings on the end caps on the benches illustrate events that are the old superstitions too. Carvings are motivated from the old heltesagnene from 800's, in this case from Sigurd Fafnir path. The stories are more gods in the swing and people disguise themselves from humans to animals and vice versa. This is part of the reason for the exotic influenced churches has been given.

Lepers-door
The door in the wall to the left of the altar is called leprosy-door. The lepers did not come into the church, but had to receive the blessing through the door.

Rebuilding
Fantoft church was damaged by fire in 1992, and it took 6 years to build it up again. The timber of the Fantoft church comes from ca. 350-400 year old pine trees that grow in ca. 400 m altitude in Kaupanger in Sogn, not quite as far up the fjord to Fortun. We still find some locations in Norway with the old production forest that normally run as part of forestry operations. It is so slow growing because of the climatic conditions at 400 m above sea level.

The crucifix on the altar survived the fire and was recovered in the ash in such condition that it could be restored.

It also happened that Reagan and Grete were married in this church, so it had particular significance for them. 

After visiting the Stave Kirke, we then drove back to Austrheim where we once again enjoyed an evening sitting around the dining table solving some of the problems of the world till quite late !!

Pics here :-  https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/0324ADayInBergen?authkey=Gv1sRgCNyMw5Pqz-CFUA