Bergen: My Gateway to the Fjords

We sailed into the harbor at dawn with Bryggen's crooked wooden façades glowing like gingerbread against the mist. The funicular up Mount Fløyen was waiting – ten minutes later we stood above the cloud layer watching the city sparkle below while goats grazed on the roof of the station restaurant. Back down we wandered the UNESCO-listed Bryggen alleys – timber beams creaking, the smell of tar and salt, tiny galleries tucked between 300-year-old warehouses.

We had lunch at the fish market – the freshest salmon sashimi of my life eaten standing up, washed down with Aquavit that tasted like Christmas. In the afternoon we went back to the Fløibanen because we couldn't resist, this time hiking the ridge trail through pine forest that smelled like gin. Bergen rains a lot (it did, three times), but every shower left rainbows over the fjord and made the colors pop even more. The pros: compact, ridiculously pretty, and genuinely Norwegian. The cons: that rain is real, but Norwegians just smile and keep walking.