The Bergen Card covers public transport, museum entry, and a handful of restaurant discounts across Bergen and the surrounding region. Whether it saves you money depends on what month you're visiting and how many museums you plan to see. The full list of inclusions is on the Bergen Card website, but the list alone won't tell you whether it's a good deal for your trip.
Somewhere around the four-hour mark, the pine forests thin out and vanish. The last stunted birch gives way to nothing. And then the train breaks above the tree line onto the Hardangervidda plateau, and the world goes white and silent and enormous.
Bergen is small. You can walk from one end of the centre to the other in twenty minutes. But still it´s easy to waste time by crossing the same ground several times. This plan keeps you moving in roughly one direction each day. Day 1 covers Fløyen, Bryggen, and the museums on the waterfront. Day 2 takes you up Ulriken, through the local neighbourhoods most tourists skip, and out to the edges of the fjord landscape.
Bergen wraps itself around a single harbour. This makes choosing where to stay simple, you will stay in or close to the city center, but where? Every neighbourhood on this list is within walking distance of Bryggen, the fish market, and the Fløibanen funicular. The difference is atmosphere, not access.
Bergen has three Michelin-starred restaurants, a legendary hot dog stand that's been grilling since 1946, and a 96-year-old fish cake recipe that was once shipped weekly to Norwegian embassy staff in Paris. You can still waste serious money eating badly here if you wander into the wrong place on Bryggen, though. What follows will stop that from happening. Here´s a selection of 9 of the best restaurants in Bergen at all price points.