Bryggen
Bergen's UNESCO World Heritage Site underlines the city's long cosmopolitan history
Bergen proudly wears the nickname ‘Gateway to the Fjords’ for its supreme location close to the fjords of western Norway. However, Bergen is much more than a gateway. The city boasts a proud history, a rich cultural life, and an intimate urban city centre, and is beautifully surrounded by seven mountains and several islands.
International trading centre of Norway
Bryggen is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that reveals Bergen’s historical connection to the Hanseatic League, an organization founded by north German towns and German merchant communities abroad to protect their mutual trading interests. The stretch of wooden houses was built in the Middle Ages, and has later been re-built several times after fires. After the last big fire in 1955, Bryggen was the subject of archaeological investigations, bringing proof of an early urban trading community. The remaining area has status as a protected area, has been made fireproof, and has a museum.
As the trading centre of Norway, Bergen exported goods from the western and northern coastal communities, and remained the biggest and most international city in Norway until the 19th century.
Watching over everyday life
Beautifully placed along Vågen (the City Bay) and right in the city centre of Bergen, Bryggen is monitoring the ships coming in, people gathering at the fish market (Fisketorget), and the everyday life of the locals on their way to work, shopping, and riding the Fløibanen funicular going up to Mount Fløyen.