Bergen

Cradled inside a natural amphitheatre of seven mountains (De syv fjell) on Norway's fractured North Sea coast, Bergen served as the royal capital of medieval Norway in the 13th century and as one of the four great overseas trading ports of the Hanseatic League for four hundred years. Along the eastern quay of Vågen harbour stands Bryggen, where 62 narrow timber merchant buildings painted in ochre, dark red and mustard yellow lean shoulder to shoulder above deep wooden passages.

Few cities connect urban life so effortlessly with high mountain ridges and deep fjords: within ten minutes of the harbour you can ride the Fløibanen funicular up Mount Fløyen or the Ulriken643 cable car to bare alpine granite, wander the quiet white clapboard lanes of Nordnes and Sandviken, or step aboard a morning catamaran into Mostraumen, Sognefjord and Hardangerfjord. Start with our before-you-go briefing and top things to do in Bergen.

Bergen Airport, Flesland (BGO), sits 18 kilometres south of the centre and connects directly to Byparken at the heart of downtown via Bybanen Light Rail Line 1 (45 minutes) or the faster Flybussen coach (25 minutes). Bergen Railway Station sits five minutes' walk east of Byparken for trains to Voss, Myrdal (Flåm) and Oslo, while Strandkaiterminalen across the harbour launches express boats into the fjords. See getting to Bergen and Skyss tickets and the Bergen Card.

Almost every visitor stays within a fifteen-minute walk of the Vågen harbour bowl: along Bryggen and cobbled Vågsbunnen for medieval character, around Torgallmenningen and Byparken for step-free access to the airport light rail and train station, or out on the quiet wooden peninsula of Nordnes. We compare all neighbourhoods in where to stay in Bergen.

Duck behind the waterfront facades into the creaking timber passages of Bryggen and the Schøtstuene assembly halls, ride the Fløibanen funicular at sunset, admire Edvard Munch's paintings at the KODE Art Museums and Edvard Grieg's lakeside home Troldhaugen, visit the Fantoft Stave Church, and take a half-day boat trip through the Mostraumen narrows. Full list in things to do in Bergen.

Centuries of stockfish trade and coastal fishing shape every menu in Bergen: steaming bowls of creamy Bergensk fiskesuppe (sweet-and-sour white fish soup with root vegetables and shrimp), spring cod tongue, traditional sugar-and-salt-cured persetorsk, reindeer hotdogs topped with lingonberries and crispy onions at Trekroneren, and giant cinnamon swirls known exclusively in Bergen as skillingsboller. Read more in our Bergen seafood and bakery guide.

Founded in 1070 by King Olav Kyrre as Bjørgvin ("the green meadow among the mountains"), Bergen remained the largest town in Norway until the 1830s and gave birth to composer Edvard Grieg, playwright Ludvig Holberg and painter J.C. Dahl.