Nordnes, Skuteviken and Sandviken: Bergen's Quiet Wooden Streets

While Bryggen preserves medieval Hanseatic merchant warehouses, the residential hillsides rising on either side of Vågen harbour contain some of the largest, most intact neighbourhoods of 18th- and 19th-century wooden houses in Europe. Instead of wide streets built for cars, these quarters are laced with narrow, stepped pedestrian alleys called smau, where white-painted clapboard cottages, red-tiled roofs, cobblestone gutters and climbing roses sit in complete silence five minutes from the city centre.

Route 1: The Nordnes Peninsula and Nordnes Sjøbad (West of the Harbour)

Start at Torgallmenningen and climb up toward the 16th-century spire of Nykirken on the Nordnes peninsula. Turn off the main road into a labyrinth of car-free lanes:

• Knøsesmauet, Ytre Markevei and Strangehagen: widely considered the prettiest wooden streets in Bergen, where tiny two-storey cottages built after the 1756 fire stand door-to-door behind potted hydrangeas and cobblestones.
• Klosteret: a sunny hilltop square on the site of the medieval Munkeliv Abbey, surrounded by independent cafés and neighborhood bistros.
• Nordnes Park, Bergen Aquarium and Nordnes Sjøbad: at the green tip of the peninsula overlooking the fjord sits leafy Nordnes Park (complete with a carved Native American totem pole gifted by Bergen's sister city Seattle), the sea lions and penguins of the Bergen Aquarium, and Nordnes Sjøbad, an outdoor 25-metre heated saltwater swimming pool (kept at a comfortable 28°C to 30°C), wood-fired sauna and ladder descending directly into the cold fjord water for alternating hot-and-cold dips.

Route 2: Skuteviken, Sandviken and Gamle Bergen (North of Bryggen)

Starting from behind St Mary's Church (Mariakirken), climb into the hillside lanes of Stølen, Skuteviken and Sandviken. Walk along Steinkjellerbakken, Bregrosti and Hollendergaten, then follow the historic balcony footpath of Fjellveien north above the red timber herring-salting warehouses along the water in Sandviken. Two kilometres further north (or 8 minutes on Bus 3, 4 or 19 from Bryggen) lies Gamle Bergen Museum (Old Bergen Open-Air Museum) in Sandviken, a reconstructed town of 55 wooden 18th- and 19th-century bakeries, merchant houses and dentist offices overlooking the water.