Bergen on a Rainy Day: Best Indoor Museums, Cozy Cafés and Pools

Locals in Bergen joke about a tourist asking a child on Bryggen, "Does it ever stop raining here?" to which the child replies, "I don't know, I'm only eight years old." Because warm, moist air carried across the Atlantic by the Gulf Stream hits Bergen's seven coastal mountains and rises rapidly, the city sees some precipitation on roughly 230 days a year. Yet rainfall here rarely means an all-day grey washout; it usually passes in dramatic fast-moving showers followed by sparkling light on wet cobblestones. When a heavier front rolls in and shrouds Mount Fløyen in cloud, follow this dry indoor plan.

1. Spend Two Hours with Munch and Astrup at the KODE Art Museums

Right beside the central Bybanen stop at Byparken, the KODE Art Museums let you move between gilded 1920s salons holding Edvard Munch's Frieze of Life paintings (in KODE 3) and temporary exhibitions without spending more than two minutes outdoors between buildings.

2. Medieval Archaeology and Hanseatic Halls at Bryggens Museum & Schøtstuene

After walking the covered overhanging timber passages of Bryggen (whose wooden plank walkways are sheltered by the projecting upper storage lofts), step inside modern Bryggens Museum to examine 12th-century ship prows, shoes and runic love letters, then tour the warm wooden assembly rooms next door at Schøtstuene and 12th-century St Mary's Church.

3. University Museum of Bergen, Leprosy Museum and Bergen Aquarium

• The University Museum Natural History Building (at Nygårdshøyden): reopened after a sweeping restoration, its Victorian cast-iron Whale Hall (Hvalsalen) suspends seventeen giant skeletons of blue, sperm and fin whales from the ceiling.
• The Leprosy Museum (St Jørgen's Hospital, May to September): five minutes from the train station on Kong Oscars gate, an intact 1702 wooden hospital courtyard where Bergen physician Gerhard Armauer Hansen discovered the leprosy bacillus in 1873.
• Bergen Aquarium (Akvariet i Bergen) and Nordnes Sjøbad: at the tip of Nordnes, watch tropical crocodiles and sea lions indoors, then slip into the 30°C heated outdoor seawater pool and sauna at Nordnes Sjøbad (swimming in steaming warm water while rain falls on your head is a local joy) or the indoor Olympic pools and slides at Ado Arena beside Bystasjonen.