Bergen cruise port guide
Norway · from NorwayThings, the offline iPhone guide
Where ships dock
Skolten / Bontelabo (Jekteviken & Dokken for some ships)
Skolten and Bontelabo are a flat ten-minute walk from Bryggen. Ships at Jekteviken or Dokken get a free shuttle to the centre in season, or 25 minutes on foot.
Typically 7 AM – 5 PM · check the daily programme
All-aboard is in ship time. Check the daily programme and be back at the gangway 30 minutes early.
Top places near the pier
Walking times come from the app: straight-line distance plus 30% for streets, at an easy 4.5 km/h. Places further than an hour on foot show the distance instead.
CC BY-SA 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons Bergenhus Fortress
The fortress at the harbour mouth, between the cruise pier and Bryggen: Håkon's Hall (1261, the royal banqueting hall), the Rosenkrantz Tower with its dungeon and roof view, and lawns where the town picnics.
Amanda Slater from Coventry, West Midlan… · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons St. Mary's Church
Mariakirken, the oldest building in Bergen (1130s–1180s): a Romanesque stone church with twin towers, a gilded Baroque pulpit and a 15th-century altarpiece, once the German merchants' church.
Bergen Aquarium
Akvariet on the Nordnes peninsula: penguins, sea lions, seals, crocodiles and the North Sea tanks, with feeding shows through the day.
Bryggens Museum
Built over the excavated foundations of the medieval town: the oldest houses in Bergen under glass, runic sticks with 800-year-old love notes and complaints, and the story of how the Hanseatic merchants ran the place.
Bryggen
The Hanseatic wharf: a row of leaning wooden warehouses from the 1700s on medieval foundations, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the picture of Bergen.
trolvag · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons Nordnes Sjøbad
A heated outdoor seawater pool on the tip of Nordnes, with a diving board straight into the fjord and a sauna: Bergen's summer swimming spot, a ten-minute walk from the cruise pier.
Acediscovery · CC BY 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Bryggeloftet & Stuene
The traditional restaurant on Bryggen since 1910: fish soup, klippfisk, reindeer and whale on the menu, wooden booths and paintings of the harbour.
Rødne Fjord Cruise Bergen
The three-hour fjord cruise from the fish market to Mostraumen — a narrow sound with waterfalls close enough to fill a glass, seals and a cliff-hugging farm.
Alice Wiegand · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Fisketorget & Mathallen
The fish market on the harbour since the 1200s: outdoor stalls of salmon, king crab and shrimp in summer, and the glass Mathallen hall year-round with fishmongers, a few restaurants and the tourist information upstairs.
Bjørn Christian Tørrissen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons Fløibanen Funicular
The funicular from the middle of town to the top of Mount Fløyen, 320 m up, in six minutes: the view over Bergen, the fjord and the islands, a café, goats, a playground and the start of a dozen hikes.
Galleriet
The shopping centre on Torgallmenningen, the main square: 70 shops including Norwegian knitwear (Dale of Norway), outdoor gear and a supermarket in the basement.
Sergey Ashmarin · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons Kaffemisjonen
Bergen's coffee-roaster café on Øvre Korskirkeallmenningen: proper espresso, cinnamon buns (skillingsboller — the local speciality), and a window on the old town.
Pingvinen
Norwegian home cooking in a pub off the main square: meatballs, fish cakes, raspeballer dumplings on Thursdays, lamb stew in autumn, and local beer.
Wolfgang Pehlemann · CC BY-SA 3.0 de · Wikimedia Commons KODE Art Museums
Four museum buildings along the lake in the centre: Munch's Bergen collection and Norwegian romantics in KODE 3 (Rasmus Meyer), international art in KODE 2, design and silver in KODE 1, and Astrup's fjord paintings.
CC BY-SA 2.5 · Wikimedia Commons Leprosy Museum
St. Jørgen's Hospital, a leprosy hospital from the 1700s left exactly as it was when the last patients died in 1946: tiny wooden cells, the chapel, and the story of Armauer Hansen, who discovered the leprosy bacillus here.
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Ready-made port days in NorwayThings
Each is a timed plan in the app, starting and ending at the ship.
- Bergen: Bryggen, Fløyen & the Fish Market
The wharf, the funicular, a market lunch and the best art on the coast — all on foot from the pier - Bergen in Four Hours
The fortress, Bryggen, the fish market and the funicular up Fløyen — back by 12:15 - Up Stoltzekleiven, Down Fløyen
Some 900 stone steps up the mountain and a forest walk down — free, and back by 12:15 - Grieg's Troldhaugen & Fantoft Stave Church
By light rail to a stave church in the woods and the composer's villa on the lake - Bergen in the Rain
The city that rains most, done indoors: the medieval museum, Munch, home cooking and cinnamon buns
Getting around: what the app tells you
- Ship time, tender time, and the last boat back
- All-aboard is in ship's time, which is not always local time — check the daily programme. In Geiranger the last tender back runs 30–60 minutes before all-aboard and the queue is longest right then; in Flåm the train and the fjord boat both run late on two-ship days. Be at the gangway 30 minutes early. The ship waits for its own excursions, not for you.
- Book the operators direct, not the ship's desk
- The Flåm Railway, Nærøyfjord boat, Loen Skylift, Fløibanen, Lysefjord and Geiranger cruises all sell online at fixed prices; the ship's excursion desk sells the same seats with a mark-up and a bus you didn't need. Book direct weeks ahead for anything with limited seats, and check the port's arrival time against the departure you pick — with an hour's margin.
- Check the webcam before you pay for the view
- Dalsnibba, the Loen Skylift, Fløyen, Ulriken and Stegastein all have live webcams; the mountain can be in cloud while the pier is sunny. Look before you buy the bus or the lift, and if the top is grey, do the fjord boat or the museum first and go up later — weather in the fjords changes in an hour.
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