Bergen, Norway

Day 1

• Bryggen (the Hanseatic wharf)

  The row of wooden houses on the wharf is a UNESCO site and walking past the front costs nothing. The point is not the facade, though: behind it open the narrow, sloping wooden lanes and courtyards where the workshops and galleries are, and almost everyone stops at the front without going in. The timber is the real thing and the floors run crooked: these are passages to take slowly, not to cut through.

• Bergenhus Fortress and the Rosenkrantz Tower

  It is one of Norway's oldest stone fortresses, at the mouth of the harbour, a few steps from the Bryggen. Håkon's Hall is 13th-century and the Rosenkrantz Tower stands beside it: the two are visited together. The fortress park is open and free, and in summer it hosts concerts: when there is an event the visits stop, so check the programme before walking over.

• KODE museums and the Hanseatic Museum

  KODE holds one of the largest art collections in Scandinavia, Munch included, across four separate buildings around the little lake. The ticket costs 200 kroner, is valid for one day and covers all four, but not the composers' homes: Troldhaugen, Lysøen and Siljustøl are paid separately, and that is the mistake almost everyone makes. From mid-September to mid-May KODE opens only Wednesday to Sunday, 11:00-18:00 on weekdays and 11:00-16:00 at weekends, so in winter Monday and Tuesday are dead days. The Hanseatic Museum is a case apart: Finnegården, the historic Bryggen building, has been closed for a restoration begun in 2018, and the original wooden rooms are precisely the ones you cannot see; the display has moved to the Schøtstuene, at Øvregaten 50.

Day 2

• Fløibanen funicular and Mount Fløyen

  It is a 6 minute climb and cars leave every 10 minutes, with no timed booking. The return ticket costs 145 kroner from January to March and from October to December, roughly 12 € at current rates, but from April to September it rises to 200 bought in the app, on the website or at the machine, and 220 at the ticket window: 20 kroner more purely for having queued at the counter. In low season over-67s pay 100 kroner, a discount that does not exist from April to September; children under 4 never pay. The view at the top is free, and the footpath up takes about 45 minutes.

• Fisketorget (fish market)

  The fish market on the harbour is the most photographed thing in the city and also the priciest: king crab, prawns and salmon are sold by weight and the bill climbs fast, so ask the price per kilo before saying yes. The indoor part is open all year, the outdoor stalls only in the good season. To eat fish for half as much, the small restaurants of Sandviken are 10 minutes' walk further north.

• Fjord cruise (Nærøyfjord, Mostraumen)

  Fjord trips leave from the harbour, and the choice is between two different things: the Nærøyfjord, a UNESCO site reached via Gudvangen, which is a whole day of train or bus plus boat, and the Mostraumen, a shorter cruise of a few hours out and back from Bergen. The second fits into half a day; the first does not, and anyone who books it for their last day risks losing it to the weather.

Day 1

• Ulriken cable car and Mount Ulriken✦ hidden gem

  It is the highest of Bergen's seven mountains and the cable car climbs to 643 metres, higher than Fløyen, with a view that takes in the fjords and not just the city. A return ticket costs 435 kroner for an adult and 180 for a child aged 4 to 16, and cabins run continuously: every 10-15 minutes in low season, every 5 in high. The shuttle bus leaves from Torgallmenningen in the centre, 75 kroner one way and 150 return. The Vidden also starts here, the high traverse across to Fløyen: several hours on exposed ground with no shelter, so check the forecast first and do not set off in the afternoon. Anyone who only wants the view goes up, looks, and comes back down in the same cabin.

• Troldhaugen, Edvard Grieg's house✦ hidden gem

  Edvard Grieg's villa is closed for renovation, and it is worth knowing in advance: what stays open is the grounds with the grave and the composing hut above the fjord, the museum and the café. From 2 May to 13 September it opens Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00-16:00, with daily concerts in the Troldsalen hall from 9 June. From 14 September to 1 May the grounds are always accessible, but museum and café open only on days with an event or a concert: turning up on a Tuesday in November means finding everything shut.

• Fantoft Stave Church✦ hidden gem

  It is a stave church brought here from Fortun in the 19th century, burnt down by arson in 1992 and rebuilt using medieval techniques: tar-blackened timber, dragons on the ridges, near-total darkness inside. It is open from 2 May to 15 September, 10:30-18:00, with the ticket desk closing a quarter of an hour before the gate; outside that window you can only see it from outside. It is about half an hour by Bybanen from the centre and a single fare costs 51 kroner for an adult and 26 for ages 6 to 17: the distance alone is why few people get there.

Day 2

• Gamle Bergen (Old Bergen Museum)✦ hidden gem

  It is an open-air museum in a bay north of the centre, with some fifty wooden houses of the 18th and 19th centuries dismantled elsewhere and rebuilt here, and costumed actors in the workshops. It opens only in summer, while the surrounding park stays accessible all year: in winter you arrive to find a handsome garden and locked houses. It is 10 minutes by bus from the centre, a single fare costing 51 kroner, and the visitors are mostly local families.

• Sandviken and the sea warehouses✦ hidden gem

  It is the district of white wooden houses immediately north of the Bryggen, with the old fish warehouses still standing over the water: the Bergen that is lived in, with no souvenir shops. You walk through it on the way to Gamle Bergen, so it is not a detour but the route. It is also where you eat fish without market prices, and the part of town the groups do not touch because there is nothing to buy a ticket for.

Day 1

• Fisketorget (fish market)

  The fish market on the harbour is the most photographed thing in the city and also the priciest: king crab, prawns and salmon are sold by weight and the bill climbs fast, so ask the price per kilo before saying yes. The indoor part is open all year, the outdoor stalls only in the good season. To eat fish for half as much, the small restaurants of Sandviken are 10 minutes' walk further north.

• Skillingsboller

  It is Bergen's cinnamon bun, soft and buttery, and it is bought in any bakery in the city. The ritual is an afternoon one and it goes with coffee, which Norwegians drink in quantity and often with the refill in the price. It costs a fraction of anything eaten sitting down in a restaurant, and it is the simplest way to have a cheap lunch in one of the most expensive cities in Europe.

Day 2

• Bergensk fiskesuppe (Bergen fish soup)

  It is the creamy soup of fish, prawns and vegetables that here is a dish in its own right rather than a starter: one bowl is a meal. The quick version is had at the fish market, the ones built in the new Nordic restaurants cost many times as much, and the difference is in the stock, not the ingredients. It is also the right thing to order in the weather Bergen almost always has, which is rain.

• Raspeballer✦ hidden gem

  They are large dumplings of grated potato, often with klippfisk, salted dried cod, inside or alongside, served with bacon, butter and swede. It is the poor man's dish of western Norway and many places cook it only on Thursdays, by tradition, so on other days you ask in vain. It is heavy and generous, meant for people working outside in the cold.