The best museums Bergen

The small, enchanted villa of the great Norwegian composer and pianist of classical music (Romantic period) is situated high up on a point of greenery overlooking Lake Nordås. Built in 1885 for Bergen-born Edvard Grieg, the house has been preserved in its original state since his death. This museum, which houses all Grieg's period furniture and personal objects, is a house that lives on thanks to the intimate concerts that are still held on the master's old piano. Grieg lived here for over twenty years at the end of his life. Today, there are concerts every day during the International Music Festival, as well as summer concerts on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets are on sale at the tourist office. The new, larger concert hall is fortunately hidden under the bridge just before the house. A little further down the road, Grieg's very basic little working hut is practically at the water's edge. His coat, hat and violin still hang on the wall. From the only window, you can see the lake through the branches of the large weeping birches. Another historic building nearby, the Fantoft Stavkirke, a wooden church dating back to 1150, sadly went up in smoke in June 1992, in the wave of arson and Satanism that swept the country. It has since been rebuilt to its original appearance.

This open-air museum features 50 wooden houses from an old district of Bergen dating back to the ^17th century. In the old bakery, you can watch the making of Skillingsboller, Bergen's buns. There's also the old barber's shop, the photographer's, the tooth puller's... The rich bourgeois interior could have been the perfect setting for Ibsen's play Doll' s House. An attractive restaurant serves dishes that can be enjoyed on the terrace.

During the renovation of the city's iconic museum, the tour is in Schøtstuene and provides an opportunity to learn more about the wealthy Hanse traders who had a monopoly on trade in the north (dried cod, grain, salt). Bergen and Novogorod were among their most important trading posts. These great merchants lived separated from the rest of the population of Bergen in high houses lined up a few meters from the harbour. A nice visit.

KODE is the union of four art museums, all on the same campus, which present one of the best overviews of Nordic art in all of Scandinavia.

KODE 1 is the former Design Museum (located at Nordahl Bruns gate 9). The building houses the most important collection of Buddhist marble sculptures in Northern Europe. The permanent exhibition, "Man and Objects", tells the story of design and applied arts through 5 centuries.

KODE 2 hosts the annual temporary exhibitions, as well as the permanent collections of contemporary art.

KODE 3 houses the Rasmus Meyer collection, including several works by Edvard Munch, twenty large oil paintings, including Melancholy, Evening on Karl Johan, Jealousy and The Three Ages of Women, as well as works by the great Norwegian masters of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Romantic period is well represented by J.-C. Dahl with The Birch in the Storm and The Monastery of Lyse. We see Tidemand and Gude, the former with The Bad News and the latter with his High Mountain Landscape. Christian Krogh's stark realism shines through in The Struggle for Survival, while Kitty Kielland's magical light is captured in her Jaeren Landscape.

KODE 4 is devoted to 20th-century art, including Harald Solberg's numerous sketches of the Rondane Mountains. Also worth seeing are the Klee, Picasso, Miro, and the KunstLab, an art laboratory for children.

This open-air folk museum offers an insight into the traditions and daily life of Norwegians from 1000 years ago to the present day. During the summer, the traditional houses are open to visitors but there are no fixed times, so it is best to check before you visit. You can see houses, boats, textiles, fishing nets and tools. Please note that it is located 13 km from Bergen city centre, so you have to go by car or bus.

The city museum consists of two museums: the Museum of History and the Museum of Natural History. The History Museum tells the story of Norwegian art and cultural heritage and has important archaeological and anthropological collections. The Natural History Museum has many exhibitions and important zoological, botanical and geological collections. A very nice botanical garden and arboretum, if you are there in spring and summer of course.