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Date - Tue 01/03/2011
Title - Norway (
Bergen)
: Fløyen to Rundemanen
Hills - Fløyen (425m) & Rundemanen (568m)
Route - Fløibanen funicular up to Fløyen, then NE up trails toward Rundemanen. Retrace route to return.
Weather - Cloudy / a few short bursts of snow fall
People - Me / Michelle
Time - 3h
Distance - 6.5km
Ascent - 200m
Max Altitude - 525m
Route shown on google map: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?ptab=2&ie=UTF8&hl=en&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=204010321367272200323.00049a9cc26a92ab3a8a7Earlier this year we spent a few days in the city of Bergen, Norway. Surrounded by at least 7 mountains (read on…) it is also known as 'the city among the seven mountains'. It was the playwright Ludvig Holberg who felt so inspired by the seven hills of Rome, that he decided that his home town must be blessed with a
corresponding seven mountains - and locals still argue which seven they are.
This place is steeped in history traced back to 1020 AD, and is mainly related to its importance as a fishing/trading port. Bergen's old quayside,
Bryggen is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites. We spent some time wandering around Bryggen. The old buildings are full of character and separated by tight and twisty alley ways and lanes.
From the city we took the funicular up to Mount Fløyen. From there we walked up around the trails, taking a route toward Mount Rundemanen. This wasn’t intended to be a long or serious walk to any summits or anything. We were just wandering the waymarked trails. Eventually we were walking in cloud and through the odd snow shower. It was great fun but no views to be had. After walking off the edge of the tourist trail map we had we were at a mysterious looking impenetrable concrete building- looked like a bomb shelter or something. With the weather closing in we decided to turn around and head back down the mountain to the Floyen funicular station which then took us the easy way back into Bergen. I had my GPS running and back at home looked to see where we’d actually been (see google map link above). It turns out we were less than 1km from the summit of Rundemanen, one of the ‘seven’ mountains, but on the day we had it would have been pointless continuing only to visit the big transmitter on top of it and see nothing around us. Essentially the mountains surrounding Bergen form a huge plateau approx 500m high. There’s some good pics of the views we missed at the bottom of
this webpage. From the city streets to the hill trails, it was evident that the Norwegians are big outdoors people- all kitted out in high quality gear with obesity nowhere to be seen. Even on a poor winter weekday like this there were still lots of families and a school party up on Floyen and around the trails. As we sheltered next to one of the mountain huts in a blizzard there were 3 well kitted out women each pushing all terrain prams taking it in their stride. There was another group of 3 guys wandering around who looked to be in their 80’s!- still going strong. Later on during our holiday we took a train as part of a trip to visit the Fjords- again full of families and people heading out to the hills for all kinds of activities. I don’t think many people here sit indoors during their spare time. Anyway, enough wittering on. We really enjoyed wandering around here.......
Bergen from Floyen
Wandering...
Mini crevaces at the side of the trail showed that it was covered in ice about 1-2ft thick
Buried bench
Mums out with the kids
Danger!
Everything was frozen up here. Icicles all along the side of the track
And nice trees
Crossing a small gorge
Not sure what this place is (or was). Only had 1 door shown in the photo that wouldn't budge. It is close to
Lake Store Tindevatnet.
??????????
From here we retraced our steps back to the start, cutting through the forest a bit to get a closer look at some of the massive trees
Back at Floyen funicular station the cloud was down so much we were well downhill before we were under it.
This pic from later at night taken in Bergen looks up toward Floyen- you can see the lights of the funicular going up to the station at the top
===================================================
The next day we did the popular "Norway in a Nutshell" tour. We'd been saving this for the best weather day- and we picked it spot on! The trip highlights are a boat trip through two fjords (
Nærøyfjord & Aurlandsfjord) followed by a journey on
The Flåm Railway (one of the steepest in the world: 20km, 865m ascent, 20 tunnels) including a stop at
Kjosfossen Waterfall (93m freefall).
Fjords:
Flam Railway
Kjosfossen Waterfall - well frozen today!
It normally looks like this
After Norway our next stop was
Glencoe