Bergen: The Hanseatic House

Bergen is Norway's second largest city, situated on the west coast. For a time in the Middle Ages it was our capital, until people came to their senses and moved it to the much drier Oslo. One important feature of Bergen was its time as one of four trade hubs for the Hanseatic League (the three others were in Brugge, Belgium; Novgorod, Russia and London). The German traders of the League had their own laws and lived somewhat separate from the rest of the city. Their living quarters on the quay of Bergen burned several times, but some structures are as old as the last main fire in 1702. The buildings are preserved and the quay is considered a world heritage site by UNESCO, even though most of them are housing shops that carry on a brisk trade to this very day.

These pictures are from one such house, today a museum, called The Hanseatic Museum. I apologize for the blurriness of some of the pics, but flash photography was verboten (except for a couple of pics from the sleeping quarters, when no one was around and I just couldn't be arsed to turn the flash off. I'm a menace to society, yo!).

A reconstructed office.


Internal, decorated wall.


Nicely painted doors.


Seals of various trading ports.


The main item of export was the stockfish. Caught by fishermen in the north, they were brought to Bergen where they were sorted according to quality.


Sleeping quarters.


Beautiful colors on the inside wall, reconstructed.


A painting on the inside of a sleeping space. Possibly an early example of German porn.