SEPTEMBER 2025

If you ask me, Bergen is the prettiest city in Norway. I was so impressed with how beautiful it was. You will have a great time if you dare to venture outside of the touristy city center, in this blog I will share the hidden gem of Bergen. As we visited with a toddler, we had to keep it kid-friendly. Luckily, that isn’t hard in Norway. Bergen has several mountains in the area that you can explore, we chose Mount Fløi to end our day in Bergen. Read all about our experience in this blogpost!

Lone Camping

We visited Bergen as a part of our big Norway campervan trip. Bergen itself doesn’t have campsites, but the surrounding villages do. We decided on staying at Lone Camping, which is one of the better rated campsites near Bergen. The campsite is easily connected to Bergen city center by a combination of a bus and a train. If you are lucky the connection only takes 30 minutes and you can buy a combo transport ticket which only costs a few euros. Lone Camping is quite big, it features a lake with kajaks, a playground and a little animal farm. You cannot book in advance and you need some luck to get allocated a good spot. There are the most lovely camping spots on grass, directly at the lake. We stayed in an asphalted spot, which was less scenic, but still fine. We really needed do to laundry and the campsite has several laundry machines. There are plenty of showers and I never had to wait to use one. As in most campsites in Scandinavia, there also is a communal kitchen. I particularly recommend this campsite for the great location and if you are traveling with kids.

Hidden gem in Bergen

I absolutely loved Bergen, it turned out to be my favorite city in Norway. The fact that we got to visit during a heatwave and had the most amazing weather certainly helped. Even though Bergen is known for being the most rainy city in the world, it still is hugely popular. Lots of cruises stop in Bergen and it is the starting point of many fjord tours. It therefore is incredibly crowded during the high season. We visited Bergen in July and I knew we had to venture outside of the main tourist locations to be able to enjoy it. I therefore did my research ahead of our visit and I will share my hidden gem with you. Instead of visiting the city center, I recommend visiting the residential areas instead. We spend a morning exploring the neighborhoods surrounding Knøsesmauet and Strandgaten in the direction of Nordnes. These streets are very quiet, except for some locals and photography lovers. You will find the most beautiful colorful wooden houses, adorned with rose bushes and potted plants. It is my dream to live in a pretty neighborhood like this, so incredibly idyllic. As these streets are pretty quiet, locals seemed friendly of the few visitors. I also loved the streets between Fløibanen and the central station, these were more lively with stores, but still very relaxed. Apparantly Skuteviken is great as well, but we didn’t have enough time to visit it.

Bryggen

Bryggen is Bergen’s most famous sight. Who hasn’t seen pictures of the colorful wooden-clad boat houses? I didn’t know that there was a medieval village behind the boat houses, and expected just the front to be interesting. How wrong was I. Definitely take your time to explore the old alleyways. We visited around lunch time and it was too crowded to take pretty pictures. If you are able to visit early in the day, I would recommend doing that instead. At Bryggen there are some stores demonstrating old techniques and there even is a Christmas store. You will have the best view of Bryggen if you go to the opposite side of the harbor, as you will be able to take unobstructed pictures from that side.

Fløibanen

Bergen is surrounded by nature and has a few fun ways to access it. We took the mountain cable car up to Mount Fløi: Fløibanen. You can also choose another mountain: Mt Ulriken, which can be accessed with an aerial tramway. We chose to do Fløibanen as I heard that this mountain was kid-friendly, with a lovely playground at the top. Looking back Mt Ulriken seemed slightly more interesting, but we still had a good time at Mount Fløi. After lunch there was a short queue at Fløibanen. Make sure to buy your tickets online as you will be able to skip part of the line. Return tickets cost about € 16 for adults, which I found doable considering it is in Norway.

The cable car only takes about 10 minutes and then you reach the top. We were a bit shocked at how crowded it gets on a sunny day, but views over Bergen were spectacular nonetheless.

At the top there is a restaurant, several hiking paths and a playground. Hugo loved the playground and there was plenty of space to sit for parents. During peak summer season there also was an area with musical performances, which created a great atmosphere. Despite it being too crowded for our liking, kids will have a great time and it is very special that there is a foresty mountain so easily accesible from the city center.