Hanseatic Museum, Bergen (must see)

In the 14th century, the Hanseatic League established a trading office in Bergen. German merchants came to trade grain and other imported goods for stockfish from northern Norway, helping to make Bergen one of Northern Europe's most important trading centers. Today, Bryggen, including the historic Finnegården building that houses the Hanseatic Museum, is on UNESCO's World Heritage List.

The museum gives us a picture of how the Hanseatic merchants lived and influenced life on the wharf. Walk through Bryggen today along the narrow alleyways and travel through time. Imagine the men speaking Low German and carrying stockfish toward the quay. About 62 buildings remain from this historic townscape, preserving the layout and character of the former Hanseatic quarter.

The Hanseatic Assembly Rooms originally stood behind the individual trading tenements on Bryggen. Most tenements had their own assembly room and adjoining cookhouse. The present complex contains four assembly rooms. Jakobsfjorden and Bellgården is a 1939 reconstruction showing how an assembly room may have looked before the fire of 1702. Svensgården is a copy of an original assembly room built in 1708, which still stands elsewhere on Bryggen. Bredsgården is largely original from 1709 but was rebuilt in 1761. The complex also includes Dramshusen, an original assembly room dating from around 1703.

The Hanseatic Assembly Rooms were part of the tenements and served as gathering places, particularly during the cold winter months. Because of the constant danger of fire, open flames were permitted only in the assembly rooms and their adjoining cookhouses, while the other wooden buildings remained unheated. Bergen was Fires-R-Us for centuries. The rooms were used for meals, meetings, celebrations, instruction for apprentices, religious devotions, and even court proceedings. Punishments were also meted out here when members of the community broke the rules.