The Sunday Times - UK (2022-04-10)

The Sunday Times April 10, 2022 23

Travel Norway

2 miles

BERGEN

NORWAY

E39

E39

Restaurant

1877

Bergen

Kunsthall

Grand Hotel

Terminus

Troldhaugen

500yds

Norway’s second

city has a deserved

reputation for rain,

but the art and

food shine through,

says Laura Hackett

‘M

ake sure you bring

an umbrella,” I was

warned. “This is

the rain capital of

Europe,” locals say.

And yet as I descended towards Bergen

airport there was barely a cloud in the sky.

Norway’s second city is on the country’s

southwest coast, surrounded by small

islands, and as we got closer I could see

almost all were dotted with those

distinctive red and white Scandi houses.

Even the airport was surrounded by trees

and hills — I couldn’t help but gulp in the

fresh Norwegian air as I got off the plane.

It was made all the fresher by a complete

lack of Covid hassle — no QR codes, no

PCR tests and, just in time for our trip, no

passenger locator forms either.

I was here to see Edvard Munch. Oslo’s

Munch Museum is huge, of course, with

more than 26,000 of his artworks, but the

smaller Kode museums in Bergen have

the third-largest Munch collection in the

world, including masterpieces such

as Melancholy and Evening on Karl Johan,

with its deathly-looking faces of men and

women cramped in the city, faces that

would one day morph into Munch’s

famous Scream.

The Scream is not here. Instead we

were treated to a journey through

Munch’s career in miniature. The

paintings span his early quasi-realist

works, through to his flirtation with

impressionism and finally on to his

signature style — flat but dynamic works

in red, teal and white. His 1896 By the

Death Bed is particularly moving: Munch

lost his mother to tuberculosis when he

was five, and his beloved sister Sophie

nine years later.

Come May 27, though, these artworks

won’t be in Bergen. They’ll be in the

Courtauld in London, replacing the

hugely popular Van Gogh exhibition.

Kode has lent the newly renovated gallery

18 of the artist’s finest works, many of

which haven’t left Norway before.

The Munch exhibition is just one part

of the Kode complex, though, and

certainly merits a visit if the Courtauld

whets your appetite for Norwegian art.

Other Kode museums stretch around

Bergen’s small central lake, Lille

Lungegardsvanne. If you have my luck,

you can wander along, savouring the

reflection of the colourful houses in the

water and the usually snow-covered

mountain that rises behind the city. If you

happen to visit on one of the 322 rainy

days of the year, there is always another

museum within a few strides. Other

exhibitions include Bergen Painters in

Paris 1920, which has some fascinating

cubist portrayals of the city, and The

Queer Gaze.

Bergen Kunsthall, a separate gallery,

also sits next to the lake, and houses more

contemporary, international art — buy a

Kode ticket and you can visit there too.

Both stand out for their restaurants.

The Kunsthall’s café serves a hearty

halibut soup, omelettes and falafel —

it transforms into a club at night.

Kode’s Lysverket restaurant

is more upmarket. I had

artichoke and mussel soup,

served by a charismatic gold-

toothed chef called

Kristoffen who, he said, is

opening a Chinese

restaurant in Bergen — as

well as a restaurant in

Houston, Texas.

But for the full Norwegian

culinary experience, nothing

Both stand out

The Kunsthall’s

halibut soup,

it transfor

Kode’s

is mo

arti

se

to

K

w

H

cul

of wines. The pours were generous —

and it was rounded off by carrot cake,

deconstructed of course.

Some members of the group I was with

were a little the worse for wear the next

morning, especially those of us who’d

visited the hotel’s whisky bar after dinner.

We were staying at Grand Hotel Terminus,

where the wood-panelled walls are hung

with contemporary art. In the fine

weather it felt a little dark and austere, a

thick-walled hotel ready to ward off a

storm, but an open fire crackled cheerily

in the bar.

A stroll around the city blew away the

cobwebs. This is a lived-in city centre,

with shops and wooden homes tightly

packed together, old-fashioned

schoolhouses and a 12th-century church.

Even during rush hour Bergen retains

that unique Scandinavian stillness. You

can barely go down a street without

coming upon a small art gallery (have a

peek at the Underground Gallery and

Galleri GEO) or antique shop (such as

the rolls-off-the-tongue Steinkjelleren

Antikvitetshandel). Perhaps it’s time to

replace Bergen’s reputation as the rain

capital of Europe with a new tagline —

the art capital of Europe.

There was one more stop before we

returned to London, though:

Troldhaugen, home of the composer

Edvard Grieg. Grieg’s yellow wooden

home was drenched with light and full of

life, as if he had stepped out only a

moment ago. As we sat to enjoy

a recital from Christian, the museum’s

director, it was as if we were at one of

Grieg’s own salons. Built into the hills of

the grounds is a breathtaking concert

hall that looks out over Grieg’s little

composing hut and the lake beyond.

“This is the most beautiful concert hall

in the world,” Christian told us, and of

those I have visited that holds true.

I’m still listening to Grieg’s Wedding

Day at Troldhaugen, trying to relive the

beauty and peace of that moment.

Laura Hackett was a guest of the Grand

Terminus Hotel, which has B&B doubles

from £117 (grandterminus.no), Kode

(kodebergen.no) and the Courtauld, where

Edvard Munch: Masterpieces from Bergen

opens on May 27 (courtauld.ac.uk)

Even during

rush hour

it has that

unique

Scandi

stillness

BERGEN

PLENTY TO MUNCH ON IN

beat the five-course tasting menu at

Restaurant 1877. Norwegians love tacos, I

was frequently told, and here our amuse-

bouches were tiny versions filled with

beef tartare and caviar. Then came raw

shrimp (I admit I picked around

that one), then a scallop, then my

favourite, perfectly tender monkfish.

But the most Scandi dish of all was yet

to come. The chef announced that the

next course had arrived down from the

mountain in the back of a van just that

morning — it was wild reindeer. And

there it was, unapologetically gamey and

bloody. A little goes a long way with

reindeer, I found, but it was paired

beautifully with the sommelier’s selection

Edvard Grieg’s

home, at

Troldhaugen, left

Munch’s art at the Kode museum. Left: a dish at Lysverket

ZARNELL/GETTY IMAGES; REUTERS, LUCAS VALLECILLOS/ALAMY