We went to bed to rain and woke up to rain. Alternating between heavy and a down pour. This continued all day today.
Last night we had thought that possibly we might get to go up in the funicular today, because we had such a nice view of it out our room window at 9:30pm, but no, the fog rolled in and stayed.
We started out walking over to the Hanseatic Museum. The English tour isn't until 10:30, so we do a couple of shops in the old Hanseatic area.
For nearly 400 years (1500 – 1900) Germans (up to 2,000 of them) were the primary residents of the Hanseatic (German Dock) area – a sort of city within the city of Bergen. They would fish for cod in the Lofoten islands, 135 miles north of Bergen, and they would bring the fish to Bergen where it was dried and stored and eventually sold. The smell of fish was still in the air in the lower floors where it was stored.
They were not allowed to marry or socialize with the Bergen residents. Life was not easy and working was hard and tiresome in the summer months. The apprentice workers seemed to be treated poorly and living conditions were harsh. These were “beds”, where 2 apprentices would sleep in each bed.
Like they said in all the guides books, the Theta Museum is very hard to find. And it should be, since it was the home of the Bergen Resistance during World War II. Ironically, we found this museum deep in the bowels of the old Hanseatic (German) section of the Bergen dock area.
Up here...
Down this corridor...
Up another set of stairs to the door on your left...
When we arrived on the third floor to an open door, an older gentleman welcomes us in and says to sit down.
We were the only ones there and we got a 45 minute interactive talk about this room, the guys who used it and how important they were to Norway's war efforts.
The name Theta was a call sign assigned to them by the British intelligence community for means of communicating with them in the future.
The entrance was rigged with explosives. If you didn't operate the door correctly 10 kg of TNT would explode in the room.
The guy in here actually knew one of the guys and he was very knowledgeable. He told us about Jan Dahm who asked his mom for a place for "club meetings". She didn't want to know any more.
They received messages there and made plans, but sent messages from different locations with a portable radio. They went over to London on Norwegian fishing boats to get training and food, first aid supplies, and money. They smuggled film of pictures they took of a big destroyer, the Tirpitz, the Germans were hiding near Trondheim.
He told us of the ones that were captured and sent to prison camps. The guys had a reunion in the 80's and one of them wrote a book about their story and drew sketches of the room, so they could recreate it. It was a very interesting and enjoyable museum.
So we did ALL of that before we took the train back from Bergen to Oslo. We went back to hotel and gathered our one backpack and headed to the train station in the rain.
On the ride home we opted for a meal from the cafe train. Meatballs and potatoes and a pizza bread to go please. They were both delicious.
The ride home was long, about 6 1/2 hours, and it rained most of the way, so pictures out our window were poor and the view was a repeat of what we saw on the way TO Bergen.
No comments:
Post a Comment