This cafe feels like it could be nestled in a tree far from the forest floor.
A single room of pine walls, floor, and ceiling with century-old ragged pine rafters to support its slanting structure. Bryggen is an over-underworld of planked alleyways and staircases in a hive of ancient housing built to accommodate the lives and goods of sea-traders.
The city of Bergen was founded in 1070 by a certain King Olav Kyrre. Bryggen, as the city's largest wharf and trading center, was the best-established area of Bergen during medieval times. By the 13th Century, Bergen was trading with many countries, but the black plague entered through its port in 1349 and annihilated most of the city's population. Half of Norway's population was wiped out. About a decade after this, a Hanseatic trading office was established in Bryggen's wharf. For the next three-hundred years, Bryggen life flowed to the rhythm of Hanseatic culture. Norway exported fish. Ships imported grains and textiles. After a fire in 1702, which destroyed the entire city, Bryggen was once again reconstructed. What I walk through today is all that is left of Bryggen and also of Hanseatic trade housing.
The trade offices, storage spaces, and boarding rooms from this archaic period have all been recycled into airy shops of handmade luxury items, pub-cafes, and a few discreet offices tucked away on some tilting third floor.
Having been brought up in a completely different context, this landscape of invincible heart wood, bare and weather-worn, through the open-air walkways of the second and third stories, reminds me of a tree house neighborhood.
To others of a saltier imagination, it could very well lend itself to revelry in the sea and sailor-beaten surfaces of an old wooden ship.
The gently restored cabin which hosts the cafe has been perfect for such an afternoon escape. Cars, Concrete, and city sounds are nonexistent in this harvested forest. Bryggen is an island of wood in a sea of cobbled and paved routes. The barista is wearing black, boot-shaped slippers. I, too, would wear slippers if wide, creaky boards lived under my feet as I moved through the day.
Back at the apartment crows appear outside of the windows, positioning themselves to be flung by the lofty gusts of wind at exactly sun-down. 3:54. The trees near the middle of the mountain seem to be a favorite landing spot. A pit-stop on the flight back to their roosts. Of course, we know that birds never make that kind of pit-stop. Otherwise, they might have a better reputation. There are no nests in the branches of these bare trees, but at this time of day the topmost twigs and branch-tips are weighted by dozens upon dozens of the vigilant scavengers. It is a coup d'air
Grieg Hall before the concert.
Perfumes and pressed clothes.
Showered people
Programs and polite laughter.
Greying hair
Coffee or wine.
Comfortability.
Mild excitement.
Glancing men
Automated chimes.
Minds gathered to be carried elsewhere.
Unexplored thoughts to be temporarily visited.
Traditions to honor.
Images to maintain.
Ideals to uphold.
Monotony to break.
Generations to impress.
Loved ones to support.
So many reasons and whims for an audience to attend to
Mozart and Brahms.
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