noplasticshowers

Bergen is a beautiful city of 250,000 surrounded by mountains and water. It’s a fantastic place to visit.

Bergen in the morning

Unlike Bergen, the Scandic hotel in the city (there is one at the airport too) is a bit generic for our tastes on this blog. I suppose Scandic is the Marriott of Scandenavia. Marriotts are something we avoid.

The bed has strange Norwegian bed fittings. Fun.

I am in 757, which according to the map on the door seems to be a representative room. The room is clean and nice, but worn. Think beautiful lines with pockmarks and cracks. There are some nice features, including free decent wifi and power by the bed. But there are things that need repair and/or replacement. For example there is a broken tile in the bathroom on the tub and a lingering mildew smell in the air.

Work pod with plenty of power.

A candy welcome amenity falls squarely in the Marriott category. It’s nice that they stopped by 7-11 so you don’t have to. But candy bar? OK.

Amentity?

Euro-shower = non-plastic. The most interesting feature is the security disaster that is generic shared soap dispensers. Nair? Poison? Ink? Norwegians just don’t think that way.

However, such a trusting nature does lead to real hangers (of which we approve).

The hangers trust you.

All in all a very low four showerheads for the Scandic. I’ve been here before mostly because it is a conference hotel in the city. There have got to be better places to stay in Bergen though.

Then again, the barman at the Scandic introduced us to Tesseron Extreme Cognac, a pricey but delicious elixer whose oldest components hail from 1906–>1858 range.

A late dinner at Sumo was workaday. Fine sushi, but nothing to write home about.

We will throw in an absolute gem in Bergen to round things out and end on a high note. The No Stress bar is super fantastic. Expert bartender Tessa Ostervold caused us to have a delightful evening after the noisy conference dinner. Thanks Tessa. Among other shenanigans, we concocted the OK Glass Cocktail as follows:
5 cl Blanton’s bourbon
2 cl Dolin’s red
1 sugarcube soaked in Peychaud’s and Angostura bitters
2 t of fernet branca
Shake. Serve up. Garnish with an orange peel expressed.

Tessa

There was pappy 20.

Pappy van Winkle 20 bourbon

Did I say super fantastic? I’ll be back. (And rumor has it that Tessa may open her own place in Bergen one day.)