dear(travel)diary,

the best thing about our Scandinavian vacation was the spontaneity: we looked for every place to stay spontaneously. That made for unexpected experiences every time. For example, I saw us at a campsite in Bergen before our vacation, but then we suddenly found ourselves in a 300-year-old wooden house...

Living in a wooden house lets us experience Bergen from a different perspective! The city is known for its many small wooden houses. But unfortunately also for the many fires that have ravaged them. And you can tell! At check-in, our host went through every last detail with us about what to do in the event of a fire. He also urged us to handle the stove and oven with care. As you can see, the people here have had plenty of experience with fire!

Our spontaneous decision to book an Airbnb because of our broken air mattress certainly brought us a little closer to life in Bergen. The Airbnb wooden house is located in a small alley not far from the center. Above this alley are almost exclusively stone houses, while the lower part still consists of wooden houses. The housekeeper of our Airbnb told us that this structure was created by a fire that ravaged the street 120 years ago. Fortunately, the fire was extinguished halfway through. The burnt houses were rebuilt in stone. The unaffected houses remained wooden. Luckily for us, otherwise we probably wouldn't have been able to take the wooden house experience with us.

xx Chiara

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Why did the Norwegians build everything out of wood?

Norway used to be a very poor country. As a result, people could not afford expensive materials. Wood was very cheap, which is why it was used for building.

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