Bergen - Norway - page 264

garage. Bus: 1, 5, or 9. Amenities: Restaurant; bar; piano bar; nightclub; business center; limited room serv-
ice; laundry service/dry cleaning; nonsmoking rooms. In room: TV, minibar, hair dryer, beverage maker.
INEXPENSIVE
Bergen Gjestehus In the center of Bergen, this five-story building has
been a hotel since the 1970s, although it was renovated in 2002. The top floor
is reserved for housing for local college students, but noise hasn't been an issue.
You're welcomed here without a lot of fuss into bedrooms that come in various
sizes. Some of the accommodations used to be small private apartments, so they
can generously accommodate four or more people, which makes them a family
favorite. Bedrooms have wooden floors, comfortable but simple furnishings, and
13 of the units come with small kitchens. Each unit has a small private bath-
room with shower.
Vestre Torgate 20A, N-5015 Bergen. & 55-59-90-90. Fax [phone]. www.hotelbergen.com. 21 units.
900NOK ($128) double. 150NOK ($21) per extra person. Rates include continental breakfast. AE, DC, MC, V.
Closed Dec 22-Jan 2. Bus: 2, 3, or 4. Amenities: Pub; laundry service/dry cleaning. In room: TV.
Comfort Hotel Holberg Set near the Nykirk, a 15-minute walk from
Bergen's Fish Market, this seven-story hotel built around 1995 commemorates
the life of the late-18th-century writer and dramatist Holberg, “The Molière of
the North,” one of the most famous writers in Danish and Norwegian letters.
(The writer was born in a since-demolished house on the site of this hotel's park-
ing garage.) The hotel's lobby looks like a testimonial to the author's life, with
an informative biography, memorabilia, and photographs of stage productions
based on his works. Bedrooms are a modernized reinterpretation of the Norwe-
gian “farmhouse” style, thanks to wooden floors, rough-textured half-paneling
stained in tones of forest green, and big windows, some of them floor-to-ceiling,
that swing open directly onto a view of the quiet residential street below. Bath-
rooms are tiled, about half of them with tub/shower combinations, with acute
angles that make them seem bigger than they actually are.
Strandgaten 190, Pb 1949 Nordnes, N-5817 Bergen. & 55-30-42-00. Fax [phone]. www.choicehotels.
no. 140 units. Mon-Thurs 790NOK-1,560NOK ($112-$222) double; Fri-Sun 960NOK ($136) double. Rates
include breakfast. AE, DC, MC, V. Parking 100NOK ($14). Amenities: Restaurant; bar; laundry service/dry
cleaning; nonsmoking rooms. In room: TV, minibar, hair dryer, beverage maker.
Crowded House This is the simplest and most spartan hotel we'll recom-
mend within Bergen, but for the scores of college students who have defined it
as their temporary home, its stripped-down lodgings have been much appreci-
ated. Located close to the landmark Mariakirke, it was originally built as a con-
ventional-looking five-story hotel around 1900. It was reconfigured in the 1980s
as a “backpackers' hotel” and renamed after a then-popular Australian rock-'n'-
roll band. Don't expect luxury or even the “usual” amenities and services, as
things are much more rawboned than that. Rooms are aggressively plain but
well-heated in winter, with washbasins, phones, white walls, and relatively com-
fortable beds. Note: All rooms here have telephones, but a good percentage of
them don't work.
Håkonsgate 27, 5015 Bergen. & 55-90-72-00. Fax [phone]. www.crowded-house.com. 34 units, 3 with
private bathroom. 590NOK ($84) double without private bathroom; 690NOK ($98) double with private bath-
room. AE, DC, MC, V. Bus: 5, 9, 20, or 22. Amenities: Cafe/bar; common room with TV and communal kitchen.
Hotel Ambassadeur This cost-conscious, unpretentious hotel was
formed from the union in 2002 of two side-by-side competitors, the Ambas-
sadeur and the Anker, both built in the 1920s. Everything here is adequate and
comfortable but far from plush. The bathrooms in each room have showers with

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