Bergen's best cultural spots

"I have written 19 novels and a handful of short stories about Varg Veum and have covered every nook and cranny of Bergen in the series. For example, in Wolves in the Dark, a man dies in the house behind us," he says.

Staalesen's cultural triangle

Staalesen has taken us to Nordnes, the first of his three cultural highlights. This is the neighbourhood where he was born in the 1940s, just a few years after his fictional hero Varg Veum.

"Varg actually grew up in the same street as myself, but he is five years older. I thought of him as one of the older boys in the street," he tells us.

A lot has changed since then. Back then, multiple families often shared space in these small wooden houses, and the streets were full of children playing.

“We are now entering Trangesmauet (Narrow Alley). Its name is self-explanatory. Maren Kristine Pedersen, the femme fatale in my series about Bergen, lives in one of these houses," says Staalesen, gesturing with his hand.

“One dark New Year's night, Maren Kristine is visited in her attic by Consul Frimann. On the way home from the visit, the Consul is brutally murdered by a person, whose identity remains unknown until the last pages of the third volume. So, lots of things have happened here in Trangesmauet," says the author.

Bergen is inextricably linked to Gunnar Staalesen and his long running series of books that have a devoted following. Staalesen is also an excellent and engaging guide who talks with warmth, pride, and passion as he shows us through the old alleyways and wooden treehouses that characterize the Nordnes neighbourhood in the old Hansa city of Bergen, that used to be one of the most important trading cities in Europe.

He takes us around the corner to Skottegaten, where several unsolved crimes are committed in the Varg Veum series.