2 Best Sights in Bergen, Norway

Built in 1885, Troldhaugen was the home of Norway's most famous composer, Edvard Grieg. He composed many of his best-known works in a garden cottage by the lakeshore. In 1867, he married his cousin Nina, a Danish soprano, and they lived in the white clapboard house with green gingerbread trim for 22 years. A salon and gathering place for many Scandinavian artists then, it now houses mementos—a piano, paintings, prints—of the composer's life. The interior has been kept as it was during Grieg's time here. Concerts are held both at Troldhaugen and at the very modern Troldsalen next door.

From 1873 onward, Lysøen ("Island of Light") was the home of the Norwegian violin virtuoso Ole Bull (1810–80). His over-the-top mansion has an onion dome, gingerbread gables, curved staircases, and cutwork trim, and it's surrounded by 13 km (8 miles) of pathways created by Bull; it's great for picnics, rowing, and swimming in secluded spots. During Bull's long career, he performed frequently throughout Europe and the United States, and even started a short-lived utopian colony—Oleana—in Pennsylvania. After founding the first national theater in Norway, he chose the young playwright Henrik Ibsen to write full-time for the theater, and later encouraged and promoted another neophyte—Edvard Grieg, then 15 years old. If you drive or take a bus here, the last part of the journey is on a ferry from Buena quay at Lysekloster. In the summer there are guided tours sponsored by the KODE museum in Bergen.