no other rooms in bergen . good surprise. can park in the street dont use the hospital parking. five minuts drive from center. execlent breakfast and service. large rooms. very quiet.

It's true that the Haukeland Hotel - which as other reviewers have said is a hospital guesthouse which also accepts foreign tourists - isn't going to be anyone's first choice of a place to stay in Bergen. That said, if you can't find anywhere in Bergen, you could do an awful lot worse than stay at the Haukeland.

You have to take a bus from the city centre to get here, but they are frequent and drop you off within a 5-10 minute walk of the hotel. The area itself is a quiet, attractive suburb and the back rooms (some of which have balconies) have lovely views over the surrounding hills. Although the hotel caters mainly to Norwegians, all staff speak good English and are helpful. The rooms are plain but comfortable - my single room had a bed and a nice sofa, plus fridge, TV and a desk.

But the real star of this hotel is the breakfast - Norwegian hotel breakfasts tend to be great but this was exceptional! An amazing spread of several diferent types of cheese, bread, crackers, meat, fruit, eggs, yogurt......! What's more, they even leave out plastic bags and greaseproof paper so you can take some sandwiches and fruit for lunch. Not to be sniffed at, given how amazingly expensive Norway is!

I booked through Fjord Tours (though the receptionist did not ask for my Fjord Pass) and paid NOK 1520 for two nights in a single room. While that would be considered ridiculously expensive in just about every other country in Europe, in Norway, and particularly in very touristed Bergen, it is actually quite a reasonable rate.

In short, while the Haukeland obviously doesn't have the convenience or atmosphere of a city centre hotel, it's really not a bad place to stay if everywhere is booked out. This is not uncommon in Bergen - I booked 3 weeks in advance for a two night stay in August, and had difficulty finding a place - so if you want a reasonably priced place to stay in the city centre, my advice has to be to book well in advance during the summer months.

Quite spooky to spend a night at the hospital but once you get beyond that this is not a bad deal.

Bergen hotels tend to be super pricey. Norwegian standards for hotels is rather average compared with American hotels.

Here is my bottom line advice: if you have problems in terms of mobility, and if you can not afford a cab to go back and forth from the hotel to the city, then stay in a hotel downtown.

You have to take a bus to go downtown.
THe bus stop is behind the train station: you will see absolutely no sign as to how to get there. You better be in good health without heavy luggage if you want to go up a steep but short hill up to the bus stop. I keep harping on this as I am thinking of folks who are worn out and have 2-80lbs luggages each.

Transportation is rather cheap. The ride by bus is less than 15 minutes. Once you get there, you stll have to walk about 1/2 mile to the hotel. It is slightly uphill.

We enjoyed staying away from the city: the hotel area is super quiet.

We could not find the hotel after we got off at the bus stop so we flagged off an Ambulance [ YEP, we were really desperate ] and they gave us a ride. Imagine arriving at the hotel check in in an ambulance! Kidding aside, the Nordics folks are amazingly nice.

The price, booked last minute, was half of what hotels were asking for downtown.

TV sucks but we were not in the room to worry about that.

The room itself was roomy. The mattresses are thin: same in most hotels where we stayed in Norway.

Double Bed = 2 single beds that you will need to move side by side to make a larger bed. Both beds are on rollers: just like in hospitals.

Breakfast was free and does the job: definitely not a healthy hospital meal! *smile*

No Internet access in the rooms but again we were in Bergen to be outdoors.

Bergen is a great city to start your Norwegian dream vacation. Spend at most, and I mean at most, 2 days in the city itself. Spend the rest in the outdoors along the coast. Skip Oslo if you had to choose between Oslo and Bergen.

We arrived in Bergen, on the cross country train from Oslo, just before 6pm with no room booked. The train guard had warned us that there were no rooms available in Bergen and was advising people to get off a few stops earlier at Voss. We risked going on to Bergen and spent an hour or so in the tourist information office - waiting to see if they could find us a room.
We were given directions and paid for our first night at the Haukeland Hotel and found it pretty easily after a short bus ride half way up the Ulrikken mountain.
The receptionist who booked us in was very friendly and explained the hotel is used for hospital patients and their relatives only in the winter, but in the summer they rent out rooms to tourists.
Our room was clean and more than adequate, a large single bed and a sofa bed. A balcony and en suite toilet/shower and a TV. Breakfast the next morning was very extensive and we booked to stay in the room another night we liked it so much - and it was half the price of our room near Oslo!