Somebody on Facebook shared this YouTube video, which just pleases me no end.

It’s a digital reconstruction of the city of Bergen, Norway around the year 1350 AD. No doubt it means more to me than to you, because I’ve been to Bergen several times, and recognize the general outlines. (It’s Sissel’s home town, though I’ve never had time to properly stalk her.) Some of the stone buildings are still standing, and the row of buildings along the wharf still exists in principle, though the structures have burned down and been replaced several times in the interval. It’s called Bryggen, “the wharf.” Used to be Tyskebryggen, “the German wharf,” until the late unpleasantness of the 1940s. Shortly after the time of this video, the German Hanseatic league took over Bergen’s trade and established its Norwegian headquarters on that location.

I love this stuff. One of my Facebook friends noted that there are no people, but then he remembered that it was about this time the Black Death came to Norway. So everybody was probably either dying or in hiding.