Sights in Bergen & The Western Fjords
-
Atlantic Ocean Park
At the peninsula’s western extreme, sitting 3km from the centre, the Atlantic Ocean Park can merit a whole day of your life. It introduces visitors to the North Atlantic’s undersea world with glimpses of the astonishing richness of coastal and fjord submarine life. Children will wow at the ‘snails, seashells and weird marine animals’ section, and can dangle a line for crabs or feed the fish in the touch pool while the whole family will gasp at the enormous four-million-litre aquarium. Be there at 1pm (also 3.30pm, June to August) when the largest ocean fish thrash and swirl as they’re fed by human divers.
There’s also a sanctuary for orphaned seals and the…
reviewed
-
A
Jugendstil Art Nouveau Centre
Everyone from serious aesthetes to kids out for fun will get pleasure from this art centre. The introductory Time Machine capsule presents ‘From Ashes to Art Nouveau’, a high-tech, very visual story of the rebuilding of Ålesund after the great fire, while the displays offer carefully selected textiles, ceramics and furniture of the genre. It’s in and above a renovated chemist’s shop that has retained its magnificent corkscrew staircase and 1st-floor dining room.
reviewed
-
B
Bergen Art Museum
Beside the Lille Lungegårdsvann lake, this art museum exhibits a superb collection of 18th- and 19th-century pieces by international and Norwegian artists, including Munch, Miró, Picasso, Kandinsky and Paul Klee.
reviewed
-
Norwegian Glacier Museum
For the story on flowing ice and how it has sculpted the Norwegian landscape, visit this superbly executed museum, 3km inland from the ferry jetty.
The hands-on exhibits will delight children. You can learn how fjords are formed, see an excellent 20-minute multiscreen audiovisual presentation on Jostedalsbreen (so impressive that audiences often break into spontaneous applause at the end), wind your way through a tunnel that penetrates the mock-ice and even see the tusk of a Siberian woolly mammoth, which met an icy demise 30,000 years ago. There’s also an exhibit on the 5000-year-old ‘Ice Man’ corpse, which was found on the Austrian-Italian border in 1991. The newest…
reviewed
-
C
Norwegian Petroleum Museum
We could (and have) spend hours in this state-of-the-art museum, one of Norway’s best. Filled with high-tech interactive displays, gigantic models and authentic reconstructions, its many highlights include a terrific 3-D film covering Norway’s geological history, a documentary by former Lonely Planet TV presenter Ian Wright, simulators, a petrodome recreating millions of years of natural history and an amazing model of ‘Ekofisk city’. Tracing the history of oil formation and exploration in the North Sea from discovery in 1969 until the present, the museum nicely balances the technical side of oil exploration and extraction with archive footage and newspapers of…
reviewed
-
Kjeåsen Farm
Above all other sights in the region, Kjeåsen Farm, 6km northeast of Eidfjord and close to the treeline 530m above the valley floor, should not be missed. According to some accounts, there has been a farm here for 400 years, although vehicle access was only possible with the construction of the road in 1975. Now one of Norway's top scenic locations, the wonderfully remote farm buildings are still inhabited by a woman who has lived alone there for 40 years.
Alone that is apart from the busloads of tourists who visit the farm every day in summer. She sometimes shows visitors around from 09:00 to 17:00. It's possible to climb up to the farm on foot (four hours return), but…
reviewed
-
D
Canning Museum
Don’t miss Canning Museum; housed in an old cannery, it’s one of Stavanger’s most appealing museums. Before oil there were sardines and Stavanger was once home to more than half of Norway’s canning factories; by 1922 the city’s canneries provided 50% of the town’s employment. Here you’ll get the lowdown on canning brisling and fish balls and the exhibits take you through the whole 12-stage process from salting, through to threading, smoking, decapitating and packing. There are no labels but there’s a handy brochure available at the entrance and guides are always on hand to answer your questions or crank up some of the old machines. Upstairs, there’s a fascinating display…
reviewed
-
Stave Church
The stave church at Urnes is famed for its unique and elaborate wooden carvings – animals locked in struggle, stylised intertwined bodies and abstract motifs.
This lovely structure, a Unesco World Heritage Site, gazes out over Lustrafjord. Built in the 1130s, it has undergone several alterations through the ages; it’s likely that much of the rich carving on its gables, pillars and door frames were transferred from an 11th-century building that previously stood here. A car and passenger ferry (adult/child/car Nkr27/13/73, 20 minutes) shuttles roughly every hour between Solvorn and Urnes; many drivers prefer to leave their vehicles on the Solvorn bank. From the Urnes…
reviewed
-
Borgund Stave Church
Some 30km southeast of Lærdalsøyri along the E16, this 12th-century stave church was raised beside one of the major trade routes between eastern and western Norway. Dedicated to St Andrew, it’s one of the best-known, most-photographed – and certainly the best-preserved – of Norway’s stave churches. Beside it is the only freestanding medieval wooden bell tower still standing in Norway. Buy your ticket at the visitors centre, which has a worthwhile exhibition (included in the price of your admission) on this peculiarly Norwegian phenomenon. If you enjoy walking, build in time to undertake the two-hour circular hike on ancient paths and tracks that starts and ends at the…
reviewed
-
Kinsarvik
The small U-shaped patch of greenery opposite the Kinsarvik tourist office is all that remains of the former Viking port. Kinsarvik also boats one of Norway's oldest stone churches. First built in around 1180, it was restored in the 1960s and the walls still bear traces of lime-and-chalk paintings that depict the weighing of souls by Michael the Archangel with the devil trying to weigh down the scales.
According to local legend, the church was built by Scottish invaders on the site of an earlier stave church. Kinsarvik also offers an appealing access trail past the cooling Husedalen waterfalls, along what's known as the Monk's Stairway and onto the network of tracks…
reviewed
Advertisement
-
E
Lysøen Estate
This beautiful estate, on the island of the same name, was built in 1873 as the summer residence of renowned Norwegian violinist Ole Bull. After the death of Ole Bull’s French-born wife, Felicité Villeminot, Bull purchased the 70-hectare Lysøen island, about 20km south of Bergen. Between 1872 and 1873, he and architect Conrad Fredrik von der Lippe constructed the fantasy villa ‘Lysøen’. This ‘Little Alhambra’ took much of its extravagant inspiration from the architecture of Moorish Granada and integrated not only intricate frets and trellises, but also onion domes, romantic garden paths, Italian marble columns and a high-ceilinged music hall of Norwegian…
reviewed
-
Hardangervidda Natursenter
The exceptional Hardangervidda Natursenter is a superlative introduction to one of Norway’s most beautiful national parks. The centre shows a must-see 19-minute movie with dramatic panoramic footage of the park; if you can’t visit the inner depths of the park on foot, this is the next best thing. Otherwise, there are interactive displays, informative explanations of the region’s natural history, fish tanks of mountain species and interesting geology exhibits. The centre, which is located 6.5km southeast of Eidfjord in Øvre Eidfjord, has detailed trekking maps and staff can offer advice as to trekking and skiing in the park.
reviewed
-
F
Siljustøl
A well-known Norwegian composer’s home lies 3km south of Troldhaugen. Harald and Marie Sæverud lived in Siljustøl, a simple timber home. It was constructed in the 1930s of natural stone and untreated wood in an attempt to create unity with the environment. Harald Sæverud’s first symphony was completed in 1920 and he endeared himself to Norwegians everywhere when, during WWII, he wrote protest music against the Nazi occupation. In 1986 he was made official composer of the Bergen International Music Festival. When he died in March 1992, he was given a state funeral and buried at Siljustøl, as requested. To get there, take bus 30 from platform 20.
reviewed
-
G
Hanseatic Museum
This terrific museum provides a window onto the world of Hanseatic traders. Housed in a rough-timber building from 1704, it starkly reveals the contrast between the austere living and working conditions of Hanseatic merchant sailors and apprentices, and the lifestyles of the management. Highlights include the manager’s office, quarters, private liquor cabinet and summer bedroom; the apprentices’ quarters where beds were shared by two men; the fish storage room, which pressed and processed over a million pounds (450,000kg) of fish a month; and the fiskeskrue, or fish press, which pressed the fish into barrels.
reviewed
-
Mardalsfossen
East of Åndalsnes, up Langfjorden and past the dramatic lake, Eikesdalsvatnet, is Mardalsfossen - once the fifth-highest waterfall in the world. How did it lose this status? Well, in the 1970s, this two-level, 655m waterfall was sucked dry by a hydroelectric project. Although environmentalists chained themselves together to prevent construction, it went ahead and Mardalsfossen now flows strictly for the tourists, from late June to mid-August.
For mountain thrills, take the bucking single-track mountain road Aursjøvegen (around NOK50 toll), open between late June and September and linking Mardalsfossen and Sunndalsøra.
reviewed
-
Stavanger Cathedral
This beautiful cathedral is an impressive, but understated, medieval stone cathedral dating from approximately 1125; it was extensively renovated following a fire in 1272 and contains traces of Gothic, baroque, Romanesque and Anglo-Norman influences. Despite restoration in the 1860s and 1940, and the stripping of some features during the Reformation, the cathedral is, by some accounts, Norway’s oldest medieval cathedral still in its original form. Its wonderful stone columns, tapestries, elaborate baroque pulpit and stained-glass window depicting the main events of the Christian calendar are a visual feast.
reviewed
-
Flydalsjuvet
Somewhere you've seen that classic photo, beloved of brochures, of the overhanging rock Flydalsjuvet, usually with a figure gazing down at a cruise ship in Geirangerfjord. The car park, signposted to Flydalsjuvet, about 5km uphill from Geiranger on the Stryn road, offers a great view of the fjord and the green river valley, but doesn't provide exactly the postcard view.
For that, you'll have to drop about 150m down the hill, then descend a slippery and rather indistinct track to the edge. Your intrepid photo subject will have to scramble down gingerly to the overhang about 50m further along…
reviewed
-
H
Fantoft Stave Church
The Fantoft stave church, in a lovely leafy setting (which goes by the name ‘Paradise’) south of Bergen, was built in Sognefjord around 1150 and moved to the southern outskirts of Bergen in 1883. It was burned down by a Satanist (and soon-to-be-released heavy metal musician) in 1992, but it has since been painstakingly reconstructed. The adjacent cross, originally from Sola in Rogaland, dates from 1050. From Bergen take any bus leaving from platform 20, get off at the Fantoft stop on Birkelundsbakken and walk uphill through the park for about five minutes.
reviewed
-
Hardanger Folk Museum
One of the prettiest little villages you’ll find Hardangerfjord, Utne is famous for its fruit-growing and for the excellent open-air Hardanger Folk Museum, which acts as a repository for the cultural heritage of the Hardanger region. It comprises a collection of historic homes, boats, shops, outhouses and a school, plus exhibitions on Hardanger women, weddings, the famed Hardanger fiddle and fiddle-making, fishing, music, dance, orchard crops and the woodcarvings of local artist Lars Kinsarvik; it also bakes delicious local cakes on Tuesdays (noon to 3pm) in July.
reviewed
-
I
Voss Folk Museum
The main portion of the Voss Folk Museum is the Mølstertunet Museum, on a hilltop at the farm Mølster high above Voss. The collection of 16 historic farm buildings once typical of the region dates from 1600 to 1870. There are guided tours on the hour, every hour.
The other two portions of the museum, the Nesheimstunet Museum (12 farm buildings, the oldest dating back to 1688)in Tvinne and the old wooden Oppheim vicarage, lie 16km and 26km from Voss respectively, along E16 to Gudvangen. Although the grounds are open, to see inside the buildings you'll need to ring ahead.
reviewed
Advertisement
-
Trollstigen
The Trollstigen, south of Åndalsnes, is a thriller of a road, completed in 1936 after eight years of labour, with 11 hairpin bends and a 1:12 gradient. To add an extra daredevil element, it's one lane practically all the way. On request, bus passengers get a photo stop at the thundering 180m-high Stigfossen waterfall, and a quick halt at the top for a dizzy view down the valley.
If you have wheels and a camera, make sure you pause for photos of the dramatic peaks of Karitind, Dronningen, Kongen and Bispen - as well as Norway's only 'Troll Crossing' road sign.
reviewed
-
J
Handelshuset
Handelshuset, formerly a lively place serving traditional food, seems to have been overcome by the general cultural languor. Its magnificent vintage jukebox, with old 45rpm hits by Presley, the Stones, the Beach Boys and other distant icons, may have played its last platter unless someone gets around to repairing it. But you can still browse among Handelshuset’s old posters and signs, learn something of Kristiansund’s commercial history and drink the freshest coffee, roasted on Norway’s oldest operational coffee roaster.
reviewed
-
K
Stavanger Maritime Museum
This worthwhile museum covers 200 years of Stavanger’s maritime history spread over two warehouses dating from around 1800. There’s also a large collection of model boats, sailing vessels, a noisy wind-up foghorn, a reconstruction of a late-19th-century sailmaker’s workshop, a shipowner’s office and an excellent general store, as well as the merchant’s living quarters. The museum also owns two historic sailing vessels, the 1848 Anna of Sand and the 1896 Wyvern, both on display.
reviewed
-
L
Romsdalen Folk Museum
Sprawling across a large area within this open-air museum are nearly 50 old buildings, shifted here from around the Romsdal region. Highlights include Bygata (an early-20th-century town street) and a ‘composite church’, assembled from elements of now-demolished local stave churches. In summer, there are very worthwhile guided tours (adult/child Nkr60/free; [hrs] 11am-6pm Mon-Sat, noon-6pm Sun Jul, 11am-3pm Mon-Sat, noon-3pm Sun 15-30 Jun & 1-15 Aug), in English on request.
reviewed
-
Viking-age Burial Mounds
Less than 1km south along the fjord, excavation of two Viking-age burial mounds revealed remnants of a boat, two skeletons, jewellery and several weapons (no longer on site). One mound is topped by a statue of legendary King Bele, erected by Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was obsessed with Nordic mythology and regularly spent his holidays here prior to WWI.
A similar monument, also funded by the Kaiser and honouring Fridtjof, the lover of King Bele's daughter, peers across the fjord from Vangsnes.
reviewed