Sights in Southern Norway
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Varberg
Fine views over the town centre are to be had for those who climb to the summit of Varberg, the hill with the prominent TV mast. The path to the top takes about 20 minutes from the centre of town.
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Thor Heyerdahl Statue
Larvik's main historical claim to fame is as the home town of Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002), one of Norway's premier explorers. The quirky scientist, anthropologist and explorer spent a lifetime trying to prove that the world's oceans were vast highways that were essential to understanding ancient civilisations, a novel idea in the hallowed halls of scientific research.
In 1947 he sailed 6000km in a balsawood raft, the Kon-Tiki, from Peru to Polynesia to prove that the South Pacific may have been settled by migrants from South America rather than Asia. His theories were supported by discoveries of similar fauna and cultural artefacts in Polynesia and South America and by the…
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Kristiansand Dyrepark
Kristiansand Dyrepark, is the former Kristiansand Zoo off the E18 10km east of Kristiansand, has gradually expanded into what is probably the favourite holiday destination for children in Norway.
The funfair portion includes rides, pirate ship cruises, Captain Sabretooth's Treasure Trove and enchanted houses, while the zoo portion offers a surprising variety of specimens, including the near-extinct golden lion tamarin and a new African lion enclosure. If you want to enjoy the water park, be sure to bring a swimming costume.
The real highlights, however, are the Northern Wilderness (Nordisk Vilmark), where visitors are transported over the habitat of moose, wolves, lynx an…
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Royal Silver Mines
The profusion of silver mines in Kongsberg’s hinterland is known collectively as Sølvgruvene. The main shaft of the largest mine plunges all of 1070m into the mountain, to a depth of 550m below sea level. The easiest way to visit the mine is the mine tour that leaves from the signposted Kongsgruvene, 700m from Saggrenda (8km south of Kongsberg along the road to Notodden). It begins with a 2.3km rail ride along the stoll, a tunnel that was painstakingly chipped through the mountain in order to drain water from the mines. Constructed without machinery or dynamite – the rock was removed by heating it with fire, then throwing water on the rock to crack it – the tunnel move…
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Christiansholm Fortress
The most prominent feature that sits along the Strandepromenaden is the distinctive Christiansholm Fortress. Built by royal decree between 1662 and 1672 to keep watch over the strategic Skagerrak Straits and protect the city from pirates and rambunctious Swedes, the construction featured walls up to 5m thick and an armoury buried within a concentric inner wall, all of which came at a price: 1550 local citizens were taxed to fund the project and coerced into labour. It was connected to the mainland by a bridge over a moat (filled in during the 19th century) deep enough to accommodate tall ships. The fortress served its purpose – it was never taken by enemy forces. The orig…
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Vikingland
From the 8th to the 11th centuries, Norway’s coastline was the domain of Vikings, but the cape at Lindesnes, where the waters of the Skagerrak and the North Sea collided, proved a challenge even to these formidable seamen. Their solution? In a spirit of creative engineering that Norway’s road builders would later emulate when faced with daunting geographic forms, the Vikings carved a canal across the Lindesnes Peninsula at Spangareid (once a home port of Viking chieftains) to avoid the dangerous seas of the cape. In summer 2007, a replica canal was opened to recreate the Viking detour. Close to the site, the excellent historical centre Vikingland offers Viking exhibit…
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Tønsberg Castle
The remains of Tønsberg Castle, spread across the 63m-high hill behind the town, was the largest fortress in Norway in the 13th century. In 1503, the Swedes destroyed the fortress and little remains of the castle itself. Nonetheless, the modern (1888), 17m-high Slottsfjellstårnet tower provides a good viewpoint over the ruins. In front of the tower there’s a bronze model of how the castle looked in 1500. Parts of the 600m-long outer wall remain intact, while the extant medieval stone foundations include King Magnus Lagabøte’s Keep, the 1191 Church of St Michael, the hall of King Håkon Håkonsson and various guard towers. The park is always open.
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Posebyen
The Kristiansand Posebyen takes in most of the 14 blocks at the northern end of the town's characteristic kvadraturen. It's worth taking a slow stroll around this pretty quarter, whose name was given by French soldiers who came to reposer (French for relax). A scale model (with buildings around 1m high) of the city as it appeared when designed by Christian IV is on view at Vest-Agder Folk Museum.
The annual Kristiansand guide, published by the tourist office, includes a good section 'A Stroll through Posebyen' to guide your wandering. The most well-preserved buildings include Bentsens Hus (Kronprinsengs gate 59), which dates to 1855, the former post office (Kronprinsengs …
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Henrik Ibsenmuseet
Author, playwright and so-called ‘Father of Modern Drama’, Henrik Ibsen was born in Skien on 20 March 1828. In 1835 the family fell on hard times and moved out to the farm Venstøp, 5km north of Skien, where they stayed for seven years. The 1815 farmhouse has now been converted into the excellent Henrik Ibsenmuseet. There are some terrific audio-visual displays in the former barn, while guides (some of whom are Ibsen actors) show you around the family home. Ask also about Ibsen theatre performances here or at the tourist office, or check out the programme at the Theater Ibsen, which is in the town centre, a block back from the harbour.
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Ibsenhuset Museum
Norway’s favourite playwright, Henrik Ibsen, arrived here in January 1844. The house where he worked as a pharmacist’s apprentice, and where he lived and first cultivated his interest in writing, has been converted into the Ibsenhuset Museum. It contains a re-created pharmacy and many of the writer’s belongings and is one of southern Norway’s more interesting museums, with everything you needed to know from Ibsen’s life and work. There’s also a library with the writer’s complete works. His 1861 poem Terje Vigen and his 1877 drama Pillars of Society take place in the Skerries offshore from Grimstad.
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Kaupang
Kaupang, 5km east of Larvik, was a former Viking town built around AD 800 and occupied until 960. It is believed that up to 1000 people lived here in its heyday. For us, this is the most interesting of Larvik’s sights. Although most of the original artefacts are now in Oslo, the custodians of the site make the most of what they have with a small exhibition, four Viking tents and knowledgeable guides in Viking dress on hand to show you to nearby Viking graves and to explain Kaupang’s past. On Wednesday (family day) and weekends, they cook Viking soup and bread. The guides can also tell you where to find other Viking cemeteries in the Larvik area.
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Kristiansand Cannon Museum
The Kristiansand Cannon Museum, 8km south of town, preserves the Germans’ heavy Vara Battery, which, along with an emplacement at Hanstholm in Denmark, ensured German control of the strategic Skagerrak Straits during WWII. At each end, four 337-tonne, 38cm cannons, reportedly the second-heaviest guns in the world and with a range of 55km controlled traffic along either end of the strait, while the unprotected middle zone was heavily mined. In the autumn of 1941, over 1400 workers and 600 soldiers occupied this site. Visitors to the museum can see the big guns as well as bunkers, barracks and munitions storage (including some daunting 800kg shells).
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Norwegian Industrial Workers' Museum
This museum, 7km west of Rjukan, is in the Vemork power station, which was the world’s largest when completed in 1911. These days it honours the Socialist Workers’ Party, which reached its height of Norwegian activities in the 1950s. You won’t want to miss the 30-minute film If Hitler Had the Bomb, describing the epic events of war-time Telemark, nor the miniature power station in the main hall. There’s also an interesting exhibition about the worldwide race in the 1930s and ’40s to make an atom bomb. It consists of short films, touch screen exhibits, photos and dioramas.
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Lindesnes Fyr
Rising above the cape is the evocative Lindesnes Fyr, a classic lighthouse. In two of the buildings you’ll pass as you climb to the cape there are exhibitions on the history of the lighthouse, while the visitors centre next to the gate has more plus an informative video about the site. The first lighthouse on the site (and the first in Norway) was fired up in 1655 using coal and tallow candles to warn ships off the rocks. The current electrical version, built in 1915, is visible up to 19½ nautical miles out to sea. Be wary of strong winds: one Lonely Planet author lost his sunglasses in a sudden gust.
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Isegran
Fredrikstad Museum has another section on Isegran, an islet across the Glomma. Norse sagas mention the 13th-century fortress of Isegran, which later became a further line of defence against Sweden in the mid-17th century. The ruins of a stone (originally wood) tower remain visible at the eastern end of the island. It’s also the site of a small museum on local boatbuilding (from the time when boats were lovingly handcrafted from wood). Boats run between Isegran and Gamlebyen or the modern centre (Nkr6). By road or on foot, access is from Rv108, about 600m south of Fredrikstad city centre.
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Oscarsborg Fortress
Not to be missed is the imposing Oscarsborg Fortress which lies on an offshore island and dates back to the 1600s. It was the Oscarsborg batteries that sank the German warship Blücher on 9 April 1940, an act that saved the King and the Norwegian government from being captured. The fort museum was renovated in 2005 and open-air concerts and complete operas are held here throughout the summer. There is even a hotel, spa and restaurant on the island if you want to extend your stay.
Ferries to the island depart 14 times daily from the harbour from mid-June to mid-August.
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Vestfold County Museum
At the foot of Slottsfjellet (Castle Rock) at the northern end of town is Vestfold County Museum, a five-minute walk northwest of the train station. Highlights include displays on the excavation of the impressive Oseberg Viking ship (now shown in Oslo’s Viking Ship Museum), a collection of historic period-furnished farm buildings, and a section on Tønsberg’s whaling history, including skeletons of both a sperm whale and a blue whale. The latter, measuring 23m long, is the largest whale skeleton on display in the world.
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Aust-Agder Museum
The Aust-Agder Museum was first conceived in 1832, when the town authorities asked their globetrotting sailors to be on the lookout for items that may be of interest back home. The results are housed in the county museum, along with relics of Arendal’s shipbuilding, timber and import-export trades. The most interesting exhibits are those covering the ill-fated final journey of the slave ship Fredensborg, which went down off Tromøy in 1768; sadly those African slaves who survived were rewarded by being sold in the Caribbean.
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Egersund Kirke
There has been a church in Egersund since at least 1292. The cute, current manifestation, Egersund Kirke dates back to the 1620s; the carved altarpiece, a depiction of the baptism and crucifixion of Christ by Stavanger carpenter Thomas Christophersen and painted by artist Peter Reimers, dates back to 1607 and the baptismal font is from 1583. The cross-shaped design, intimate balconies and wonderfully decorated pew doors are all worth lingering over. An English-language sheet handed out at the door details the church’s history.
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Fredriksten Fortress
Crowning the hilltop behind Halden is the 1661 Fredriksten Fortress, which has resisted six Swedish sieges and never been captured. The museums in the castle grounds cover various facets of the fortress' history. Downhill from the main entrance, the War Museum contains military artefacts and a variety of information on Halden's experiences of war from 1660 onwards, including details on the Norwegian independence movement in 1905. A tunnel leads up into Prince Christian's Bastion - the main vantage point for the fortress defenders.
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Kongsten Festning
On what was once called 'Gallows hill' stands the flower-festooned Kongsten Festning . Dating from 1685, it once served as a lookout and warning post for the troops at nearby Gamlebyen. Although it can get overrun on summer weekends, this otherwise lonely and appealingly unkempt spot is a fun place to scramble around the turrets, embankments, walls and stockade, or just sit in the sun and soak up the silence.
It's a 10-minute walk southeast of the Gamlebyen drawbridge (turn off Torsnesvien at Fredrikstad Motell & Camping).
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Bilstadhuset
Some 92 homes, nearly two-thirds of the original town, were gutted by fire in 1843, after which Egersund was reconstructed with wide streets to thwart the spread of future fires. Most buildings in the old town date from this period. The Bilstadhuset still has its original timberwork and includes a sailmaker's loft upstairs.
The house is not open to the public, but the tourist office hands out a leaflet Strolling in Egersund which has a map and informative commentary.
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Eigerøy Fyr
Eigerøy Fyr, the majestic 1855 lighthouse on Midbrødøy, is near the southwestern tip of Eigerøy island. Still one of the most powerful lighthouses in Europe, it has great views at any time, but especially on stormy days. Take the Nord Eigerøy bus from the Rutebilstasjon and get off at the sign ‘Eigerøy fyr’ on the Rv502 (Nkr27, 15 minutes). From there, it’s a 30-minute walk down the Fyrvegen road to the lighthouse.
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Spiralen Tunnel
To get beyond the industry of Drammen, take a trip up the 1650m-long Spiralen tunnel to the 200m-high Bragernes for a lovely view, as well as good waffles at the Spiralentop Café. And if you still can't quite face the drive back down the six-spiral tunnel - reminiscent of a never-ending indoor parking lot - go for a walk in the Drammensmarka. Bus No 41 does the trip three times daily from Bragernes Torg (around NOK20, 15 minutes) on weekends during the summer.
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Dalane Folkmuseum
The Dalane Folkmuseum is divided into two parts. The more interesting main section features eight historic timber homes at Slettebø, 3.5km north of town just off the Rv42. The other section is the Egersund Fayance Museum, a walkable 1.5km northeast of town. It displays the history and wares of Egersund Fayance, the ceramic and porcelain firm that sustained the entire district from 1847 to 1979.
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