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Odda around the turn of the former century, with the new Hotel Hardanger

Odda- The tourist town

27.05.2018 - 15:09

The pioneering tourists in the 1830s-40s brought a momentum in the tourist traffic to the fjord and mountain country Norway. At the time Odda was a hidden Shangri-La at the bottom of Sørfjorden; the farm and the church on the green headland at the fjord. But when the steamship traffic opened the fjord landscape for tourism, in a few years Odda parish in Søndre Bergenhus County became the focal point for travellers in West Norway.

The green Hisøya Island

Hisøya

18.06.2018 - 20:17

"I am going to prove to you that I am right". That is what the idealist and county doctor Christian Heitmann is supposed to have said in the early 1890s. He sat together with the parish priest, Kullmann, at Heitmann's home in Stord and discussed whether the islands in western Norway could have been forested or not. The priest thought that the area was too barren and weather-beaten for forest to have been able to grow so far out in the sea. But, Heitmann was sure he was right. He challenged the scepticism and set off to work.

From a soapstone quarry at Lykling

Lykling- soapstone

22.08.2018 - 15:58

The old limestone quarry is today rebuilt and become Moster Amfi.

Moster amfi

18.06.2018 - 20:18

Siggjo from the south. (Svein Nord)

Siggjo

18.06.2018 - 20:21

Siggjo is a cone-shaped, volcano-like mountaintop in the part of Hordaland where one finds the best preserved volcanic rocks. The rock types originate from one or several volcanoes that spewed out glowing lava and ash. But, the shape of the mountain, as it appears today, formed later and by completely different forces.

Bergesvatnet Lake with Skogafjellet to the left.

Skogafjellet

18.06.2018 - 20:21

You have to travel to Scotland in order to find pine forests similar to those at Bømlo. The nearness to the sea has contributed in different ways to shaping one of the westernmost pine forests in Norway.

Urangsvågen-Rubbestadneset

Urangsvågen-Rubbestadneset

07.12.2018 - 14:29

In 1868 the first stone workers came to Rubbestadneset to take out the granite for the Skoltegrunns Pier, predecessor of the Skoltegrunns wharf in Bergen. Later granite was also taken out from the area, around Innværs Fjord and UransvågenN. The activity probably peaked around 1900, with over 40 men at work. 15 years later, it was finished.

Buardalen and Buarbreen before 1880.

Buardalen Valley

24.06.2018 - 15:34

Buarbreen glacier was one of the first destinations during the period of increasing tourism in Odda in the 1800s. Foreigners came by the thousands, mostly Englishmen and Germans, to the magnificent landscape in front of the glacier. Back at the hotel in Odda they could enjoy drinks containing ice from the glacier.