Eidfjord church

The old stone church at Eidfjord has an open position on the terrace at Lægreid. In a diploma from 1310 it transpires that Torgeir on Sponheim donated a gift for the erection of the church in Eidfjord. Thus we can assume that the church was under construction at the time. The elements in the style confirm such a dating.

Einstapevoll- the farm

Einstapevoll (from einstape: “bregne” (fern)) lies on the west side of the Tittelsnes peninsula. Up to 1831 the farm was a vicarage belonging to Stord parish. The priests had leasing rights. Land rent and other fees from the farm was part of their salaries.

Froastad

Halne

At Halnefjorden, a few hundred metres east of Halne mountain lodge, lie the remains of two stone sheds – Halnelægeret. Some generations ago the cattle drovers stopped here in the summer; they were the cowboys of their time. But Halnelægeret already had a long history before the cattle drovers came.

Hausberget

Hårbrekke

Tangarås

From his loft window on the doctor’s farm at Tangarås the young Hans Ernst Kinck had a view of the fjord and the Mauranger mountains. The fjord settlements in West Norway made a strong impression on the young boy when his family moved from Setesdal, from “the stifling mystique of the ballad”, to Strandebarm in 1876. The new district doctor bought the old captain’s farm at Tangarås, which had for some time been a military head farm after Håbrekke further into the settlement.

Vangdal

At Salthamaren in Vangdalsberget it is thought that salt was burned some time in history, and deep layers of coal in the ground show that fire has been made up here several times. But they were hardly salt-burners, the first people who stopped here. Some of them carved figures into the rock. On top of the rocky outcrop, furthest out on the cliff, a group of Stone Age hunters carved animal figures. More than 1,500 years later Bronze Age farmers drew ship figures at the foot of the rock. Both these works of art - some of the oldest in Hordaland – are still visible, carved in the rock at Salthamaren.

Vikøy

Through Adolph Tidemand’s detailed close-ups of smokehouses in Kvam, the vicarage in Vikøy, where he lived during his painting trips through Hardanger, has obtained a central position in the Norwegian national romanticism.

Øvre Folkedal

Folkedal, which today is like a small “detour” from the main highway, was in the Middle Ages centrally situated in one of the most important roads between Hardanger and Voss. This is the road that Olav Haraldsson travelled in 1023, when he came from the royal farm at Avaldsnes for a meeting with the Voss inhabitants about the new belief. The road passes across the mountain pasture Krossaset and down Bordalen to Vangen.