Ystås

Smedholmen

Årskog

Årskog farm is situated in a typical coastal landscape in a gentle terrain that slopes down from the outlying heaths down towards the fjord. The farm steading exists as it was in the 1800s. In 1980 the two brothers, Lars and Olai Årskog donated the farm with all its contents of tools and interior decoration, for museum purposes.

Ådlandsstova

The Ådland house is one of the biggest medieval houses still existing in West Norway. It is constructed from unusually large, hard fir wood, beautifully oval-cut. One story links the cottage to the Gildeskålbakken at Orninggård (Lower Ådland); thus indicating that the cottage has been the medieval banqueting hall. The building has been dated back to the 13-1400s by carbon dating.

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.

Havrå

In the sunny, steep fjord landscape along Sørfjorden on the east side of Osterøy is the farm Havrå. The small “hamlet” is one of the few undisturbed farming communities that gives us the impression of the large communal yards in West Norway in the 1700s, with houses built close together and strips of arable land.