Bondhusdalen

The Bondhus area in Maruanger has been a magnet for tourists ever since the stream of tourists to Norway's west coast began in the middle of the 1800s. The magnificent landscape with the "ice trail" up to Bondhusvatnet Lake, the ice falls from Bondhusbreen glacier and Keisarstigen trail up to Folgefonna are still popular tourist attractions.

Tveito

Undarheim

Folgefonna

The glacier is not only white – it is full of colour. The colours have several sources: glacial flour, desert dust, or living algae. And the light refraction in the ice creates cool, bluish nuances – a masterpiece of the interaction between cold and light.

Bjørsvik

The industrial settlement Bjørsvik

Brekke

Myrkdalen

SJUR BYGD

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.

Buardalen Valley

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.

Mosnes

The permanently-protected Mosneselva River, with its meltwater from Folgefonna, runs out into Åkra Fjord by the roadless and uninhabited Mosnes. Those who once lived here were forced to surrender to the ravages of Nature. In the autumn of 1962 there was a flood so great that the people were driven from their farms.