Bjørsvik

The industrial settlement Bjørsvik

Folk Music and the Hardanger Fiddle

It is in Hordaland County that we find the oldest traces of a folk music stemming from our national instrument, the Hardanger fiddle. And it is still this musical tradition which is characteristic of folk music here.

A True Gold Mine

Local Dialects in Hordaland

Language tells us both about social distance and human contact in many different ways. The dialects show how people who have had connections and dealings with one another throughout the ages, have developed a common language.

Skaråsmyri

Cultural Heritage and Cultural Landscapes

The development which culminated in the great west Norwegian clustered communities in the 18th and 19th centuries, such as we see at Havrå on Osterøy Island, actually first came into being in Viking times, with an incipient division of the farms into smaller units.

The Literary Landscape

Naturopplevinga hjå lyrikarane våre gjev ofte vår eiga landskapsoppleving ein djupare resonnans-botn, men styrken i naturens krefter kjem også fram, i mektige epos om fjellet og om havet.

The Artist and his Experience of Nature

På ferd mot vest over Hardangervidda opplever vi det dramatiske panoramaet når vidda går over i djupe bergkløfter og høge fossefall – eit utsyn som har fascinert kunstnarane.

Church Art – a Message in Pictures

In the still and dim church interiors of the Middle Ages the performances of belief came to life in the gleam from the wax candles. Here the essential articles of faith were presented, here the church was presented through holy men and holy women and here the events from the Gospels were told: the angels with Maria, the birth of the baby Jesus, the Three Wise Men, the history of the drama of the Passion and the victorious Christ.

The Tourists, the Landscape and the Fantasy Hotels

Tourist travel in western Norway experienced its great breakthrough with the regular scheduled steamship traffic.