Valestrand

Nordvik

Tveit

Søvik

Frette

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.

Lysøen

Lysøen, this fairytale castle with its Russian-inspired onion dome on the corner turret, stands as a reminder of the diversity of the period called Historicism and a monument to a versatile artist; a key figure in the Norwegian National Romanticism.

Sæbøtunet

When you come into the well-tended farm steading at Sæbø just above Etne centre, you get the impression of a Sunnhordland farm from well before the time of the tractor; from the time of the horse and the scythe. The hamlet at Sæbø, one of the farms neighbouring to Gjerde, was taken over by Sunnhordland Folk Museum in 1938.

Måbø

Måbø is the uppermost farm in Måbødalen. This narrow and steep mountain valley has been one of the routes from the fjord communities up to the mountain plateau from times immemorial. We are not certain of the meaning of the name Måbø. Perhaps it has its origin in an Old Norse male name Mávi, from the name for seagull, már. The last syllable “bø” means farm. Today Måbø gives us a compact close-up of the subsistence economy: the small farm with the clearance piles, stone walls and a lane that guided the animals into the yard, at the foot of the great mountain expanse.

Hjølmo

In the steep hillside in Hjølmodalen, a small side valley from Øvre Eidfjord (Upper Eidfjord), which has been a key entrance to the Hardanger Plateau, the hamlet of old farmhouses still lie clustered together. The yard is empty today, some of the houses are used in the summer, but the grass grows round all the corners.