Engesund

For more than 350 years Engesund has been a place for hostelries and trading in the Fitjar islands. The place is centrally placed in the shipping lane, with a sheltered harbour close to the exposed Selbjørnsfjorden. Engesund was once part of the great network of historical stopover places on the coast.

Færøysund

The old trading post lies at the sound between Stord and Færøy in Langenuen. There was a country store and steamship forwarding agent up to 1964. The trade was then moved over to the new ferry harbour of Sandvikvåg.

Grønafjellet

Mountain plants with their beautiful, colourful flowers are common in high altitude areas in Norway. On the coast there are not so many of them. But, here and there one nonetheless finds mountain plants, and this makes some coastal mountainsides a little bit different. Perhaps the growth on these mountainsides gives us a little glimpse of a distant past?

Leirvik- The trading post

Already in the Middle Ages the good harbour at Leirvik provided a connecting point. Here was a court of law, and a guesthouse was established here in the 1600s. But Leirvik never achieved the status of a trading post or a ship-loading place. In the census of 1865 parts of the farms Nordre Bjelland, Leirvik and Orninggård are mentioned as the “Coastal district of Lervig”. And the community grew around the old guesthouse location early in the 1800s.

Sagvåg

The pit saw on the property of the farm Valvatna, is the origin of the name Sagvåg. The sawmill is mentioned as early as 1564. The name of the place at that time was Fuglesalt, but soon there is only talk of Saugvog.

Tveitavatnet

It is difficult to imagine that a plant can grow at the same place for many thousands of years: Climate and local environment change. Different species grow up and die out. Nonetheless, some plants get established, but don't manage to spread into new areas, because the climate is at the edge of what they can tolerate. Great fen-sedge is just such a plant.

Godøysund

The old hostelry centres were strategically placed with good harbours and anchoring conditions where people travelled. GODØYSUND, or Gøysundet, as it was called, was in the middle of Tysnes Parish, with easy access from the sea, also for the local population. Gøysundet is amongst the oldest hostelries in Sunnhordland.

Klinkholmen

Kubbervik, or Vikjo as it was known colloquially, must have been established as a trading post under the farm of Håland some time around 1600. The reason for this was probably the thriving trade on Scotland. Every year ships from the islands in the west came to buy lumber in Bårsund. Vikjo was the harbour in use, as the place is ideally situated on the route through Bårsund, the sound between Reksteren and Tysnesøy.

Neshamn

Neshamn must be an ancient place for meeting and spending the night for travellers. The place blossomed in connection with the times of economic expansion in the 1500s, which to a large extent was linked to the Scottish trade at this time. Neshamn was a loading place for Scottish ships for two hundred years, up to the middle of the 1700s.

Årbakka- The trading center