The Tourists, the Landscape and the Fantasy Hotels
Tourist travel in western Norway experienced its great breakthrough with the regular scheduled steamship traffic.
The City and the Stril country
The relationship between Bergen and its neighbouring districts, normally known as “Strilelandet”, has, over the centuries, given rise to greater conflicts than the contacts between any other Norwegian city and its nearest hinterland.
The Urban Settlements
The development of urban settlements after 1850 is a historic process of great significance for the cultural landscape. Besides the great land reforms and the new ways of working in agriculture, the changes in the settlement pattern and the building of a road network with roads, bridges and cuttings were the single factors which have most significantly contributed to the metamorphosis of the county’s physical visage in the last 150 years.
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 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.
Demographic Growth – A Drive to Development
The cultural landscape or that part of it which is still green and inviting to the eye has been shaped by the farmers’ toil down through the generations. At one time almost all of us were farmers. We see that the crofting system faded away as emigration to the towns and to America relieved the pressure.
Hardangervidda – Crossing the Uplands
Slepa, the ancient “drove roads” across the plateau, date back to prehistoric times. Through the centuries cattle have been driven to the markets in the east; the people of Hardanger went on their trading journeys with tallow and salt to the mining town and silver mines of Kongsberg, and soldiers and other travellers also used these roads.
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.
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.