Otterstadstølen

Otterstadstølen lies in an idyllic grassy plain surrounded by rich forest, but also with high mountains close by. The mountainsides are steep and typical of this part of the county. The same cannot be said about the forest. This spruce forest has been able to develop freely for hundreds of years. Otherwise in the county, only Voss has spruce forest.

Stølsheimen

The large mountain area between Modalen, the Voss communities and Sogn is one of the finest mountain pasture areas in West Norway. In older times this area was called Steinslandsheimen, in our times it has acquired the name Stølsheimen. Power development and protection interests have been opposed here. The core area of Stølsheimen has now been protected as a landscape protection area, while some of the oldest mountain farms have been flooded. A register in the 1970s comprised almost 40 mountain farm settlements in the central area of Stølsheimen, belonging to Modalen, Høyanger and Vik municipalities.

Herlandsnesjane

Herlandsnesjane, a four-kilometre long peninsula in Lake Storavatnet in the middle of Osterøy, is well known among botanists. Here lies an unusually large and diverse bog.

Lake Nesheimvatnet

Skogafjellet

You have to travel to Scotland in order to find pine forests similar to those at Bømlo. The nearness to the sea has contributed in different ways to shaping one of the westernmost pine forests in Norway.

Sørøyane

Langebudalen

Støle

High above the sea and the beach flats, on one of the wide terraces shaped by the sea and the ice, lies the farm Støle (Stødle). The Old Norse name of Studla is derived from studill “support, shelf”. As far back as Viking times Støle has been a chieftain’s farm, a good farm on the plains formed by the moraine masses.

Fitjar- the King's farm

In front of Fitjar Church there is a memorial stone, sculpted by Anne Grimdalen and erected in 1961, for the thousand-year memorial of one of the most dramatic events in Norway’s history, the Battle of Fitjar. This was the place where Norway’s king, Håkon the Good, suffered his fatal injury in the fight with Eirik’s sons, probably in the year 961.

Rimbareid- Vestbøstad

At nesting time you cannot avoid hearing the calls of the curlew or the snipe along the narrow road through the cultural landscape from Rimbareid to Vestbøstad. And on late summer evenings, the intense song of the sedge warbler rings out over the two characteristic tarns in the area.