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.

Pøyla

Ulven

In the region of Ulven phyllite occurs with Hordaland's youngest fossils, and a beautiful quartz conglomerate. The phyllite and conglomerate got squeezed into the bottom of an ancient oceanic crust, made of gabbro and greenstone, in the heart of the Caledonide mountain chain.

Sandviksfjellet

On Sandviksfjellet there are old boulders that have been made into mountains. The stones have been stretched out or squeezed together between huge slabs of rock, during slow, but powerfulprocesses of transport. This conglomerate shows, in quite a special way, the enormous powers that were active during the collision between Norway and Greenland over 400 million years ago.

Frette

Møkstrafjordøyane

The sea keeps the bedrock in the outer skerries smooth and clean. When the bedrock is also varied and interesting, the setting is perfect for a discovery tour of these bare-faced outcrops.

Hårteigen

Hårteigen, «the grey signpost», as the name suggests, is a landmark for mountain hikers on the western plateau. The piece of mountain is also a monument for the mighty rock layers that once covered the entire plateau.

Finnås

At Flintaneset by Finnåsvika, in the centre of the municipality, we find the most beautiful and best preserved igneous rocks in western Norway. We must go to Hawaii or Island to find as fine structures as at Bømlo.

Sålesnes

Jondal has one of the country’s oldest slate quarries. Roof tiles have been extracted here since the end of the 1700s, but the quarry is much older. Kvernurdi is mentioned in a diploma in 1421, when Bård Sigurdsson at Torsnes became the owner through a settlement. Already then it must have been customary to cut millstones here.

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.