The other thing of note. No warning signs, no fences or barriers.
This is a must see place with tremendous views from the side of a Fjord. It takes 2 hours to walk to the top and we used even minute allocated. It was a Saturday and the number of people was astounding. Also astounding was the ages of those who walk up - very elderly, mothers carrying toddlers in backpacks and lots of people bring their dogs. I had said once before they take their dogs everywhere and this was no exception. The walk up was mostly rough track of rocks with an occasionally flat portion - but mostly up. The rock towers 604 meters above the Lysefjord - straight down. The other thing of note. No warning signs, no fences or barriers.
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One item on our must see list was the Heddal Stave Church near Notodden (west of Drammen). These churches are all constructed from pine and some of the timbers date from 1300AD. Some of the timbers used have been dated to as early as 800AD so have probably been recycled from an earlier church. The church is built as a frame on a stone floor with large pine logs as the corner supports. The one at Notoden is the largest in Norway and there are believed to be more than 25 still in existence. Obviously fire is a great risk and many have had restorations and repairs over the centuries. The original pine timbers did not split as do the modern timbers. Why? Because the process of creating timber for the stave was to: find a really big tree, cut the top and large branches off and leave it for 10-15 years. This caused all the sap to be drawn back into the tree. Then cut it down and leave it for another year, then build a church. None of the older timbers split. Modern timber is kiln dried and splits. The inside of the Heddal church is decorated with patterns, the original catholic scenes being painted over after the Reformation when Norway became Protestant. There are no windows and originally there were no benches. The bells from this church had to be removed to a separate bell tower in the mid 1850s after the weight started to pull the walls inward. Later we saw another Stave church at Eidsborg as we happened to drive past. it is one of the best preserved and still a local church. heddal stave churcheidsborg stave |
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