Kirkehamm, Norway
We traded the bustle of Bergen for the quiet charm of Kirkehamm, a tiny village on the island of Hidra. A village so small in fact, that an experienced local sailor in Bergen yesterday insisted that I was making up the name of this village when I told him of our plans for the morrow. As far as this man knew, it didn't exist. However, the above photo and the lovely experience we had exploring the charm of this hamlet certainly proved him wrong. Here, well off the standard tourist trail, we found fisherman and fish plants, gardeners and greenery, fascinating scraps of history, and even an old fish processing “ice plant” that has been converted to a restaurant. (And I dare say that the apple pie and other pastries they turned out for us were far more scrumptious than the herring of yesteryear.) For those wishing to stretch their legs, Shaun Powell led a hike to the ridgeline that overlooks the protected harbour. The view (pictured) is magnificent and this point was not lost on the German army in the 1940s – during their occupation of Norway they built a small fortress here and dug in well. We wandered around the remains of their structures and viewed the guns, observation posts, bunkers, and houses. Today the crumbling remnants are inhabited only by a small flock of curious sheep, a smattering of songbirds, and, on this damp day, an intriguingly large population of large black slugs.
We traded the bustle of Bergen for the quiet charm of Kirkehamm, a tiny village on the island of Hidra. A village so small in fact, that an experienced local sailor in Bergen yesterday insisted that I was making up the name of this village when I told him of our plans for the morrow. As far as this man knew, it didn't exist. However, the above photo and the lovely experience we had exploring the charm of this hamlet certainly proved him wrong. Here, well off the standard tourist trail, we found fisherman and fish plants, gardeners and greenery, fascinating scraps of history, and even an old fish processing “ice plant” that has been converted to a restaurant. (And I dare say that the apple pie and other pastries they turned out for us were far more scrumptious than the herring of yesteryear.) For those wishing to stretch their legs, Shaun Powell led a hike to the ridgeline that overlooks the protected harbour. The view (pictured) is magnificent and this point was not lost on the German army in the 1940s – during their occupation of Norway they built a small fortress here and dug in well. We wandered around the remains of their structures and viewed the guns, observation posts, bunkers, and houses. Today the crumbling remnants are inhabited only by a small flock of curious sheep, a smattering of songbirds, and, on this damp day, an intriguingly large population of large black slugs.
