The second Hotel Hardanger in Odda was built in 1896.
The second Hotel Hardanger in Odda was built in 1896. Apart from Stalheim and Holmenkollen (in Oslo) this was one of the biggest tourist hotels in the country. (Knud Knudsen, owner: Billedsamlingen, Universitetsbiblioteket i Bergen (KK 550(21x27))).
The Tourists, the Landscape and the Fantasy Hotels
Tourist travel in western Norway experienced its great breakthrough with the regular scheduled steamship traffic. In 1853 the route between Hamburg and Bergen opened and from 1861 tourists and other travellers could take the steamship further up the fjord to Hardanger. It was then that Ananias Dekke got the newly built steamship “Vøringen” going.
The coaching station at Seljestad belonged to the generation before the tourist hotels. Photograph from the 1880s. (Axel Lindahl, owner: Norsk Folkemuseum (W 1879 1)).
When the large tourist ships anchored up in the bay outside Eidfjord around the turn of the former century, the horse coaches were lined up in great numbers.(Anders P. Wallevik, owner: Hardanger Folkemuseum (HFU-WA 1864)).
The road up Hordalia, or the Håre Slopes, with Breifond Hotel in the background. (Skøien (1898), owner: Riksantikvaren (ark. nr. B 275)).
The second Stalheim Hotel with a view down Nærøydalen, was one of the most magnificent tourist hotels in Norway. (Skøien (1898), owner: Riksantikvaren (ark. nr. B 281)).
Salmon fishing was a great attraction at Sæbø Hotel in upper Eidfjord. (Anders P. Wallevik, owner: Hardanger Folkemuseum (HFU-WA 834)).
The imposing dining room in the second Hotel Hardanger was decorated with Lars Kinsarvik’s wood carvings and Nils Bergslien’s national romantic pictures. (Skøien (1898), owner: Riksantikvaren (ark. nr. B 276)).