Day 8 Rosendal Part 2

Map of the Kvinnherad region....I would say it would be like our counties.

Here are some sheep on the Barony Rosendal land.

The sheep all  had little bells on them.  So you would hear the tinkling of all the little bells as we walked up to the Barony.

THe Barony had beautiful flowers on their grounds.

Here is the Barony and its rose garden

Makes for a lovely photo

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but we had a great tour and learned lots of history about the area and the Barony .  Here is a little history of the place from Wikipedia:

The history of Rosendal dates back to the 1650s, when the nobleman Ludvig Holgersen Rosenkrantz (1628-1685) came to Bergen as commissioner of war for the Danish king,Fredrik III. At a ball at the fortress of Bergenhus he met Karen Axelsdatter Mowatt (1630-1675), sole heiress to the largest fortune of the country at the time. Her father was a great land-owner and had more than 550 farms all over the western part of Norway. They married in 1658, and were given the farm of Hatteberg in Rosendal as a wedding present.^[2]

In 1661, Ludwig Rosenkrantz started building his own manor in Rosendal. He completed this in 1665. In 1678 King Christian V of Denmark gave the estate the status of barony - the only one of its kind in Norway. Around 1850, an expansive romantic garden was laid out around the manor.

The families of Rosendal were important people in the cultural life of Norway. Authors Henrik Ibsen, Jonas Lie and Alexander Kielland and painters Hans Gude and Anders Askevold visited Rosendal often. Musicians like Edvard Grieg and Ole Bull were guests here. Often there were concerts in Rosendal, a tradition which is still kept alive.

The first fall leaf in August.  :)

Trails around the Barony grounds

Day 8 Rosendal Part 2

 Love these tree shots.     However, it was much prettier in person.   The pictures can not capture the true feel and beauty that you see.

 Yes watch your step while going down this trail.  It goes straight down

some kind of fungus growing

Yes walking in the forest by the Barony was liking walking through a fairy tale.  No wonder such stories of gnomes and trolls developed in Europe.

Oh wow the sun came out about long enough for me to snap this picture.

 Sheep by the bed and breakfast.  As we were leaving I could smell dinner cooking as we walked by.  Oh it smelled so good.

The Barony's bed and breakfast

 Our room...very basic but clean and cheap.  Well cheap for Norway.  :)   Every hotel you would find your beds made up like this.  With the blanket inside a fitted sheet.  I like this much better and no nasty dirty bedspread to deal with.

 Rosendal Hotel

 inside the hotel


 The view from the hotel

 The Rosendal Hotel.  The season had just ended so the hotel was pretty empty.

 Rosendal

 Rosendal

 After touring the Barony we had some time to have a walk around Rosendal's rock garden.    They had placed various types of rock along a little trail.    It didn't take a us too long to see everything.

They must have activities out here during the summer for families and kids.  They had what looked like some kind of mining or panning for gold.

 Here are some cute little wooden boats on a stick that the kids can play with in the water.

 Found a map in Rosendal of the surrounding area.

 Sunde is where my ancestors came from!!!

We had dinner at the Fjord hotel.  The season was over for the year so we pretty much had the place to our self and got this great window seat overlooking the fjord 

 

Me hauling my gear leaving Bergen early in the morning.  We had to walk into town to catch a city bus to the airport to pick up our car.



Our little car

Below is a typical breakfast of bread, cheese, sliced meat and usually  boiled egg.

 At the Fjord hotel they made me a special gluten free dish!    It was good but really to spicy for me.

 One of many, many, many tunnels we went through.

One of they very few rest stops we saw while driving around.

 Notice the small roads through town.  Yes two lanes of traffic go through there.

It would be frustrating when all the scenery would be on the drivers side and I wanted to take a picture.  aaaaah

Almost there!

 Our first ferry ride and the largest ferry boat we took the whole trip.  

to the ferry

 Our car on the ferry

 Then we headed for the top to have a look

Then went inside to the nice waiting area.  Even had a little restaurant

 off the ferry

Watching the GPS

The Kvinnherad church that was built in 1250.  I wish we could have seen inside, but it was closed for the season.

 I saw lots of graves with my ancestors last names.

 The church was updated in 1824!  lol

Today we picked up our car at the Bergen Airport and then drove to Rosendal.    We only got turned around a couple of times, but did pretty good considering we are not used to Norwegian names and being able to driving on teeny tiny roads.  Some of their roads are no bigger than maybe a lane and half of ours with no shoulders.  eeek.  We have to share that with large trucks, bikes, while all the time weaving along side the mountain with rocks on one side and water of the fjords on the other.   The driving was the only thing that stressed me out about Norway.   At one point we had to stop and look at the map and we happened to pull into a grade school.  It was pouring rain and the kids are all out on the playground have a good time with their rain gear on.  They just learn to deal with the weather here.  Sun is not something they see a lot of.

I absolutely loved Rosendal.  It was one of my favorite towns of the whole trip.  Just beautiful.