Southern Norway - Norway - page 254

Information
The tourist office ( 32 29 90 50; www.visitkongsberg.no ; Schwabesgt 2;
9am-6pm Mon-Fri, 10am-2pm Sat late-Jun-mid-Aug, shorter hr rest of yr) is excel-
lent.
Getting There & Around
Hourly trains connect Kongsberg with Oslo (Nkr169, 1½ hours). Several bus companies
operate near-hourly buses between Kongsberg and Oslo (Nkr200, 1½ hours) as well as to
Notodden (Nkr100, 35 minutes).
If you're driving your own car and park in the town's supermarket car park, make sure you
take a (free) ticket otherwise you'll get nailed with a hefty fine (yes, we talk from experi-
ence - bitter experience).
The tourist office hires out bicycles for a cost of Nkr100 a day.
The Telemark Canal
The 105km-long Telemark Canal system, a series of lakes and canals that connect Skien
andDalen(withabranchfromLundetoNotodden),liftsandlowersboatsatotalof72min
18 locks. The canal was built for the timber trade from 1887 to 1892 by up to 400 workers.
Today, taking a slow boat along the canals is one of the highlights of a visit to southern
Norway. For some useful tourist information, check out www.visittelemark.com .
THE HEROES OF TELEMARK
In 1933 in the USA it was discovered that 0.02% of all water molecules are 'heavy',
meaning that the hydrogen atoms are actually deuterium, an isotope that contains an
extra neutron. Heavy water weighs 10% more than normal water, boils at 1.4°C high-
er and freezes at 4°C higher than ordinary water. Why does that matter? Because
such properties are sufficient to stabilise nuclear fission reactions, making heavy wa-
ter invaluable in the production of an atom bomb.
During WWII in Norway the occupying Germans began building a heavy-water
production plant at Vemork, near Rjukan. In response, Allied insurgents mounted