Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
sia, or the Balkans, Norway's stave churches might remind you of Orthodox
churches, which reflect the way all Christians once worshipped.)
When traveling through Norway, you'll be encouraged to see stave church
after stave church. Sure, they're interesting, but there's no point in spending
time seeing more than a few of them. Of Norway's 28 remaining stave
churches, seven are described in this topic. The easiest to see are the ones that
have been moved to open-air museums in Oslo and Lillehammer. But I prefer
to appreciate a stave church in its original fjords-and-rolling-hills setting. My
two favorites are both near Sognefjord: Borgund and Hopperstad. They are
each delightfully situated, uncluttered by more recent additions, and evocative
as can be. Borgund is in a pristine wooded valley, while Hopperstad is situated
on a fjord. Borgund comes with the only good adjacent stave church museum.
(Most stave churches on the Sognefjord are operated by the same preservation
society; for more details, see
www.stavechurch.com
.)
