Bergtatt, Marvellous Marble Mine

Bergtatt, Marvellous Marble Mine

                                     

A chandelier in the marble mine that we would be visiting.

                                      

The bridge across the entrance to Kristiansund.

                                       

A view of the harbour at Kridtiansund, and just a little further on is the Klippfisk Lady, a statue of a lady holding a klipfisk for which the town is famous. The city's wealth was created by selling salted cod known locally as klipfisk whereas stock fish is air dried cod...

...and the stone built church on the far side of the harbour...

...the town's waterfall...

...the Atlantic tunnel 5.7 kilometres long and up to 250 metres below sea level. Newly built tunnel and bridges have a toll to repay the cost of construction but once the costs are recovered, passage is free.

The stone circle where king Harald Fairhair swore to unite Norway, which at the time was a divided area with chieftains and minor kings governing just their own area. He was in love with a beautiful women, the daughter of a rich family but her response to his proposal of marriage was that she would only marry the king of Norway,

Harald Fairhair swore an oath in that stone circle tat he would not shave his beard or cut his hair until he had united Norway. He set about his task and by 885AD he had united the country and married his love.

It was a long drive through forest and countryside. There are a lot of deer in the forests but only a few moose as they don't like each other. Where there is a lot of one, there are few of the other. The bears were hunted and were either killed or moved away. The top predators here today are wolverine and the elusive lynx, although we saw no big animals.

The shore line is littered with small islands and sherries sticking out of the water making navigation difficult in these shallow waters. 

We were driving along the Atlantic Road.

The Atlantic Road is only eight kilometres long but it has eight bridges connecting a series of small islands.

The sunset.

A memorial to lives lost at sea.

And then it was the main event for which the Atlantic Road is so well known, the bridge and road that featured in the James Bond film, No Time to Die.

No need for any text...just pictures, poor quality as the light was behind the bridge and failing fast.

There is a coastal path around the island at the eastern end of the bridge but it only takes 15 minutes to amble around the island.

Another view of the bridge...

...and a picture of the road disappearing into the sky.

The view from the coach at the top of the bridge looking down at two more islands and two more bridges before reaching the mainland. The cost of this bridge was recovered far quicker than expected due to the number of tourists visiting it. 

On one stormy night, the weather was so rough that it destroyed the toll booth and the locals were delighted to have toll free access for a week until the booth was reinstated. 

We passed through Eide, famous for its stone, especially for tombstones. We parked underground outside the entrance to the visitor centre formed out of a massive chamber left after the marble had been exhausted from this particular part of the mine.

There was an entrance to another chamber called the Grand Hall. There were facilities in one corner...

...and marble chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

A detail of one of the chandeliers, weighing 300 kilos...

...another chandelier weighing 700 kilos... 

We put on helmets and life jackets and boarded some boats to take us through some of the flooded former mine workings. An electric light but made to look like a shimmering paraffin lamp.

Some chandeliers with the lights reflected off the surface of the water.

The Mountain Goddess.

An underground reception area. The desk is made from marble with ordinary lights behind it and shining through the marble.

A detail of the chandelier.

The water  is full of minerals with a ph of 8.4 so it is alleged to be very beneficial and we had a tasting. Then it was time to show some tricks, such as shining a torch through a polished slab of marble. The white is pure marble, the black is host rock and the red and oranges are where minerals have leached into the marble to give it colour.

A piece of pure marble sitting on top of a torch and the light is defused in all directions by the marble.

Leaving the reception area with underwater lights illuminating the crystal clear waters which in places is up to 12 metres deep. We navigated through several more flooded tunnels on silent electric boats back to the concert hall.

One of the wall lights in the concert hall.

The stage and the tables set in front of it. We were treated to some beef soup and bread as we watched a pop concert that had been recorded in the underground concert hall.

Off to one side was a large collection of miners' lamps dating as far back as 1850s although this mine had only started in 1930s.

After our soup, we watched a documentary film of work in the marble mine and the use of explosives to break down the solid rock to manageable rubble.  The tunnels are wide and high for the giant Caterpillar trucks and bulldozers to move the marble to the crushers. Most of the marble mined here is for use in the paper industry to produce those glossy magazines. Only when they receive an order for a block of marble to be cut and polished into chandeliers or furniture do they have to carefully extract a block of marble.

At the end of the tour, we rebounded the coach and drove out of the mine and back along the road to reach Molde, the city of roses. It was English nobility the first saw the roses grown here so far north. The Gulf stream runs past Molde and gives it just the right climate for growing roses and they called it the City of Roses and the name stuck.

Molde is also known as the city of literature as Norways first Nobel prize winner for literature came from here. It is also known as the city of jazz as there is a big jazz festival in July every year with artists performing from all over the world. So much going on for a town that I hadn't heard of before.

We passed the statue of a women with a basket, the Flower Woman. During the summer, her basket is filled with fresh roses. We were dropped off at the harbour and we saw our ship come into port and berth. We went aboard as some passengers and some of the crew who had finished their tour of duty got off and in no time at all, we were on our way.