Difference between revisions of "Telemark"

Revision as of 09:03, 2 October 2012

Telemark is a county in East Norway.

In the east of the county is the area called Grenland, which includes Skien, Porsgrunn and Langesund.

Cities

• Brevik - a seaside town with a bacallao festival.
• Bø - a small village in the heart of Telemark. Major attraction is Bø Sommerland.
• Kragerø - a seaside town which attracts many tourists in summer.
• Langesund - a seaside town with many concerts at Wrightegaarden in summer, also has a fish festival and a sea shanty festival.
• Notodden - holds a yearly blues festival in August.
• Porsgrunn - a town with a yearly street theater festival.
• Rjukan - a town deep in a valley that the sun doesn't reach there during winter. Also the home of the Industrial workers museum and the
• Skien - a town where the famous author Henrik Ibsen was born

heavy water sabotage mission during WWII

• Vrådal

Other destinations

• Nome - a municipality

• Gaustadtoppen - The highest mountain in south Norway.

• Rauland - Mountain Village in Vinje, Telemark.

• Haukeli - Mountain Village in East of Vinje, Telemark. Huge skidestination during winter.

Understand

Talk

Norwegian is the main language (but beware of difficult dialects). Almost all Norwegians speak English well enough to help tourists with anything.

Get in

By air: Telemark is served by two airports with scheduled flights, Skien Geiteryggen Airport and Notodden Airport.

Nearby Sandefjord Airport Torp [1] has direct flights from many european cities. From there, take either the gratis shuttle bus to the nearby train stop ("Torp Sandefjord Lufthavn") [2] and the train to Porsgrunn or Skien.

By car: E18, the main road of Eastern and Southern Norway, passes through Telemark in the districts of Porsgrunn, Bamble and Kragerø.

By bus: Lots of buses from Oslo, around 270NOK/person.

By train: From Oslo, one train (usually 20+ years old set with gratis wi-fi (but you need to register account online), but sometimes a very old set) goes along the coast to Porsgrunn (3h30m) and Skien (3h45m). Another, newer train set goes to Nordagutu, Bø (2h7m), Lunde and Drangedal. Do not put wet luggage on the overhead, as it will drip down on you.

Get around

By city bus Metrobuss [3] covers the urban parts of Skien, Porsgrunn and Bamble. A single adult ticket is 30NOK.

See

Ibsen's Venstøp, Skien - The place where the world-famous writer Henrik Ibsen was born.

• Telemarkskanalen (The Telemark Canal). Telemarkskanalen was hewn out of the rocks by hand, and stretches 105 km from Skien to Dalen in west and to Notodden in east. The Canal consists og eight locks with a total of 18 lock chambers, and a difference in height of 72 metres. The first part was completed in 1861 (Norsjø -Skien) and the Bandak Canal in 1892.

Itineraries

Do

Eat

Drink

Stay safe

Telemark is considered extremely safe. There is really no need to avoid any places at any time, although you should probably not provoke drunk people in taxi lines around 2AM-3AM.

Get out