Every design for Odda

Odda sits at the very end of the Sørfjorden, squeezed into a narrow valley between towering mountains, with the lake Sandvinvatnet to the south and the great Folgefonna glacier high above to the west. It is the largest town in the whole of Hardanger, and the main road runs straight through it.

Odda Vitensenter is one of the places on an ordinary day's route here, along with Odda Church in the centre and the hospital that serves the Hardanger region. Everyday life still carries the stamp of the industry that built the modern town: the smelters at the head of the fjord drew workers from every part of Norway. Before the factories, Odda was a tourist destination, with hotels for English pioneers and for the German Kaiser, who came every year.

Look up from almost any street and you see mountains such as Eidesnuten and Rossnos. Those peaks, with the glacier beyond them, are what Odda looks like to anyone who calls it home, and what is worth carrying away.