Every design for Tvedestrand

From the quays at the head of the Oksefjorden, two streets climb steeply into Tvedestrand, past white-painted houses to the shops around Tjenna. The town sits in a narrow hollow with wooded hills on every side, and the streets wander uphill around the harbour without much regard for straight lines.

What makes Tvedestrand unusual is how much of its past still stands: more than two thousand of its buildings are over a hundred years old. The town grew from a landing place for the boats of local farmers and later became the shipping harbour for Næs Jernverk. Its name tells the story plainly: the strand of the Tveite farm. Tvedestrand museum - Forvaltergården holds that history today, and the town is also Bokbyen ved Skagerrak, Norway's largest book town.

Beyond the harbour, Tvedestrandfjorden opens towards an archipelago of islands such as Lyngør, Sandøy and Borøya, with nature reserves like Stakketoskjæret naturreservat out on the water and Vennevannsliene naturreservat inland. If you have spent a summer in a boat among those islands, you already know every bend of this map.