This summer, I went to see relatives in the most southerly point of western Norway called Flekkefjord. Flekkefjord is unique because, while being a large and deep Fjord (much bigger than our Killary), it is situated near what is called an amphidromic point. This means that even though the water is saltwater, there is almost no rise and fall in the tides.
These amphidromes occur where there is interference in the ocean basins causing what is called the ‘coriolis effect’. The result of the effect is an extremely safe harbour not subject to the usual battering of the sea and tides.
For the inhabitants of Flekkefjord, this stable sea allows them to build their houses directly over the water, with garages for boats underneath each house. Indeed, the residents use their boats to get around as much as they do their cars. Children in the area are taught from an early age how to handle a boat.
The Fjord is well developed, with ship-building and engineering factories hidden in the sharply undulating landscape around the town. Industrial and residential zones are carefully separated with a typically Nordic sense of the quality of life. Beautiful classic timber cabins are dotted in the steep, wooded hills all around, some of them hundreds of years old and still in good shape.
Flekkefjord has been in existence as a centre of commerce since 1580 and must have been a secure lair for the Vikings before that. The port was a point of exit for Norwegian stone supplied to the Dutch for street paving, and was an early centre of the herring trade before inland fisheries were exhausted. Timber was, and continues to be, a staple export of the region. During the Napoleonic wars, smugglers shipped timber to the Dutch who were under French occupation at the time. The smuggling ships could move their cargo at any time of day or night because there were no tides to worry about.
Nowadays, on the surface at least, Flekkefjord is the model of Scandinavian stability, relaxed people enjoying a good standard of living in astonishingly beautiful surroundings.
But everything in the garden is not rosy; the political situation in Norway has become very unstable in recent years. Successive coalition governments have struggled to reach their full terms as the traditional left/ right political blocs have fragmented into smaller, more fractious groupings.
To my mind, there is no real reason for Norway to be in this situation given they are sitting on the fourth largest reserve of oil in the world. But the taxes and huge increases in the cost of living have slashed living standards, and public services that were once the envy of the world have deteriorated sharply.
There was another general election in the last few weeks but the result again appears to have been indecisive. Here’s hoping whatever coalition emerges from post-election horse-trading manages to get the place moving again.
Politics aside, living in Flekkefjord must be a little bit of paradise. You are surrounded by beautiful scenery, totally unspoilt, as it is real back country, far from Norway’s big cities, and is used by many metropolitan Norwegians as their rural bolt hole.
The atmosphere here is laid-back and friendly, with a wonderfully-preserved town centre that is accessible by both car and boat. Norway has never been a popular tourist destination for people from these shores, but in summer it is as good a place to visit as any of the southern European tourist traps.
The nearest airport is Stavanger, about 100 miles north of Flekkefjord, so from Dublin I had to fly to Oslo and then connect on up to Stavanger. Norway’s currency is the Norwegian Kroner and they are outside the EU, so avail of the duty free if you go.
Top: Flekkefjord railway station in 1908.
Below: Flekkefjord today.
