Previous leg:Bakke-Halden

Next leg:  Berg-Ingedal 

Presented by Milly Marmot
April 21, 2013

In the middle of April I started off from the main square in Halden, which lays very close to the train station. I ended up at Berg, 6 km later. Short, but interesting!

Isn’t this fortress mountain terrific? I would not mind to live up there for a while…

This is the southernmost Norwegian town with a border to Sweden, and Fredriksten fortress was built as late as 1660.  Norway had lost a part of its ground to Sweden, and hence also the former border fortress, so a new one was needed to keep those fierce Swedes out…

Well, I had to turn my back to this one, and walk on towards the forest in the distance.

By the way, I am quite sure that the view from the fortress looks somewhat like this:

This is the first fellow I met in Halden. Friendly enough, but he was not interested in joining me for the day.

The walking bridge across the river Tista is quite sculptural.

When summer comes, there will probably be a few more people hanging around here, so this safety equipment seems useful:

I wonder if someone has had a deliberate symbolic thought behind this combination, like “the way – a life buoy for pilgrims”?

My next unexpected observation was this one:

Do the children run to get away from the Panasonic Audio*Video – or the opposite?

Next I came across this phenomenon – a traffic sign that change color during winter time, just like the mountain fox. Peculiar.

At the other end of the Rødsbakken street you find yourself here:

And as you get even closer, you learn that it is wise to spend quite a few hours here when passing by. You can even take a tour inside:

So do I want to live high up at the fortress or should I rather settle here, in this big green park with roses and structured elements? A difficult choice for a mountain marmot…

A difficult decision until I turned around and got convinced:

No comment…

As you notice, temptations can emerge when you expect them the least. Time to walk on!

This old monument gave me something to think about:

A glimpse of the garden:

And then straight into the park:

Someone seems to have been tagging on the stone formations. I had to run up for a closer look:

So: CA = Christian August. Once in command of the fortress in Halden. Then he became Crown Prince of Sweden. Adopted in 1809 by a Swedish king who had no children. But he fell off his horse and died, so he never inherited the throne. Then the French Karl Johan was adopted instead. He initiated the building of the Royal Castle in Oslo. So Oslo may have looked different today if CA had lived longer.

I feel tempted to step in here: “Milly – Friend of Norway”

Well. Enough talking. Walk on!

Soon I entered a nature park:

It was not very wild at this time of the year. I hope to get back later to search for the jungle feeling…

But I did come by a fresh clay slide. I am happy I was not around when the “splosh” came…

All of a sudden I thought I got something in my eyes…:

A peculiar place, so I ran off. This was a better sight:

Nothing lasts forever, and this will hopefully be in function for another few years.

In other connections you would be more than happy if you could get hold of something just within a day:

Brødløs = “The bread is out”. The name is supposed to origin from an old military camp in this area, where the soldiers never received enough bread, and probably they did not get cakes either…

From this spot the trail winds another mile along the brook through the woods. Then the surroundings alter and become both civilised and international at the same time:

Observe that my photographer was so eager to get inside this shop (closed on Sundays) that she in despair tried a trick from “Mary Poppins”. I had no desire to be consulted by this dog, so I was just happy to move on.

Just across the road a dump was accompanied by this sign. Englekor=”Angel Choir” is the name of an old farm in the area. I wonder what happened there, way back in time?

It felt quite natural that the next sight was this manhole cover, with the text:
“Halden 1665 -God With Us”

Then, once again I got a peculiar filter feeling:

As suddenly I got back to reality.

A pleasant farming landscape showed up. In Norway I have never seen a fence like this. Could they perhaps have relatives in America?

Here is another sign about children playing. Note – in the city the children were running together. Here in the countryside they play alone, in the speed of a slug…

But where are they? Here? Ho-ho?

No. Complete silence. I had to keep going, so I never found out.

Another unexpected sign – “The beetle slope terrace”?! Does anyone want to live there? I had to google that, and I found that in the old days there existed some noble men in Denmark/Norway with the last name Bille, so I really hope that the name origin from them and not from some local colony of beetles…

Further up in the hill some engineers still have a job to finish. Even a marmot can judge that this won’t work!

The last temptation on this tour was this bus stop sign, but the goal was visible right behind it, so the sign was easy to filter out:

No need for a map when the path goes like this:

And there it was – Berg Church – 900 years old.

A big stone monument on the outside was made around year 1600:

I wonder how many persons have been scared by that one through 400 years…

When I get back for the leg from Berg to Ingedal, I will take a photo of the English translation of this text. Until then you can enjoy the fact that the Baptismal Font is as old as the church, and the walls are 2 meters thick at the ground level.

Next leg towards Oslo: Berg-Ingedal