Art walk Nesbyen

A beautiful cultural trail with a lot of history.

For a detailed map, see this trip on Ut.no (Norwegian text only). Here you will also find more than 70 other hike suggestions in Nesbyen. See our favorite hikes on Visitnesbyen.com.

Length: Under 1 km

Time spent: Under 1 hour

Starting point: Sorenskrivergården or Hallingdal Museum.

Why is art history so rich in little Nesbyen?

Ove Gude and his family lived in Old Nes for a ten-year period in the mid-1800s and his son Hans Gude, who became one of Norway's great national romantic painters, painted many famous paintings here. He helped many Norwegian and foreign artists make their way to Nesbyen. In the Sorenskrivergården they were given accommodation by an art-interested host and here they were inspired by the life and the dramatic nature along the Rukkedøla river. On their way to western Norway, they found a small piece of national romantic Norway. Nesbyen became an important stopover and also became the starting point for study trips around Hallingdal. In this way, Nesbyen became central to the national romantic period in Hallingdal in the middle of the 19th century.

In old Nes you can today walk in the footsteps of these great artists. At selected places large copies of the pictures that were painted show the landscape they were inspired by.

Tour description:

The Nesbyen Art Trail (formerly called "In Gudes Footprints") starts at the Sorenskriver court, but you can start from the Hallingdal Museum. From the museum, continue up through the white gate on the right side of the reception building and past the mill house. The path leads all the way to the top where you can see "A mill dam", a motif painted by Hans Gude. Here is a nice view of a waterfall in Rukkedøla. When you reach the last easel about Joachim Frich you take the second path Follow it down to the stairs, past the old houses and down the Hallingdal Museum and on to the Sorenskrivergården.