Valestrandfossen or ValestrandsfossenAccording to

Statens kartverk The Norwegian Mapping Authority (NMA) ( no, Statens kartverk ''or'' Kartverket, italic=invert) is Norway's national mapping agency, dealing with land surveying, geodesy, hydrographic surveying, cadastre and cartography. The current director is ...

SK Website
/ref> is a village in the municipality of

Osterøy Osterøy is an island municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the traditional district of Nordhordland. The municipality encompasses most of the island of Osterøy. The administrative centre of Osterøy is the village of Lon ...

, adjacent to

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

's second-largest city and municipality

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...

Vestland Vestland is a county in Norway established on 1 January 2020. The county is located in Western Norway and it is centred around the city of Bergen, Norway's second largest city. The administrative centre of the county is the city of Bergen, where t ...

county. It lies at Sørfjorden to the west and south of the municipal centre of Lonevåg. Sites worth mentioning include Hamre and

Hamre Church Hamre Church ( no, Hamre kyrkje) is a parish church of the Church of Norway in Osterøy Municipality in Vestland county, Norway. It is located in the village of Hamre. It is the church for the Hamre parish which is part of the Åsane prosti ( de ...

. Valestrandfossen has shops, a gas station, primary school, hairdressers, pubs, and Lerøy Fossen AS, the world's largest

trout Trout are species of freshwater fish belonging to the genera '' Oncorhynchus'', ''Salmo'' and ''Salvelinus'', all of the subfamily Salmoninae of the family Salmonidae. The word ''trout'' is also used as part of the name of some non-salmoni ...

smokehouse A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke Smoke is a suspension of airborne particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with t ...

Valestrandfossen is the largest settlement on the whole island of Osterøy. The village has a population (2019) of 1,303 and a

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...

of . Located by the Sørfjorden, it has a regular ferry (the ''MF Ole Bull'') that crosses the fjord to

Åsane Åsane is a borough of the city of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. The borough makes up the northern part of the city, north of the city centre. Åsane is connected to downtown Bergen by the E16/ E39 highway. The E16 highway continues on t ...

The famous Norwegian violinist and composer

Ole Bull Ole Bornemann Bull (; 5 February 181017 August 1880) was a Norwegian virtuoso violinist and composer. According to Robert Schumann, he was on a level with Niccolò Paganini for the speed and clarity of his playing. Biography Background Bull was ...

had his summer house here. In 1858, he bought a farm in Valestrand. The house was designed during 1865 by his youngest brother, architect

Georg Andreas Bull Georg Andreas Bull (26 March 1829 – 1 February 1917) was a Norwegian architect and chief building inspector in Christiania (now Oslo) for forty years. He was among the major architects in the country, and performed surveying studies and arche ...

. Ole Bull lived there for a time principally between tours. In 1872, he bought property on the island of

Lysøen Lysøen is an island in Bjørnafjorden in Vestland county, Norway. Lysøen is also the site of Villa Lysøen (''Ole Bulls villa på Lysøen''), the home of Norwegian violin-virtuoso and composer Ole Bull until his death in 1880. Villa Lysøen ...

in what is now

Bjørnafjorden Municipality Bjørnafjorden is a fjord in Vestland county, Norway. It runs through the municipalities of Austevoll, Bjørnafjorden, and Tysnes. The large island of Tysnesøya (and many small, surrounding islands such as Reksteren) lie along the south side ...

, south of

which became the primary residence of his family.

References

Villages in Vestland Osterøy {{Vestland-geo-stub