It's like a travel back in time, a long way back. If you ride the coastline of Norway – read my travel diary here – you will see sometimes not only nice beaches, strange little mountains and the wonderful views to the atlantic ocean. At a lot of places are fortresses from the WW2 too. They are all roundabout 80 years old and made by the german occupiers after their attack named „Weserübung“ at the April 9. 1940.
Norway, this beautiful dreamland for every hiker in scandinavia, at this time was a neutral state between the so called german „Reich“ and the allies. But the germans nevertheless came to the north to conquer Norway because the german industry needed the swedish iron and the norwegian havens. The norwegians fight hard, but they lost the battle.
And the germans begun, to build an 3.400 kilometerns long coastal fortress along the whole coastline of noway th prevent an feared invasion from die allies. The forifications included colossal coastal guns, batteries, mortars, and artillery, and thousands of German troops were stationed in the holes and a few baracks near by.
The leftovers of this wall made from bunkers and cannons along the Atlantic Ocean nowadays is an very special attraction for every tourist who come to Norway. There are abandoned bunkers, caves, gun positions and artillery stations, hidden behind artificial hills and under extra planted grass.
Some of the military installations are disintegrate, the most of the doors and bunker lids are rusty. You can hike along on easy ways, making pictures and marvel at the madness of mankind. But at Grønsvik Kystfort, one of the best preserved fortresses between Stokkvågen i Lurøy, you will find a museum the see original stuff from this short era of occupation. Here you can go down in bunkers and tunnels and walk under the surface through the dark rooms of yesterday for only 5 euro or 6 $.
Until the 70ths the Norwegian army modernisized parts of the german batteries and integrated them into the norwegian coastal defense. The Norwegians at this time were in fear for a russian invasion., so they had have soldiers at Sola Beach too. The bunkers here, near the airport of Stavanger, are right on the beach, grey monsters made of concrete, surrounded by heavenly beaches.
No tunnels and caves here, but you can go into the abysses of the command bunker the Germans builded to defend the supply route to the German Murmansk front and the much more important supply route for iron from the north of Sweden to Germany. All these buildings made from concrete, wood and steel, puzzled together from over 200 standardised armour parts, are a part of a wall stretched from the north cape of Norway down to the Spanish border.
It's maybe the greatest fortress after the chinese wall mankind ever build. And she was completely pointless because the anticipated invasion never come true.
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More from Norway
Walk into the rain
See the hidden streetart of Stavanger
Follow me trekking the Lysefjord
Let me show you the Kjeragbolden
Come with me to Preikestolen
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