Hardanger | Norwegian Nature Center

About

Over three floors, you can explore engaging exhibitions about nature, climate, and the environment. You can also follow the spectacular panorama film “Fjord – Mountain – Waterfall”. The Norwegian Nature Center is also the official visitor center for Hardangervidda National Park.

The Norwegian Nature Center is a modern activity and experience center for the whole family. On three floors, there are exciting exhibitions on Norwegian nature, climate, and the environment. The exhibition is designed as a journey through time and follows the history of the earth’s origins from 2.9 billion years ago until today. Here you can explore engaging and educational interactive stations, rock types, minerals, fossils, models, aquariums, thematical videos, and illustrations. By seeing, touching, and hearing, you will learn actively.

One of the highlights is the modern cinema with its large panorama screen. The film “Fjord-Mountain-Waterfall” shown here was produced in collaboration with the Norwegian filmmaker Ivo Caprino and gives you the feeling of flying over the landscape in a helicopter. Here you can see the Hardangervidda, the Hardangerfjord, spectacular waterfalls, steep mountain gaps, mountain lakes, glaciers, and a living flora and fauna from above and up close.

The Norwegian Nature Center is also the official visitor center for the Hardangervidda National Park. The Hardangervidda is Northern Europe’s largest high mountain plateau, characterized by a steep, dramatic mountain landscape to the west and gentler and less steep to the east. About half of the mountain plateau is protected as a national park.

The Hardangerviddahallen Restaurant & Café is right next to the visitor center. Here you can enjoy a good meal. The restaurant offers Norwegian cuisine and dishes made from local ingredients such as reindeer steak or mountain trout.

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