BesteBakken was originally a small mountain farm and was built by Ola Olson Alme. Alme was born in 1885 and he came into the property in dowry through his marriage to Brita Tang, the daughter of the Tang family of Hafslo. He built the house himself in 1910 when the couple were newlywed. Ola and Brita had three children, but only two survived to adulthood. According to village lore, Brita was the prettiest girl in the town of Hafslo. She was born in 1889 and only lived to be 29 years old. Eight years after she married Ola, more precisely in September 1918, she died of the Spanish Flu and Ola was left a widow with two small children to care for. He never re-married and lived alone on the farm until he passed away in 1964.
Ola spent much of his time traveling around the county in order to find enough work to sustain himself and his two children, who, according to Svein Solheim and Per Tang, spent much of their childhood with relatives on the Alme farm. Svein and Per remember well what it was like at BesteBakken when they were little. Ola kept a hired hand who helped on the farm. There were cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens in the cowshed and the water to run the farm came from the nearby well. There was also an outhouse on the property, which was typical for farms from this time period. There was no road up to the farm so goods were transported by horse or on foot and electricity first came to BesteBakken in 1945 after the Second World War.
Getting here
The flight from Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport to Sogndal takes 40 minutes, and from Bergen’s Flesland to Sogndal the flight is only 20 minutes.
BesteBakken is a 35 minute trip from Sogndal’s Haukåsen Airport.
We provide transport to and from Sogndal Airport as well as from other locations in Norway.
By car or bus from Oslo via Gol or Fagernes: 320 km (E16)
By car or bus from Bergen via the Lærdals Tunnel or the Vikafjellet pass: 230 km
By car or bus from Trondheim over the Sognefjellet pass: 430 km
For timetables see: www.ruteinfo.net
