Larkollen, Norway

Larkollen is a village in Rygge municipality, Norway. Its population is 1,382. Larkollen was the landfall on the main route between Oslo (then called Christiania) and Copenhagen for several centuries. The lee side of the islands Sletter, Eldøya, and Kollen south and west of Larkollen was an easily accessible harbor in all kinds of wind, which also was easy to defend. Sometime in the early 19th century the landfall was moved north to Jeløya outside of Moss.

In the early 20th century Larkollen, which today is known as a sleepy suburb for Moss, became a prime summer destination for well-to-do families from Oslo and Fredrikstad. The summer houses built by these families still dominate the coastline and the islands at Larkollen. From then until about 1980, two summer hotels operated in Larkollen. In 2010 only one hotel remains, which was torn down. A new one is called the Støtvig hotel after the valley that lies near there.

Anthon B. Nielsen, a wealthy sawmill owner from Fredrikstad, is credited with being the first of many summer guests in Larkollen. He built his summer house just north of Larkollen in the 1880s, just after the railroad was opened between Christiania and Fredrikstad, with a station at nearby Dilling. Anthon B. Nielsen was a story-teller and author, who published his work under the pseudonym "Elias Kræmmer". His arrival to Larkollen started the development of the summer destination Larkollen, and many of the large summer houses were built in the period up to 1920. The Nielsen family is still represented in Larkollen, both as permanent residents and summer guests.

Larkollen is a coastal landscape with water washed rocks, coves and small wooded hills, and an open and beautiful cultural landscape just behind the coastal line. A moraine from the last ice age surfaces on the coast of the island Kollen in the north and follows the shoreline south of Rørvik to the island/peninsula Danmark on the northern side of the Kure fjord. The terrain of Kollen and Danmark and part of the beaches are dominated by large sand- and waterscoured moraine rocks that have been moved by the glaciers. On Kollen, Eløen and the Sletter islands to the south, volcanic rock comes up to the surface, as a rhomb porphyric conglomerate, part of the unique Oslo graben. Erosion of this conglomerate due to sea and waves gives rise to the sandy beaches found on these islands. Geologically these islands belong to the western side of the Oslofjord, with a major geological fault between the islands and the east side of the fjord.

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