Hotel Dag Bondeheim

The last old buildings are to be found in Snipetorp, a street which lies higher than the town centre, enabling it to escape the fires. The last time this happened was in 1886 when the whole of the town centre was destroyed. It is also the birthplace of Henrik Ibsen. Here, for example, is the house that Knud Ibsen, Henriks father, moved into. This was a natural staging post for goods en route for the hinterland, and an equally natural location for inland products to be collected and then shipped out. The city is situated where the vast quantities of water from the Hardangervidda plateau flow into the Skiensfjorden. Henrik Ibsen also lived here for a short time, before he decided to seek his fortune and left the town - never to return. The timber trade was important to the commerce of the town and Skien was, for a time, Norways biggest lumber town. The architectural style of the turn of the century is, therefore, now predominant. Since the 17th century the town has been regularly reduced to ashes each hundred years.

Skiens history goes back to the 9th century