Where to stay in Bergset
Bergset keeps its few beds in and around the small centre on the western shore of the Renaelva, the natural base for the long valley district of Rendalen. The rooms near the middle of the village put you close to the services, the riverside and the open-air Bull-museet that sits by the water. Stay here for the valley.
The beds by the river suit travellers who want the village on foot and a base for the forests and farms of Østerdalen, within reach of Øvre Rendal kirke on the slope above the centre. Visitors drawn to the wider parish lean toward the quieter rooms set out among the farms toward Hanestad kirke down the valley, away from the centre. Beds are scarce in this remote district.
Book the central rooms well ahead through the warm months and the hunting and fishing season, when the valley of Rendalen draws its visitors in toward Bergset and the river.
About Bergset
What is Bergset known for?
Bergset is the administrative centre of Rendalen. The small village stands on the western shore of the river Renaelva in the long rural valley of Østerdalen, the gathering point of services for a thinly settled forest and farm district in the northern part of Innlandet. The open-air Bull-museet marks the place.
This collection of old buildings sits by the river, and the medieval Øvre Rendal kirke serves the parish above it, drawing the scattered farms of the valley in toward the centre.
What are the main landmarks in Bergset?
The marks of Rendalen gather around the river and the parish. By the Renaelva at the centre stands the open-air Bull-museet, a collection of old valley buildings kept by the water. Two churches anchor the parish. Øvre Rendal kirke rises on the slope above the village, and down the valley Hanestad kirke serves its own corner of the kommune, both heritage churches of the long Østerdalen valley that trace the scattered settlement of this northern part of Innlandet.
What is the history of Bergset?
The valley shaped the village. Bergset grew on the western shore of the Renaelva in the long rural reach of Østerdalen, a thinly peopled country of forest and farmland in the northern part of Innlandet where the river drew the settlement and the roads ran the length of the valley. The farms came first.
For centuries the scattered farms and the logging of Rendalen worked the woods and the river meadows along the Renaelva, and the parishes of the valley formed around their churches, Øvre Rendal kirke above the centre and Hanestad kirke down the valley, long before any village dominated the district. The river was the road and the living. In time the cluster of houses at Bergset became the gathering point of the kommune, the place where the services and the trade of the long valley came together on the riverbank, and it grew into the administrative centre of the surrounding municipality.
The open-air Bull-museet was raised to keep the old buildings and the working life of the valley, set by the water at the heart of the village. Farms still work the land. The forests and meadows of Rendalen spread out along the Renaelva much as they always have, and Bergset holds the working life of a long, remote valley district from its centre by the river.
Where is Bergset?
Bergset lies in south-eastern Norway, in the northern part of Innlandet, in the long valley kommune of Rendalen. The village stands on the western shore of the river Renaelva, set on the valley floor of Østerdalen where the forest and the fells climb away from the water on either side and the river runs the length of the long rural valley. Forest rises on both slopes. Øvre Rendal kirke stands above the centre on the western side, and the wider reaches of Rendalen spread out along the Renaelva and through the timber country of the northern Innlandet valley.
What is the climate of Bergset?
Bergset has the cold inland weather of the long Østerdalen valley, set far up in the northern part of Innlandet. Winters run long and hard, with deep snow lying over the forest and the frozen shore of the Renaelva, while summers turn warm and short in the sheltered valley, the woods holding the heat under the long northern daylight over the farms of Rendalen. The cold settles deep here.
Frost sinks into the valley floor along the river through the dark months, and the seasons swing wide between deep winter snow and the brief green of the high northern summer.
How do you get to Bergset?
The valley road brings you in. Bergset sits on the route that runs the length of Østerdalen along the Renaelva, so visitors reach it by car up the valley from the towns down the river toward Otnes. No railway runs to the village itself.
The nearest line and the nearest airport lie well to the south and west, a long valley drive from the centre, and buses run up the same road through Rendalen to bring travellers to the village past Hanestad kirke and the scattered farms of the valley.