Håholmen - by Classic Norway Hotels

Awesome staff! Beautiful island hotel!

Håholmen Havstuer presented itself in fantastic quiet weather and after parking the car in the big spacious car park we waited to be picked up by "the boat" which was this elegant Viking ship "hvitserk". An excellent start and arrival to Håholmen only 10 minutes across calm and sheltered waters. Håholmen offers a complete mini community changed into a hotel. We slept in the barn in the "pigshouse" and our friends had the horses stables. Old buildings, but nicely and freshly decorated inside. Very good balance with excellent sleeping comfort. Steep staircase to the bathroom, but is gave a distinct and historic character. Very well done. Outside the island itself is very well maintained and anywhere you go you feel they care about how it looks. Neat and tidy, very accessible and magnificent view out towards the "big sea" with the small islands. Everything here was nice and of course weather dependent. We sat in the sun at 9 p.m. watching the "flat sea" and seeing the kids in a boat bathing and 4 kayaks sliding by. A truly wonderful evening. We had a dinner reservation at Ytterbrygga restaurant and had a delicious high class meal with naturally fresh fish as main course. in the late evening we shared drinks in the Silver Bell bar, a real sailor's bar. Breakfast next day was also very well assorted at Ytterbrygga. Then the weather had changed to quite windy, but the ride back to the mainland is so sheltered it did not influence the boat trip at all. No Viking ship though in such weather. This is an attraction, truly historical, no tourist trap. Highly recommendable for a different adventure in a fantastic landscape.

Wondered whether to give 5 or 4 stars - as it is a very special place. The island and views are beautiful - the room was very well done. It is noisy with neighbours as they are old buildings but people took care to speak softly and did not impact our stay. Dinner was nice but bit pricy even by Norway standards - using that you have to be on the island. Again we enjoyed it and was great food, but we were also out the door again in around an hour of quick serving of food. And that is on an island with nothing else there 😀 The ferry left 5 minutes early to schedule on our way there and 10 minutes early to schedule ont eh way back. Had to run to catch that back and were lucky both ways. For a schedule of once an hour and the only way to get to your hotel I do t think that is acceptable. So would highly recommend and stay there again ourselves - but not giving 5 as too many small things not perfect and things like a missed ferry cause it left early could have had a major impact on the day.