Tanum: Rock Carvings and the Bronze Age

If you’re looking for a hotel in Tanum, the focus of your trip can influence your choice: the area around Tanum offers several different things to see, including Bronze Age rock carvings, the Vitlycke Museum and the World Heritage walks trail. Tanumshede adds historic buildings and local history to the range of options. This lets you give different weight to culture, exhibitions and outdoor activities when planning your trip.

Rock carvings and their interpretation

Tanum’s rock carvings offer insight into the lives and beliefs of people in the Bronze Age. Vitlyckehällen is home to almost 500 different rock carvings. In the Tanum area, a human figure more than two metres tall stands with a spear held aloft and is known by the nickname Spjutguden. The large Litsleby panel is wheelchair accessible. The paths to the Vitlycke rock carvings have information boards and are equipped with stairs to improve accessibility.

Bronze Age farmstead and Vitlycke Museum

The Vitlycke Museum features exhibitions and a Bronze Age farmstead. The farmstead’s open-air exhibition includes reconstructed, 3,000-year-old longhouses built at a 1:1 scale. The site illustrates how people in the Bronze Age lived in their homes and fields alongside their domestic animals. This means that, alongside the rock carvings, housebuilding and everyday life are also in focus.

Visitors can join open guided tours without booking in advance, as well as bookable tours. Availability may vary by season; check the current dates before your visit. This lets you plan a museum visit with a guided tour if the schedule suits your stay.

World Heritage walks: route length and directions

In the Tanum area, the World Heritage walks trail is six kilometres long and passes through the three rock-carving areas of Lövåsen, Gerum and Sotetorp. The route can be divided into a northern and a southern section, each approximately three kilometres long. Both sections are therefore roughly the same length; together, they make up the full six-kilometre route. This division gives you a practical way to plan your walk in sections.

There are three rest areas along the trail and a viewpoint overlooking the Tanum plain and the central parts of the World Heritage Site. To reach the trail, follow road 914 south for three kilometres and turn off at the “Hällristningar 1” sign. Check the signs on site.

Historic traces in Tanumshede

Nearby Tanumshede is a natural starting point for visiting the surrounding World Heritage Site and its rock carvings. The entire old town centre is protected as a historic site; Tanums Gestgiveri is a listed building. Sockenmagasinet was built in 1869 after several years of crop failures. The historic Kungsvägen is also part of the town’s history: it ran between Norway, Kungahälla and Copenhagen.

These places offer different historical points of reference: the protected centre defines the town area, Sockenmagasinet commemorates a dated event in local history, and Kungsvägen represents a historic connection between named places. Tanumshede thus links the history of a town with the wider cultural landscape of the World Heritage Site.

Landscape and leisure activities in the municipality

At the municipal level, Tanum’s landscape ranges from deep-sea areas and rugged coastal stretches to forests and small-scale agricultural landscapes. Leisure activities in the municipality include hiking, swimming and cycling, with cycling maps available. These municipality-wide options add more topics to explore when planning your trip, complementing the specific cultural attractions around Tanum.

Discover more destinations: Resö, Flötenmarksen, Lur, Grebbestad, Tanumshede, Havstenssund, Fjällbacka, Kleva Västra

For the overview of the wider area: Tanum.