Left by her lover, the ghost of a maid who once worked at the Hotel Union Øye in Norway is said to be lingering inside of the Blue Room. Is she still staying there?
Hotel Union Øye beside the still waters of Norangsfjorden in Sunnmøre, is known as one of Norway’s most breathtaking historic hotels. Could it be that it is also one of the most haunted ones?
In 1887, Christian Thams, a Norwegian architect, industrialist and diplomat, experienced a violent earthquake that shook the Italian and French Rivieras where he lived, claiming 600 lives, mainly due to the collapse of mortar and brick buildings. He believed that such a tragedy would have been prevented if the building tradition of Norway, with its half-timbered houses. This would eventually lead him home to Norway and build the Hotel Union Øye.
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This way and in this tradition, the hotel opened its door in 1891 with its 38 rooms, all named after their famous guests that would end up staying there, from Emperor William, King Oscar, Queen Maud and Princess Victoria. There were also authors like Karen Blixen, Knut Hamsun, Henrik Ibsen and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; composer Edvard Grieg, mountain pioneers William Cecil Slingsby and Kristoffer Randers and polar explorer Roald Amundsen.
But one room is not named after its famous guest, but rather for its haunting story. Sometimes you can apparently hear the footsteps wandering at night, a chill that slips along the halls and the unmistakable sound of quiet sobbing drifting from a single, timeworn chamber known as the Blue Room.
A Forbidden Love at the Edge of the Fjord
Near the end of the 1800s, Hotel Union Øye was a retreat for Europe’s elite. Its guestbook carried the names of kings, artists and adventurers. Among its most frequent visitors was Kaiser Wilhelm II, who often traveled with a retinue of officers. Every other year from 1890 to 1908, he holidayed as a guest at the hotel with his entourage. One of these men, a young German count, became the center of a secret affection that would leave a permanent shadow on the hotel.
Linda, a Norwegian maid working at Øye, was known for her warm nature and quiet charm. The officer, Philip von Moltke from Dortmund, Germany, was trapped in a loveless arranged marriage, found in her a kindness and sincerity he had never known at home. Their meetings were discreet, hidden from the eyes of the aristocratic circle surrounding him. When he visited Øye, they stayed together in the Blue Room, a chamber with deep sapphire walls and heavy antique furnishings that seemed to seal them away from the world beyond the fjord.
The love between them grew, but so did the tension around their affair. The count sought a divorce, desperate to free himself and build a life with Linda. He gave her a brooch and a wedding ring before he left. His request was denied, coming from a catholic family. Bound by duty, honor and the rigid expectations of his rank as well as the risk of being banished, he saw no escape. In a moment of despair, he took his own life, leaving Linda shattered. Some say that he jumped off the boat coming back to Norway.
Her grief was unbearable. Wearing a bridal gown and a crown of flowers meant for a wedding that would never come, she walked into the waters of the fjord and drowned, in 1901, according to some sources.. Some say she waded out into the cold waters to join him in his death, some say that she had lost his brooch gifted to her in the river and that she was looking along the riverbank to find it.
The Lady in the Blue Room
Since that night, guests who stay in the Blue Room in room nr. 7, often speak of strange happenings and that they are both haunting the area around the Blue Room. The most common report is the sound of a woman crying softly in the darkness. Some say the weeping drifts through the walls as if someone is sitting beside the bed, shoulders shaking with sorrow. Others hear footsteps pacing the floorboards, slow and restless, pausing near the window that overlooks the fjord.
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A few visitors claim to have seen the faint outline of a woman in a white gown standing at the foot of the bed. She is described as delicate, her face partially hidden by hair damp and tangled, as if she has just stepped out of the cold fjord. She never approaches. She only fades when the witness blinks or looks away.
Hotel staff speak of sudden pockets of cold air in the Blue Room, even during the warmest summer nights. Objects are sometimes found moved from where they were placed, and the heavy door has been known to creak open by itself. Those who experience these disturbances describe an overwhelming sense of sorrow rather than fear, as if Linda’s grief saturates the very walls.
A Haunting That Became Legend
The story of Linda and the count has become part of the identity of Hotel Union Øye. Some visitors come hoping to glimpse the Blue Room’s restless spirit. Others avoid it entirely. The owners do not shy away from the tale and claim that Linda was in fact a real person, although the details of the story are less certain. Phillip von Moltke on the other hand, is a plausible, but uncertain element.
It is true that the Moltke family was European nobility in Germany, Prussia and Scandinavia, and made into counts in 1868 by King William 1. Curiously though, the closest friends of Kaiser Wilhelm II were Prince Philip von Eulenburg and General Moltke, involved in the Eulenburg scandal about homosexual affairs within the Kaiser’s closest circle. So if there ever was an officer von Moltke who had an affair with a maid in Norway, there is little to no evidence of it found.
They preserve the room exactly as it has been described for more than a century, honoring the tragic love that took place within it.
In the reception, a bowl of garlic is placed for the guests staying in the Blue Room they can bring to the room. Placing it inside will keep the ghost away, so you will have a good night’s sleep. If you want something more happening throughout the night, you place the bowl outside the door.
Despite its haunting reputation, the hotel is not known for malevolent spirits. According to an article, there has only been one cancellation when people have heard about the haunted rumours. The haunting of the Blue Room is quiet, mournful and deeply human. It is the echo of a promise that could never be fulfilled, preserved in the heavy silence of the fjord and the deep blue walls of the room where two lovers once found a fleeting happiness.
Guests leave Hotel Union Øye with memories of grandeur, mountain shadows and still waters. Some leave with more. They speak of tears that were not their own, the faint scent of wet flowers, or the unsettling certainty that someone unseen sat beside them in the dark.
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