about the ongoing maintenance costs,” he says. “What will they be, who will pay them? But ... well, it does feel nice, standing here. And, really, you just have to look at the people’s faces.” In his office overlooking the square, Rjukan’s energetic young mayor, Steinar Bergsland, is interested not so much in the cost but in the benefits the mirrors might bring to the town. Already, Bergsland says, visitor numbers are up for the time of year and Rjukan’s shopkeepers have reported their takings following suit. A hi-tech company is interested in relocating to Rjukan, attracted by the cutting-edge technology on view at the top of the mountain and the publicity it has attracted. “This is a powerful symbol for Rjukan,” Bergsland says, and, helped by assorted government grants and a donation from a local business, the town needed to find just 1m krone – £100,000 – of the mirrors’ total 5m-krone cost. And, seen against the town’s 650m krone annual budget, he points out, 1m krone really wasn’t very much to pay for something that “gives us a far, far better chance of raising the money we need for better schools and more nursing care. And just look out of the window. Look at those happy faces. Now it’s actually here, people love it.”