Today is our last day for driving. We have a car booked (at the airport – and they won’t come get us) and are going to go tour the Atlantic Road, which is known as the “road in the sea” because it winds its way over rocks and reefs, with bridges and causeways, built right over the mouth of the fjord. Workers suffered through 12 hurricanes to build it. Sounds impressive to us!
Fortunately we are early docking, because our biggest dilemma is how to get to the airport to get the car. We don’t know about the taxi situation, but there is a bus we can take. The challenge there was that it leaves at 10:15, and we weren’t scheduled to dock until 10. We have some leeway now, but as we are leaving the dock area, we spy a taxi-van right by the gates. People are getting in it, but I walked up and asked where the driver was going. Don’t ask why, it was one of the weird brain synapse things where I think I thought it was like a Song Tao in Thailand or something, a shared taxi. Whatever made me do it, it worked great, because the 3 other people inside were going to the airport as well. So, we all piled in and then got to split the fare.
We collect our car with no problems, and make our way out of the airport – it’s easy – a straight shot right out of the airport and up the E64. Our plan is to visit Bud – the “idyllic” fishing village, then skirt the coast up to Kristiansund and come back down through the center of the island. The drive to Bud is lovely – we take a little detour through the hillsides (to avoid the toll tunnel) and meander our way through Skaret, a truly one horse town (or village) with a restaurant that looks like it is right out of the wild, wild Norwegian west. The road gently descends as we make our way back down to sea level, passing through grazing fields with cattle and horses.
We reach Bud easily and quickly, driving through the teeny town, up and around the Fort at the top of the hill. This is Fort Ergan, a German WWII fort built as part of their “Atlantic Wall” defense system. We circle back and park in the lot underneath the fort, where Richard explores the rock garden, Ed finds an old bunker and I climb up to the top of the hill to see the fort (and neglect to take pictures of the fort – I only had eyes for the scenery).
After stretching our legs, we continue our tour out ot the coast to begin reach the scenic Atlantic Road. First though, we stop at all the scenic pullouts as well as this wonderful little church in Hustad.
A few short kilometers later, we reach the Atlantic Road. It is truly built into the sea – with amazing architecture, soaring bridges and lovely causeways. (Yeah, pix don’t really tell the story)
We pass by scenic stops with little cafes – all jam packed with tourists. We’re enjoying the ride, so we just keep watching out the window as the fjords slide by, fishing boats ply the waters and the bigger freighters sail out to the open sea.
The coastal road ends too quickly, and we are rapidly thrown back into the farmland and grazing fields as we saw on our way here. We drive toward Kristiansund, but realize that we really don’t want to go into the city – it looks gorgeous from the brochures that have birds eye pictures, but from the ground level, we’re not really interested.
So, we have an executive meeting and make the decision to reverse course, hit a grocery store for picnic supplies and head back to the Atlantic Road for an al fresco lunch. we’ve noticed there is a grocery store every few kilometers (kid you not – there are tons and tons of supermarkets), so finding supplies is not an issue. We stop at a Rema 1000 and stock up on salami and bacon cheese for us, little cheese appetizers for Maggi & Richard, and chocolate for all of us for later (hey, its good and cheap here!).
Back on the road, we pass a couple of the scenic spots, but they are even more packed with tours now. So we choose this little cafe that only has a couple of motorcycles parked out front and lots of concrete picnic benches to eat our snacks.
Very scenic place to picnic. Sunny gets into the act as well, enjoying the waves hitting the rocks way behind him.
After lunch we debate getting a waffle from the cafe, but decide it isn’t worth the wait, the money or the carbs. So, we move on. Back through the hills and farmland, across the island, passing more busloads of tourists (and crew from the ship) heading toward the Atlantic Road. We’re pretty happy we did it early enough to avoid the bulk of the crowds.
We navigate back to the airport quite easily and turn in our car, but then can’t get a cab back into town. The Hertz guy called the cab company. No answer. Gave us the phone number, we called, no answer. What’s with that? We asked the Hertz guy about the bus and he said it would come in 45 minutes, up on the road above the airport. Hmmm…that’s not the bus we were talking about which leaves every hour from within the airport. But, we are sort of at a loss, so we troop up to the main road, trying and failing to hail the one empty cab we saw, locate the bus stop and stand there, hoping the bus can take credit cards, or at least Euros.
Ten minutes into our wait, Richard finds a cab. Yes! He hails him down and we hop in for the ride back to town. The taxi driver is so sweet, he asks us about the ship, talks about his camper (of course!) and how he is planning a trip to NordKapp later in the summer. As we are getting out of the car, he gives Ed a $5 bill, saying to take it and use it for a drink or something. Ed tries to refuse it, but the taxi driver says it is of no use to him, it would cost more to try to exchange it. So nice – really everyone throughout this entire trip has been lovely.
Our adventures continue, back in town…
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