Most Norwegians enjoy a long summer vacation. There are several reasons for this, but I guess the most apparent one, is called winter in Norway. During the winter we get a strong craving for sun and warm weather, so every summer day that get above 18 degrees Celsius makes most Norwegians dress in summer clothing and enjoy the day as well as they can.
I happened to use two of my allotted 5 weeks of holiday this year on the west-coast of Norway (yes, among the fjords), visiting family.
As is common in that part of Norway, the weather is mostly gray and wet. One of those gray days my girlfriend and I decided to have a sightseeing and drove a few kilometers further south-west to revisit an area, or part of a road, we have seen several times before. This little area is quite well-known and its common name is “Atlanterhavsveien”, or the Atlantic Ocean Road as it is called in English.
This little part of Norway have been declared one of the most scenic routes in Europe, and depending on the weather can give an amazing display of never-ending ocean and beautiful scenery, or a frightening experience of gray wavy water and wind. During the summer the winds normally do not get to frightening levels. I can’t say the same about January and February though.
With a gray sky and a calm ocean I had to increase my choice of motives. I had hoped for some kind of a dramatic sky with blue spots among white summer clouds, but that did not happen. So here are a couple of the motives I did find.
Storseisund Bridge
Wrecked
Final resting place
Purple
For all travellers in that part of Norway, one point of warning though. Norwegian community politicians have discovered toll roads. Whenever they need a nice road, a new bridge or a long tunnel out in the countryside these plans are included in some national publicly funded transport plan. But the local politicians have discovered that they can get priority if they contribute to these projects with local money. So they borrow a great deal, and put up a toll booth. There is a catch though. To build a tunnel trough kilometers of mountain or over great spans of water you need a lot of money. So the prices in these toll booths are a bit higher than what you might expect. Do not be surprised if it costs more than 120 Norwegian “kroner” to get trough. (That is about 20 $ US or a bit more than 16 €) And there are plenty of these toll roads, so expect several repeat performances. This can be a bit annoying, but remember, without this the bridges and the Atlantic Ocean Road would not have been built.