Day 12 (July 3): Hustadvika —> Atlanterhavsveien —> Trondheim
We pretty much got up, had brekkie and hit the road straight away. A decent amount of driving was ahead of us to get to Trondheim. First on the agenda was driving the Atlanterhavsveien, which is also known as the Atlantic Ocean Road. Actually 8+ kilometers of the road is also known as the road that James Bond drove in the movie “No Time To Die”.
Driving the Atlanterhavsveien really fast. Ok. Kidding.
Side note: I grew up a huge Bond fan and that is where my love of travel came from.
The lovely innkeeper who we spoke to last night told us that after the Bond movie that people stopped saying that they wanted to see the Atlantic Ocean Road and that they wanted to see the road that James Bond drove on. Go figure.
Given that 8 kilometers isn’t very long (it’s roughly 5 miles), Marc and I agreed that we would both get chances to drive it. On the way back after round #1, we stopped off at some landing spots to take some photos. It was overcast but that kind of added to the mystique of being on the rugged west coast and this really cool road cutting through it all in a very elegant way.
BTW, it was very fun to drive. Norway has a set of roads that are considered ‘national scenic roads’, which were specifically designed to NOT get you from point A to point B in the quickest way possible. We had the pleasure of driving one of those roads yesterday, which was actually Norway’s most scenic roadway. The Atlanterhavsveien is also one of these roads.
We then progressed on to Trondheim, passing by more majestic fjords and catching, yet, another ferry that we managed to get on by the skin of our teeth by being the last car on.
As we got closer to Trondheim, the weather started getting sunnier. We arrived at our hotel and decided to go for a walk around the city since we were only going to be here for a brief amount of time. You may have seen previous mentions on this trip of links between Norway and Seattle. Of all of the cities that we have seen in Norway, Trondheim seems most like Seattle.
I loved the varied architecture of the houses in Trondheim and their proximity to the central business district. The houses all had varied colors, which I always appreciate as opposed to the standard cookie cutter approach in many cities and neighborhoods.
Trondheim also has varied topography and a mix of different housing types. I felt as though I saw a bit of Queen Anne, Madison Valley, Capitol Hill (not so much the Pine/Pike Corridor, but more of the houses by Volunteer Park) with some Ballard and Fremont thrown in. Really cool neighborhooods such as Singsaker, Bakklandet, Møllenberg and Nedre Elvehavn.
We visited Kristiansten festning, which had a great view of Trondheim and the River Nidelva, and then checked out the Nidarosdomen, one of the more historic churches in Norway.
We had booked cocktails at THE place in town recommended to us by the bartender from Saturday night at Arkivet. And Vilda was not wrong on the reco. It was an elegant place with well blended cocktails based on the history of Norway. Dinner followed at a Japanese style place with local beef where you cooked it yourself at the table.
While we were on our walk, Marc figured out where we would have a great view of the sunset and the clouds seem to want to play along. So after dinner, because hey - the sun is not setting before 1130pm and we had plenty of time, we went over and found a bench to watch a decent sunset. A long, but fun day, before we head up north.
Sunset over Trondheim.