I would like to start this post by saying that I have no idea for a title at the moment. The idea of naming the posts after Doctor Who episode names crossed my mind, but I’m not sure it would work since the name of the episodes are pretty peculiar. I might give that a try later.

So, two weeks ago we spent the weekend at our friend’s cottage close to the Kvernesfjorden. We rented another car since we were 7 this time (My youngest sister had arrived the week before plus my baby niece went with us this time while my brother in law went to Denmark for a beer tasting trip with some friends).

We left Friday after I finished working and came back Sunday late afternoon. We drove about 800km throughout the weekend. 800km of narrow, winding roads and one-lane bridges. But it was all fun and almost zero incidents.

On our trip to the cabin, on Friday we went practically straight to Tingvoll with one quick stop for food and to use the washroom. The whole trip is a 3 hours drive if you don’t stop, but again, we had kids in the car, so this was not an option.

From Trondheim we took E39 road and then the ferry to cross from one side of the Fjord to the other.

After the ferry we stopped at a small restaurant in the middle of nowhere, but they had burgers, ice cream coffee and a clean washroom and that was all we needed. And guess what? The girl working at the checkout was from Brazil. The conversation between us was a mix of English, Norwegian and Portuguese and she heard my sister talking to my niece in Portuguese and started talking to us in Portuguese as well. Go figure.

And then, incidente #1: I spilled my coffee in the car. The rented car 😰. Lucky me it was all contained in the cup holder area and it was an easy clean 😅.

Incident #2 came right after that with Isa vomiting in the car (my sister’s car). Again, if you get car sick, do-not-travel in Norway unless you take the train.

The day was a bit cloudy but the view was still amazing all the way there and when we got there it was even better.

It looks a lot like a lake house but it’s actually sea water since it’s in the Fjords. You can clearly see the tide going up and down. We saw crabs and got seashells. We also picked some wild blueberries.

Saturday we woke up early and went to Eide to get Annette who had gone to her parent’s house. Eide is a little tow where she grew up. Really cute, but really small. The houses are gorgeous, tho.

From there we went to Molde passing by a place called The Trollkirka cave (Troll church), which is a combination of 3 limestone caves at the top of a mountain with underground streams and a waterfall. Not something to be done this time, but this is definitely something I will do next year. We also passed by the location where Keiko, the Orca star of Free Willy, is buried.

In our way to Molde we went to the Molde Panorama which one of the most amazing views I’ve seen. You go uphills all the way as if there’s no tomorrow. The paved road becomes unpaves, as narrow as it gets, and you keep going up, but everything works out in the end. Most people hike up. It’s a loooong and steep way, tho.

There’s a restaurant/cafe at the top, but it was closed. 🤷‍♀️

Then we headed to Molde for lunch. Just like everywhere I’ve been here in Norway, Molde is a super cute town.

We ended up eating at Egon this time since we didn’t want to waste too much time eating and it’s a place we know, they have Gluten-free options, so it was a safe choice. But the area is known for their salmon and sea trout, so it should be worth it a try.

From Molde we went to Bud. It is a fishing village and during the middle ages it was a big “hub” between Bergen and Trondheim due to it’s commercial importance. We also visited the Ergan Coastal Fort which was a fort built by the Germans during the WWII and today is a museum. There’s a bunker and some war machinery there. The advantage point of view is the main reason why the fort was built there.

Annette’s grandfather house was taken by the Germans during the war due to the location it was built.

From there we got the Atlantic Ocean Road. It is an 8.3-kilometer long section of County Road 64 that runs through an archipelago in Eide and Averøy in Møre og Romsdal, Norway. It’s one of the most scenic roads in the world. If you ever go there don’t drive. Have someone else do it for you and just enjoy. I didn’t take 1/100 of the pics I would’ve if I wasn’t driving, but still, it’s gorgeous. It also has 8 bridges that are kind of peculiar. Depending on where you are looking at the bridges from, it seems like they end out of nowhere.

There’s a place where you can park your car and go around the mountain following a boardwalk where you can see the islands. From there we split up. My sister, father, mother and lil niece went back home since Isa was super tired and me, Carol, Annette and Vic stayed to complete the walk around the mountain and then we would drop Annette at her parents and go back to the cottage.

There’s also a giant crab made out of garbage collected by kids from a local school. They picked up the garbage from the see and built this:

It’s interesting and so sad at the same time. The kids had help from the artist Eirik Audunson Skaar.

We were also super lucky because the weather was amazing, sunny day, warm, low tides, the ocean was super flat. It can get really complicated during certain times of the year and during certain weather conditions. You can check more about that here.

Going back to Eide we had this sunset as a gift from mother nature

After we dropped Annette off at her parent’s, we headed back to the cottage. I had only been there once, I was following my sister’s car, so I usually don’t pay much attention to the details, and the cottage is in the middle of nowhere. Just so you have an idea, there’s no address. You can’t type an address on Google Maps so it takes you there. So we asked my sister for direction she comes up with this:

After the bridge (so far so good, I knew which bridge she was talking about) turn right and drive until you see the grocery store (ok). Go back from there, because it’s really hard to find the road you need to turn to coming from the bridge, there’s no indication, so you need to pass the grocery store and come back, because it’s the first to the left after the grocery store if you coming back (also ok). Then, you take the unpaved road, you pass a house that is for sale and then you will see some cows. Turn right after the cows. 🤯

It was PITCH BLACK, there was no moon, no street lights, we could not see a thing, but we were able to see the house for sale. We drove and drove, my nice started to get scared, saying we would not find our way home and she would never see her mom again (she’s 5). We finally see some cows, turn right after the cows and ended up at someone else’s house. OH BOY!

We go back, and on our way back we could see the things we thought were cows was actually sheeps. Did I mention it was SUPER FREAKING DARK?

So my sister called us saying she was going to get the car and wait for us in the entrance (by the cows). It tuned out the cows were not there anymore, and that’s why you don’t use moving things as a reference when you are giving directions.

At this point my niece was crying her eyes out. And I will tell you, if this was anywhere else I would be scared to death as well. We were in the middle of the perfect scenery for an horror movie minus the serial killer (I THINK). But it ended up being just a fun adventure, we laughed a lot (not my niece, tho) and talked about this over wine during dinner

And that’s was incident #3 🤣

On sunday we headed back to Trondheim. We took a longer road passing through Sunndalsøra and Oppdal

The whole trip took about 7 hours, but we stopped for food and pics 3 or four times. It was a really lovely weekend. The norwegian countryside is mesmerizing. The natural beauty here is something out of this world. You need to prepare yourself, financially speaking, as I have mentioned before, but it’s worth it.