{"id":3733,"date":"2022-09-26T21:11:43","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T21:11:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=3733"},"modified":"2025-12-24T22:27:47","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:27:47","slug":"norwegian-fjords-7-molde-and-molde","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=3733","title":{"rendered":"NORWEGIAN FJORDS 7. MOLDE AND MOLDE"},"content":{"rendered":"

[pmb_print_buttons]<\/p>\n

Sorry about the delay.\u00a0 There is a reason, but we’ll get to that in due course.\u00a0 Our transit from Geiranger Fjord to Moldefjord was “interesting”!\u00a0 Force 9 or 10 winds in the North Atlantic had stirred up a bit of a swell in the open ocean.\u00a0 Forewarned is forearmed.\u00a0 Glenda stoked up on a couple of cocktails before dinner and several bottles of sparkling ros\u00e9 with our evening meal and swallowed three different seasickness tablets.\u00a0 (following Dr Martin’s recommendation!)\u00a0 Before hitting the hay we went to the theatre to listen to Jakub Trasak the Czech violinist playing a wide range of really lively and loud music.<\/p>\n

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Part way through the performance Glenda stopped applauding.\u00a0 Turns out she was asleep sitting upright with music playing at about 180 dB – verging on the pain level!\u00a0 Brilliant.<\/p>\n

The next morning at breakfast everyone was discussing the rocking and rolling and the crashing and bashing during the night.\u00a0 Glenda didn’t believe them!\u00a0 The day was a wet one.\u00a0 Our tour took us for a drive on the Atlantic Ocean Road – an eight and a half km road which<\/span> connects Aver\u00f8y with the mainland via a series of small islands and islets spanned by a total of eight bridges including one which loops 23 m into the air.<\/span><\/p>\n

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At Eldhus\u00f8ya, by the loopy bridge, the rain stopped, we got off the coach and walked around the small islet on a suspended walkway \u201cfloating\u201d above the terrain.<\/p>\n

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We got back on our bus and the rain started again.\u00a0 Magic timing!<\/p>\n

On 23 March 2019, a ship called the Viking Sky …<\/p>\n

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suffered a total engine failure off this part of the coast, Hustadvika.\u00a0 This is known as one of the most dangerous stretches of sea along the Norwegian coast.\u00a0 The Viking Sky got to within 100 m of going aground before one of the four engines was restarted!<\/p>\n

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I only mention this, because this was the only other cruise ship we have ever sailed on (during March 2018 in the Caribbean)!\u00a0 So here we were on cruise two inspecting the scene of the near disastrous end of our previous ship!\u00a0 Spooky!<\/p>\n

We drove to the fishing village of Bud, where the rain conveniently stopped again in time for a walkabout.<\/p>\n

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Due to a good natural harbour and rich fisheries, Bud grew to become the largest village between the towns of Trondheim and Bergen during the Middle Ages.<\/p>\n

We were scheduled to make a final photo stop on the top of Mount Varden for a spectacular view over the city and the 222 peaks on the other side of the Romsdalsfjord.\u00a0 We were sitting in the front seats and as we approached Molde we overheard the guide and driver discussing this stop.\u00a0 Driver: “It’s miles up the hill and they won’t see anything from the top!”\u00a0 Guide:\u00a0 “But I’m supposed to stick to the itinerary.”\u00a0 Driver:\u00a0 “OK, but you could ask your customers!”\u00a0 Guide:\u00a0 “Hold a vote, you mean?”\u00a0 Driver:\u00a0 “Good idea – save me having to drive this blessed bus miles up and down the mountain!”<\/p>\n

Four seconds later, the guide had her unanimous decision – back to the ship for a cup of tea (or an early cocktail!).<\/p>\n

We were met with the news that the storms offshore had got worse.\u00a0 The captain having seen my picture of the Viking Sky, decided to cancel tomorrow.\u00a0 \u00a0Well, the force 10 to 11 winds were expected to stir up a few mega-ripples.\u00a0 So, instead of visiting Nordfjordeid we had an extra night in Molde.\u00a0 And an extra day.<\/p>\n

We quickly added our names for a tour of town.\u00a0 First stop (in the rain) was at an open air museum.<\/p>\n

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The sort of thing in which Skandinavian countries seem to specialise – and do really well.\u00a0 They send teams out across the land and aquire old houses and move them lock, stock and barrel (normally without the residents) to a park-like area.\u00a0 Collectively, they take on the appearance of a real village.<\/p>\n

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After a visit to the attached indoor museum, we headed for the hills – more specifically Mount Varden for another try!<\/p>\n

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Well, we could see the city below and some of the islands in the fjord.\u00a0 But of the 222 mountain peaks allegedly visible from here, 222 were missing from view.\u00a0 On the way home we stopped at the cathedral …<\/p>\n

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(which was shut because the vicar hadn’t got the email about us staying a second day) and then we walked back to the ship\u00a0 admiring the roses for which the town is famous.<\/p>\n

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A quick excursion into the local shopping centre brought us to a shop selling the national costumes.\u00a0 But it looked like you needed a mortgage to buy them…<\/p>\n

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The captain announced that, as it was still a little choppy outside he would navigate down the coast staying inside the barrier islands as much as possible.\u00a0 And we were off before dark to Flam at high speed passing close to \u00c1lesund, where we had been four days earlier …<\/p>\n

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But that’s another story!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[pmb_print_buttons] Sorry about the delay.\u00a0 There is a reason, but we’ll get to that in due course.\u00a0 Our transit from Geiranger Fjord to Moldefjord was “interesting”!\u00a0 Force 9 or 10 winds in the North Atlantic had stirred up a bit… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-norwegian-fjords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3733"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4623,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3733\/revisions\/4623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}