20 July 2024 - Kristiansund, Norway

Lie in this morning - excellent! Followed by a late and hearty breakfast. We weren't on tour, and I'd done a little research before we left the UK about Kristiansund. It's basically made up of four connected islands with a little ferry running between them. The cruise port is on Kirklandet, and I'd spotted a hill with a little tower (Varden Tower) surrounded by paths and woodland a little over 1km away from the port.

As we often see in Scandinavia - church architects like to branch away from the norm. This is Kirkelandet church.

The weather was glorious - 26 degrees C and sunny. Good ole Maps.me provided the route and we set off from the ship, through the town, meandering through parks and checking out sculptures on the way.

Kirklandet Church was worth a visit, the stained glass window is quite awesome!

We also checked out some lakes or ponds we saw on the map. They didn't have a lot to offer, but we were entertained by a herring gull just a few feet away as it was repeatedly screamed at and dive bombed by a very ferocious kittiwake. Peter has it on film.

Our aim was the tower, but we wandered in all directions, just wanting to look at this, or that, and took quite a few detours, walking through Loveparken and ending up on the west coast of the island at a place marked on the map as Klubba. We'd brought a couple of bananas and some water from the ship and sat enjoying the view.

We spotted this deer near the cemetery as we walked.  It didn't seem bothered by us or dogwalkers.

From there it was back through Loveparken, past a large, much used and well cared for cemetery, up the hill and finally we reached the tower.

Varden Tower

Not that high, just a couple of stories, but Oh My was it hot at the top! All those windows up there just intensified the heat of the day. We took a few photos and got out quick.

View from Varden Tower

From there we decided to take a look at the area around the marina as we'd been given a tip there would be "lots of rusty things". It was actually a boatyard museum which didn't look like a museum, and at one point we weren't even sure if we should be there. Good to walk through though.

We finally came back to the port. I decided we need a few Norwegian krona and we spent a while trying to find an ATM. Most of them seemed to be in banks, which were closed, but we did eventually find one in the shopping center right alongside the cruise terminal.

As we left port, we sailed out around the point we'd walked to.

Our lunchtime spot - at the end of the little sticky out bit of land.

Two other things to report:- Peter's trail shoes have been evicted to the balcony, they turn the air green when left in the cabin. And days are getting longer - it's light outside at 11.30pm - quite weird.