There is a photograph of the Atlantic Road that everybody has seen: a bridge apparently curving into nothing, with a wave breaking over the parapet. It is not a trick shot and it is not summer. It is late autumn, which is when the place is actually worth eight hours in a car.
In July it is a pleasant coastal drive with a queue at the viewpoint. In October the wind comes in off open ocean with nothing between here and Iceland, the road gets closed perhaps twice a season, and standing on the causeway is a genuine physical event.
Inland from the coast road, an hour before the weather arrived properly. Photo: Efrem Efre.
Going in the bad half of the year
- Check the road status, not just the forecast. Closures are posted and they are short.
- Book somewhere on the road, not in Molde. The point is to be there at dusk and at dawn, not to drive out and back.
- Take a tripod you trust. Everything worth photographing here happens in bad light and high wind.
Fine weather makes this a nice drive. Weather makes it the reason you came, and the two are barely the same road.
The rest of the loop
Do not treat it as a destination on its own — it is twenty minutes end to end. String it with the Trollstigen road while that is open, the ferry across to Averøy, and one night somewhere with a window facing west. That is a proper two days.
