Kristiansund; Sunday, 25 May, 2025

Kristiansund were playing Viking FK of Stavanger in a match on Sunday afternoon, the only reason I know this was because the Viking FK team had made up a good proportion of the passengers on my flight up from Oslo, and the bulk of the guests staying in the hotel. They had also come down en masse a few minutes before me for breakfast, so it was a bit of a struggle to find somewhere to sit, but eventually I was able to have a filling Norwegian breakfast before heading out of the hotel to explore the city.

My original plan for the day was to visit a number of sights across the city, roughly following the coastline finishing at the Kristiansund sign that sits high above the harbour on Nordlandet island and then get the Sundbåten back across to the hotel. Except on checking it turns out the ferry doesn’t run on a Sunday, which I was glad I checked on as that would have meant a very long walk back at the end of the day.

Instead, I started off my walk as I had originally planned by heading up from the hotel and past the Øverparken gardens and the modernist Kirkelandet Kirke before heading to the Vanndamman, a large reservoir area surrounded by walking paths. The area is made up of four different bodies of water, the Svanedammen with a jet d’eau in the middle of it at the lowest level and then climbing up to the Mellemdammen and Vanndamman itself only separated by a small bridge from where you get excellent views of both.

Having walked along the Vanndamman for a little while you reach the Gravemdammen at the far end of the site, separated from the Vanndamman by a sturdy looking stone wall and at the far end of the Gravemdammen is much more impressive dam wall that drops away down into the trees heading towards the bottom of the cliffs. From here it was a short walk across the top of the dam and along a path through the trees to a viewpoint high on the cliffs overlooking the outer part of the Sound, from where, as it was a relatively clear day, you could see snowcapped mountains in the distance, as well as the full sweep of the main entrance into the Sound.

The next hill over from the one the dams are built into is the tallest in the city centre and so from the top of Varden you can get some pretty good views over the city and the inner sound itself. Even better views are possible from the top of the Vardetårnet or Varden Tower which boots you up another few metres above the trees to be able to see the whole of the town centre.

From here I had planned to continue walking up the coast to visit some of the remains of the Atlantic Wall, the string of fortifications built by the Nazi’s whilst they occupied Norway during WWII, but instead, so I didn’t end up with a 4Km walk at the end of a long day, I headed back to the hotel to grab some lunch and freshen up and then caught the once every 3 hours on a Sunday bus round to the first stop on Nordlandet to visit the Kristiansundskiltet

This is the large Kristiansund sign that sits high above the inner sound, announcing the name of the city to everyone entering the harbour. Of course up here you can only see the less glamorous back of the sigh made up of a substantial amount of scaffolding and tensioning wires, but the views down onto the waterfront and harbour are some of the best in the city.

From the sign I headed back over the Nordsundbrua the very typically Norwegian arched bridge that means the citizens don’t have to use ferries to get in and out of town, from the top of the bridge there were more views of the city centre as well as the even more impressive Sørsundbrua which is on the opposite side of the Inner Sound. From the bridge it was then about a 25 minute walk out onto the northernmost headland of the main island to the beach at Lasken before heading round onto the headland and the first set of ruins of a Gun Emplacement on the top of the headland and below it the ruins of storage facilities and bunkers.

Whilst the ruins aren’t that impressive the surrounding landscape with granite rocks, mosses and grasses and of course lots of pine trees, is spectacular and well worth spending a bit of time wandering around. From there it was then another 30 minute walk along the headland, skirting the edge of the city’s football stadium where the match was already well underway to reach the Kristiansund Kystbatteri. This is a series of gun emplacements and supporting buildings set up along the cliff tops overlooking the Atlantic aimed at protecting the sound from the Allies. Again today they are crumbling into ruins, but make for an interesting insight into how much effort was put into defending this part of the coastline.

From the Kystbatteri I started the 40 minute walk back into the centre of town, stopping off at the Byfossen or City Waterfall before heading back to the hotel to grab some dinner, although sitting down turned out to be a mistake as my already weary body decided to stiffen up quite a lot whilst sat down, and standing up to head to my room was quite painful – I was just very glad that I hadn’t had to include an extra 4Km walk at the end of the day as I’m not certain I would have managed it!