Atlantic Ocean Road

The 8.2 km long Atlantic Ocean Road (County Road 64) connects the island of Averøy, in Møre og Romsdal county, 12 km south-west of the city of Kristiansund (to be distinguished from Kristiansand in southern Norway), with the Eide municipality on the Norwegian mainland and several small islands. It runs along the very edge of the sea and waves continually crash over it. The route was originally surveyed in the early twentieth century for a railway, and the plans adapted for building a road in the 1970s. The Atlantic Ocean Road includes eight bridges, among them the spectacular Storseisundet Bridge, 260 m long, with a 130 m span giving 23 m clearance over the sea. Building began in 1983 and the road was opened in 1989. It was originally a toll road whose revenue was devoted to repaying the cost of construction, but it proved such an attraction that the costs were paid off by 1999 and the tolls abolished. The road is now designated a Cultural Heritage Site. Eldhusøya is the largest of several rest and viewing centres which have facilities for fishing. The road is often used for filming cars for advertising purposes.

Kristiansund, from the seventeenth century a major centre for trading dried cod (klippfish), is also linked with Averøy by the 5727 m long Atlantic Tunnel built between 2006 and 2009.