Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
mid-August, Monday to Friday 9am to 7pm, Saturday and Sunday 11am to
4pm. Otherwise, Monday to Friday 8:30am to 3:30pm.
SPECIAL EVENTS Opera Week
thrives during the dark days of February,
usually the first 2 weeks of the month. Concerts are held in the Festiviteten Cul-
ture Center, Kong Olav's Gate 1, the same building as the tourist office.
SEEING THE SIGHTS
One of Kristiansund's most frequently photographed buildings is the fan-shaped
Kirkelandet Kirke,
Langveien (
&
71-67-49-77
). Built in 1964 with interior
walls that slope steeply inward toward the choir, it's still a trendsetting design in
the use of reinforced concrete for nontraditional religious architecture. It's open
June through September daily from 10am to 7pm, October through May daily
10am to 2pm.
Kristiansund's only museum contains five different branches scattered in var-
ious locations throughout the town. Its headquarters is the
Nordmøre
Museum
, Knudtzondalen (
&
71-67-15-78
), on the edge of town near the
Atlanten Stadium. Its exhibits show how people have survived in central Nor-
way for 9,000 years, and stresses the importance of cod as the most sought-after
product in the North Sea before the discovery of oil. The grounds surrounding
the museum contain a handful of antique farm buildings imported from other
parts of the region. This branch of the museum is open year-round: Tuesday
through Friday from 10am to 2pm, on Saturday from noon to 6pm, and on
Sunday from noon to 3pm. Admission costs 20NOK ($2.85) for adults and
10NOK ($1.40) for children. The bus stop for all but a handful of city buses lies
nearby (the stop's name is “Idrettshall Svømmehall”).
The remaining branches of the museum are in the center of town, within a
short walk from one another, along the town's harborfront. They include the
Woldbrygga
section, which is set in a turn-of-the-19th-century cooperage whose
exhibits are devoted to the once-flourishing crafts of barrel- and rope-making.
Nearby is the
Milnbrygga,
an 18th-century warehouse containing statistics,
memorabilia, and artifacts of the town's
klippfish
(cod) industry. Also within a
short walk is the
Hjelkrembrygga,
another antique warehouse (from 1835) orig-
inally built for the storage of cod and devoted today to a social history of 19th-
century working conditions with unusual collections of antique photographs of
a departed way of life. Each of these museums is open daily June 16 to August
17, Monday to Saturday noon to 6pm and Sunday 1 to 4pm. The cost for visits
to each of them is 20NOK ($2.85) for adults and 10NOK ($1.40) for children.
The final branch of the museum is an outdoor shipyard founded in 1867, the
Mellomvaerftet,
whose antique forge and harborfront setting contain a curious
mixture of antique and modern boat-building equipment. Visitors are welcome
to wander about whenever they want (within reason) winter and summer, to
observe the restoration of a changing collection of modern and antique boats.
Entrance to the boatyard is free, although you may want to hire one of the yard
workers as a guide for a tour priced at around 20NOK ($2.85) per person.
NEARBY ATTRACTIONS
Often likened to Scotland's St. Kilda,
Grip
, 15km (9 miles) offshore from
Kristiansund, is one of the most fascinating of Norway's isolated islands. Until
the 1970s it was the only one that was permanently occupied. Site of a lighthouse
and thousands of seabirds, it's mostly occupied by summer residents and, if leg-
ends are true, the ghosts of sailors whose ships washed ashore during storms.
From mid-May until late August, a ferryboat leaves for Grip from Kristiansund's
