Vestnes to Sunndalsøra

Yet another trip to Trondheim, so this time we managed to take a route that I hadn't driven before, through Sunndalsøra.
We first took the ferry to Molde and, although it wasn't raining, the clouds were hanging very low on the mountains. There was only one cruise ship in Molde, the 'Spirit of Oceanus'

From Molde we drove east through Hjelset to the inner end of Langfjorden. A stop above Tjelle showed that the weather was clearing and revealed these lovely scenes.
Firstly the view in to Eresfjorden.

And then the view south towards Lange and Myklebostad.

Myklebostad would translate directly to Muckle Busta, a place near Sandness in Shetland. Or in English 'Large Dwelling', or something like that.
From there we continued east past Eidsvågen (that would be Aithsvoe in Shetland), to the side of Tingvollfjorden, (Tingvoll is the same as the Shetland name Tingwall).
At the inner end of Tingvollfjorden it narrows to Sunndalsfjorden, at the head of which lies the town of Sunndalsøra. The town is reached through a 6km tunnel and I took this shot, looking in Sunndalsfjorden, just before we went into the tunnel.

Sunndalsøra is dominated by 2 things. Massive steep sided mountains, which surround it on 3 sides, and an aluminium plant which covers a massive area. Click on this link to see how big the plant is.
Here's a pic of one of the mountains.

The town, as can be seen from that link picture, is very flat and fills most of the valley. The only bit of high ground in the town is the location for the church. And, as with all Norwegian churches it is a beauty.

Not only outside. Here's the pipe organ.

A view towards the south end and pulpit. Sadly the beautiful windows don't show up well.

And a view of the decoration in the ceiling.

Norwegian churches are all beautiful, many of them are very old, and all of them have a rather special history. Not least of which is this one.
Nobody knows how many churches have been on this site through the centuries. It is believed that there was a church here before the 14th century. But after the reformation the following records are available.

1647 - Church destroyed by fire, and a new one built.
1725 - Church destroyed by local storm wind (A special kind of downdraft from the mountains). A new one was built.
1727 - Church destroyed by wind pressure from an avalanche. A new one was built.
1820 - Destroyed by wind pressure from an avalanche again.
1849 - Destroyed by local storm wind/downdraft again.
1864 - A new church was built.
1885 - Local storm wind/downdraft destroyed the church yet again.

Well, maybe God eventually decided to take this congregation under his wing, because the current church, which was built in 1887, is still standing. For the mean time.

Anyway, that'll do for this post. More tomorrow, and yes the weather did improve, so some nice pics to come.

And I'm delighted to say that the doctors gave me the all clear yet again, well at least for another 3 months.

Yun's aa fir enoo.