Fjørdgasm: Norway on the half shell

We abandoned one child halfway up the mountain, and one of the other almost froze. It all worked out in the end, though: We'd brought chocolate, bunny , and a blanket. Goats also made it better. The reward was stunning coastal landscapes; soaring, windswept cliffs; and puffins at the very edge of the vast Atlantic. The drive from Ålesund to Fugleøya Runde — Runde Bird Island — takes you across Sulafjorden on the ferry to Hareid and then island hops its windy way across stone causeways and sweeping bridges. Small farms, pastures, and clusters of houses dot the surprisingly green and lush coastline. Think you need to see the Atlantic Road? No, you don't: The drive to Runde is every bit as good. It also comes with a hike to a bird sanctuary and is nowhere near thronged with other tourists. Not a tour bus in sight the entire trip. It's a blustery day, as befits this ruggedized landscape and the defiant village of Goksøyr. If you close your eyes ...

The sun tickles us awake. It's day one on Bukkholmen, across Borgundfjord from Ålesund. We're at the center of 360 degrees of idyll. The sun is shining, and we have no driving, no chores, all day. This baby approves. Our affable host, Reidar, took us across from shore last night in the boat that comes with the rental. I'd called him earlier from the supermarket to let him know we were just a few minutes away. “That would have been you I saw then, in the big Volvo with the red license plates,” he says, in the north-west brogue that tells you he's grown up here. “At the Bunnpris at Vedde. I thought to myself that must be guests of mine.“ Everything in Norway is local, you understand. This is a country that names every bridge and every tunnel, and when I grew up in Hokksund every hill and every turn of every street had a name. Even though the Ålesund area has a fairly large population, as these things go in Norway, it's spread out around the fj...

So we made it to Ålesund in two days despite taking the scenic route. And you could too! But should you? No. As I kvetched about described looking back on the drives over the Sognefjell mountain road and from Lom to Geiranger , you're winding your way through scenery so dense it's like a movie trailer that goes on for hours, or an all-day bar hop, only they're not bars but Michelin-rated restaurants — all highlights, no filler . Before long, you're numb . Not to mention many of these roads are tiring . After a while you'll feel like you spent spent hours threading a needle on a roller coaster while balancing on one leg and dodging high-speed geese. Learning: Give yourself time. We had, originally. The plan was to take two days from Lom to Ålesund, spending the night at a campground in Geiranger. We had to cut it short when we couldn't get the delivery date we'd wanted for the Volvo, and our AirBnB in Ålesund was already booked. So, we booked, a...

We set out to sea to watch the world's second largest bonfire * in a boat best described as rustic, yet solid . Let's call her Old Blue. If you're going to see the city of Ålesund's annual Midsummer bash, Slinningsbålet , we reasoned, you should see it from the fjord. The bonfire is the reason we're here on this day: The seeds of the Fjørdgasm were sown some time last year when Traci saw a video of the massive, flaming tower of wooden pallets and said, “Hey, that looks cool, can we see that?” And yes, yes we can , so a trip was built around this date and this place. And here we are, the kids freezing their asses off a bit — we've got an overcast and blustery evening — in the middle of an armada of small craft, watching the fire creeping down the tower from the top like a slow-motion giant match. Reidar, our affable AirBnB host, has lent us the sturdy old 25-footer. Maneuvering her involves bouncing back and forth between the wheel an...