This windshield video shows what it would be like to drive down the road. Part of it looks as steep as a roller coaster, while other parts the car is buffeted by waves that periodically leap unto the roadway. The view is fantastic.
That is why the road became Norway’s ninth-most-visited natural tourist attractions, as of 2009, with 258,654 tourists from May through August. It was also been given the title “Norwegian Construction of the Century.” It had been constructed between 1983 and 1989, during which twelve hurricanes hit it in the interim.
Having so many tourists helped pay it off. The road was expensive, costing 122 million Norwegian krone (around 22 million U.S. dollars), a quarter of which was to be paid by job creation funds, a quarter by tolls, and the rest by ordinary state road grants. The tolls were expected to last 15 years, but it was paid off before that due to high traffic.