Trondheim

On Tuesday, May 22, we drove northwest, enjoying views of the pretty Gudbrandsdalen Valley.

Then our E6 highway went through an area where it was surrounded on both sides by the Dovrefjell National Park. By the time we came to the mountains, it was quite overcast. It was still pretty, but the gray skies rather washed out what was obviously a very scenic area. We made a quick stop at a roadside rest area where there was a large pillar with a picture of a musk ox. That seemed rather odd to us and wondered what the Norwegian words were trying to tell us. We later found out that musk ox do indeed inhabit this part of the world and are to be treated very warily. Who knew?

We spent Tuesday through Thursday nights in Trondheim, which gave us 2 full days to explore. It was a walking city, so we were lucky that the weather was still holding for us. We happily stowed the car in the city parking garage that was somewhat attached to our hotel. Over $30 per night. Not quite San Francisco city parking rates, but close enough. Still, the only other option was metered on-street parking, which would cost almost the same amount and be considerably less convenient. Jerry was pretty excited to know he wouldn’t have to drive for a couple days.

Trondheim was to be our furthest north point on this trip. At 63.4 degrees latitude, it was about 2-1/2 degrees shy of the Arctic Circle. We were still a month ahead of the solstice, but we were close enough in time and latitude to get almost the full effect of the midnight sun.

On our last night in Trondheim, sunset was at 10:46pm. That means the official time of the sun dropping below the horizon. But then we had a very long twilight. Any sunset color was occurring closer to 11:00 to 11:30pm, and twilight lingered until well after even our late bedtime. With all that light outside, we were having trouble convincing ourselves it was time to go to bed, and have found ourselves staying up longer than usual.

Combine that late sunset and twilight with the pre-dawn twilight and 3:43am official sunrise, and you have a day without actual darkness.  At no time that we peeked outside did we see anything other than what you might call a deep twilight. You would be hard pressed to call it dark.

It has been confusing to our 45-degree latitude selves. If we were to ever do this again, we would invest in some good-quality eye shades. It hasn’t been problematic, but we have several times thought we must have overslept. Mostly, I’d have to say we’ve adapted.  One young man told us that Norwegians love to cocoon (my word, not his) in winter. They hunker down and enjoy being cozy. But when the sun comes out, all they want to do is be outside. They typically only sleep 5 or so hours nightly during summer. That’s another way to adapt. We’ve opted for trying to learn to sleep when it’s light.

Our plan for Trondheim was a slower pace, a break in the driving routine, a chance to do some laundry, that sort of thing. We only knew of two primary sights: Nidaros Cathedral and a set of colorful and very old warehouses along the river.

Our hotel (not historic, believe it or not, but located in an historic neighborhood) was right on the Nidelva River, and we had a view of the warehouses on both sides of the river.

We continued to be lucky with weather. The sun popped out again late in the day Tuesday, which boded well for the next day. One of our restaurant servers told us he had lived in Trondheim for 25 years (I’m guessing that may be his entire life) and that he had never experienced a May like this one. According to one of our reception people at the hotel, May broke all records for most days of 20-degree (Celsius) temperatures and for highest temperature ever recorded in Norway in May. Service people kept telling it was never like what we were experiencing. It has been nice, but sure has rendered useless many of the layers we brought for the guidebook and internet predictions of cool and rainy May weather.

On Wednesday morning, we set off to see the Cathedral. It was about a  20- to 25-minute walk. Since it was located just before we reached the cathedral, we stopped at the old pedestrian bridge, Gamle Bybru, to get a close-up view of the warehouse district.

One’s first view of the cathedral causes a bit of an inhalation. It is massive. Looks like a regular church, but on steroids.  Its oldest section dates back to 1320, and it is the largest construction from the Middle Ages in Norway.  Further claims to fame are that it is the site for coronations of Norwegian royalty and that it is the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world. Though originally Catholic, at the time of the Reformation it became the seat of the Lutheran bishop of Trondheim, in what is called the Church of Norway.

Also, the cathedral has long been a pilgrimage site. There are marked pilgrimage paths through Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and there is a pilgrim welcoming service every afternoon.

All gargoyles are somewhat amusing to view, but I thought this one was particularly funny. (Perhaps not the reaction the architect intended.) I’ve felt like this a few times in my life, haven’t you?

No photographs are allowed in the cathedral. Hard to understand, because it is massive and it is made of stone. I can’t see what damage might occur. I understand no flash, but no photography was pretty frustrating. We ran into that at Westminster Abbey. But, there, it is filled with thousands of tourists and photography would slow down the movement of the lines and crowds. At Nidaros, other than a visiting class of school children, there were only about six  of us in the huge space.

Chartres was the model for the stained glass at Nidaros, and I have to say this was some of the most beautiful stained glass we’ve seen. I assumed their plan was to force you to buy a book about the cathedral. I told Jerry I might just have to buy a booklet or something about the stained glass. They offered nothing of the sort. A picture of the beautiful rose window was all that was available in either guidebooks or postcards. Definitely an opportunity missed on their part.

We stopped next door to see the Norway crown jewels, a small but  interesting exhibit.

Another site mentioned as a must see in Trondheim was its large main square, Torget, where two main boulevards meet. So we headed there next. Oops! It is one gigantic construction site. I mean from one end to the other. Construction fencing, equipment, and hard-at-work crews. The only bit of the square that could be seen was the statue at its center.

Instead, we wandered down a pedestrian shopping street and a couple of the other streets. It was an attractive city center. Lots of old buildings, none of them very tall. There were also quite a few trees, lots of people, a street musician here and there.

A view across the boat harbor to Trondheim’s Central Station.

In the evening, we made our way to a seafood restaurant in one of the old river warehouses on the west side of the river, near the cathedral. Nice seafaring atmosphere and very good seafood. We walked over the Gamle Bybru to the east side of the river. There was pretty light on the warehouses.

We walked back to our hotel on the eastern side of the Nidelva, through the Bakklandet neighborhood. All we had so far seen of the Bakklandet was right around our hotel, which was pretty busy and commercial. What we discovered on our walk “home” was a wonderful old residential district. Cobblestone streets and everything on a nice small scale. Quite a delightful surprise.

On Thursday, we headed into the city center again—across the Bakke Bru, the bridge right next to our hotel. We visited the Var Frue Kirke, which we had passed a couple of times.

Unusual pulpit.

Not far away was our goal: a visit to the Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimusem. Now there’s a mouthful! It is the arts and crafts museum and was touted as having a fine collection of furniture, silver, and textiles, including pieces by the tapestry artist, Hannah Ryggen, whose name we had bumped into several times.

It turned out that the museum opens late on Thursday, so we had to cool our heels awhile. We visited a particularly charming jewelry store that was nearby and that was doing a land office business with others in our same predicament. (They must love Thursdays!) While this could have been a dangerous detour, we escaped with all our kroner still in our pockets.

We still had a little time to wait when we returned to the museum. There was another couple also waiting, and I heard them speak English. So with my finely trained cruising instincts still on tap, I asked them where they were visiting from. They happened to be from Vancouver, B.C. They were on a Holland America cruise. We ended up in a conversation that went beyond the opening of the museum. They had lived for 11 years on their sailboat and traveled the west coast US, Mexico, and Central America. They went through the Panama Canal, and summered in Maine and wintered in Charleston.  We also talked cruising. It was fun to meet them.

I had no previous sense of Trondheim being a cruise port. It is on a wide fjord, but is a ways inland. This was one of the very, very few times in Sweden or Norway that we had bumped into Americans, and we did see them all over town that day. Another surprise.

A few of the textiles in the museum collection. First, a piece by Hannah Ryggen, Etiopia (1935).

And two others I thought were particularly striking. The first looked completely different when you viewed it from the left rather than the right. From the right, there was no color other than neutral tones. Very interesting piece, Frise (2014), by May Bente Aronsen. The second piece below was  Prima vera, Villa Giulia (1988), by Tove Pedersen. Beautiful color and intensity. All three of these pieces were quite large.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For our final Trondheim evening, we walked across Bakke Bru and to a different section of the city. Our restaurant was in a very old house. Once again, we had a nice dinner and then enjoyed a stroll along the river and back to our hotel.

We ended up really enjoying Trondheim. It has a very pleasing feel to it. Buildings not too tall. Lots of wooden structures. Bustling and thriving. Completely walkable though they have a lot of bicycles and a very modern and busy bus system too.

Trondheim was definitely a good stop on our journey. On Friday, we would turn our car south again. The trip was now going into its final week or so, which is a point at which everything starts to feel different.