June 13 - Bronnoysund to Trondheim

Both yesterday and last night, we saw the north and south bound Hurtigruten ships stop in Bronnoysund. This is a daily occurrence, and a reminder about how important the coastal ferries are to the many communities along the coastline.

As we continued south along Highway 17, the valleys gradually became broader, and the hills lower and more rounded (500 m). We noted too that the birch forests to the north were replaced by predominantly spruce. There were many beautiful lakes, and of course, many hyttes.

It was clear that farming was becoming more important as we headed south. There were broad rolling green fields, and we started seeing herds of cows and cattle. The farms looked prosperous, and most of them seemed to have a large 2-story house with 10-12 windows on one side (presumably the other side too). After speaking to someone, we were told that the large houses were where whole families used live, i.e., grand parents, parents, children, etc. This is not necessarily the custom now.

The weather today was variable … sun, cloud, or a bit of both … drizzle … light rain … wind … heavy rain … hail. I think that we had a bit of just about everything today, except snow.

At Steinkjer, we had our first glimpse of Beitstadfjorden, and about 20 minutes later, we were looking out over Trondheimfjorden. The latter is indeed a large fjord. It measures about 70 km long, and 5-20 km wide, and is separated from the Norwegian Sea by a 25-30 km channel that is a few kilometres wide.

And so as we travelled across rolling farm lands, and past many small communities, we arrived in Trondheim at the peak of rush-hour … 1530! With only our highway map, and small map of the downtown area in our Lonely Planet book, we managed to navigate our way to the train station. The interesting and exciting parts of using such maps is not having all of the streets named, or knowing which ones are one-way in which direction. This of course was our first time driving in a big Norwegian city with bus-taxi lanes.

Ander’s and Ragnhild’s son, Are, attends university in Trondheim. Since he is now in Oslo, he generously offered us the use of his flat which is situated right in the city centre near the water front, and adjacent to the Nidelva River. Are’s girlfriend, Lina, met us at the train station on her bike. While Lina went with Sherrill in the car to the apartment, John rode Lina’s bike.

We were very well taken care of by Lina. She got us settled into the apartment, and made numerous suggestions about where to go and what we might see in Trondheim during our stay.

We decided to walk through the older parts of the city before supper to take advantage of the sunshine, and to get some exercise. The walk allowed us to scout out some restaurants, but we eventually decided that a home-cooked meal was more appealing. So, we headed over to the grocery store at Solsiden and picked up some salmon, potatoes, salad, and of course, ice cream. In this part of Trondheim, the shopping area has been developed using many old buildings from a ship building industry long since closed intermixed with some new buildings, and many new apartments. The old dockyard area is interesting with some of the old cranes, and a dry-dock still in place. You can walk along the water front here, and back across to the city centre via a pedestrian bridge.

Many of the old warehouse buildings along the river have been converted to apartments, or businesses. In some cases, the old buildings were torn down to be replaced by new ones that still resemble the old warehouse architecture. The downside of all these old buildings is that they are over 100 years old, made of wood and less than a metre apart i.e., very vulnerable to fire. For example, on May 17 this year, just a few weeks ago, there was just such a fire in one of the old buildings. The result was damage to 3 buildings.

Trondheim’s roots go back to King Olav Tryggvason of Viking fame who founded the city in 997.

And so, after another day of safe travels, a wonderful dinner at home and a little trip planning for the next week, we crashed for night.