This travel update is part one of our one-week stay in Trondheim, Norway. It covers August 28 – 29. “Any text in quotes and Italics has been copied and pasted from some informational website like Wikipedia.”

August 28, 2023 – Monday: Finnsnes to Trondheim

We had a long travel day ahead of us today so we got up early and left Finnsnes around 9:30 AM. Our drive was east and then north as you can see on this map.

We got to Tromsø at lunchtime and picked up some food at the shopping mall near the airport then drove to the gas station at the airport for one last fill-up of our rental Toyota RAV4 Plugin Hybrid. It’s a nice vehicle, by the way, it handled rough roads well and got about 50 miles per gallon. My only regret is that we didn’t have an electric charger at the places we stayed so I didn’t get to test the full electric performance of the vehicle. I’ve read that with a full charge on the battery it should get 40-45 miles in EV mode with full performance and not burning any gasoline.

We dropped the RAV4 at the Europcar area at the airport. Here’s Patti with our luggage and the RAV4.

We had plenty of time to get checked in for our flight, which turned out to be a good thing because Patti’s checked bag was overweight and she spent some time lightening her load. She threw away some things, moved some things to her carryon bags, and I volunteered to pack a few of her things in my checked bag since my bag was less than the 23 kg maximum. I usually complain that Patti carries too much stuff with her wherever we go, but I won’t do that here. Or, maybe I just did?

Here’s Patti in the airport with her checked bag open, working on unburdening it.

Checking in was all self-service, by the way. We went to a kiosk and entered our itinerary number and got our boarding passes and checked bag tags. We put the tags on our checked bags ourselves and went to the automated bag check station where the machine weighs your bag and you scan the luggage tag with the hand-held scanner. This is where you find out if your bag is overweight. If it’s OK then the screen tells you your bag is successfully checked in and the conveyer system quickly moves the bag out of sight. We didn’t have to show identification to anyone or any machine, which surprised us. Anyone with our itinerary number could have checked in and used our tickets.

We flew Wideroe Airlines today, by the way.

“Widerøes Flyveselskap AS, trading as Widerøe, is a Norwegian airline, and is the largest regional airline operating in the Nordic countries. The airline’s fleet of 40 Bombardier Dash 8 aircraft, and 3 Embraer E190-E2 aircraft, serves over 40 domestic and international destinations.”

I was hoping to fly on one of their Bombardier Dash 8 planes because the propeller planes fly lower and slower so you see more of the country.

Instead we flew on an Embraer E190-E2.

It’s a fine two-engine jet, similar to a Boeing 737 or an Airbus 320, just a little smaller. Here’s our airplane selfie.

We were on the port side of the aircraft which took off to the south and we had nice views of Tromsø as we climbed away from the airport.

The flight was about 1.5 hours and before we landed we had nice views of the farmland near Trondheim.

Our journey through the Trondheim airport was quick and efficient. Our bags arrived shortly after we got to the baggage carousel. Our Airbnb host here recommended the train as the best way to get to her place from the airport. We bought tickets from the automated kiosk then settled into the waiting room. The train runs once per hour and we missed the last train by just a few minutes, so we had to wait another hour. Here’s Patti in the waiting room with our gear.

A Norwegian woman in the waiting room called out to me and said she had bought a bag of walnuts that was too big and offered me some. So, since I like walnuts, I got a handful from her. We ended up talking to her for a while. She and her husband live not far from Trondheim and had been on vacation for a week. They were catching the train in the opposite direction.

Our train came a little late and the first stop was Hell. I’ve read that some people get off here just to get their pictures with Hell signs, to say that they’ve been to Hell. Here’s the stop on the notification screen on the train. It was getting late so we didn’t get off just to take a picture.

And here’s Patti on the train.

Once we alighted from the train it was about an 800-meter walk to our Airbnb. That’s the farthest we’ve walked with our new rolling Dakine bags, but they did well on pavement and gravel. Pulling them uphill took a little more effort but it wasn’t bad.

This Airbnb is a lower level / basement walk-out apartment in a big yellow house on Roald Amundsens Street. Here’s Patti in the yard with the house.

The house has a “For Sale” sign on it, so we’re assuming the owners, while selling the house, continue to make money renting out the basement apartment on Airbnb.

We get into our apartment through the garage, using the personnel door to the left of the roll-up door.

The kitchen/dining/living room has plenty of space.

The bathroom has plenty of room.

The bedroom is tight, there’s not much room between the bed and the walls, but the bed is comfortable.

We dropped our bags at the apartment and walked to the nearest Coop Extra grocery store to get some things for breakfast tomorrow. After that, we unpacked enough for the night and went to bed just before midnight. It was a long day!

August 29, 2023 – Tuesday: A Walk Around Trondheim

The weather forecast was decent for today so this morning we set out for our customary city walk that we usually do our first day in a new place. We had just a few things on our agenda like go by the train station to confirm the schedule and how to buy tickets. We plan to take the train to the airport next Monday. When we got to the station, we learned that the schedule is every hour on the 11-minute, and the woman in the station café said we can buy our tickets on the train. It should be easy.

We walked by a local park where a kindergarten class was playing. They were enjoying this ride where one kid sits on a round seat and coasts down to the other side, sort of like a zip line. We’ve actually tried these out before at other playgrounds and they are fun. We do it when there are no kids around.

We stopped to watch them. None of them were quite tall enough to be able to get up onto the seat by themselves so they were helping each other, three kids were lifting one kid up onto the seat and each kid got a ride.

For me this was a refreshing change from what I’ve been seeing in the US, where in this situation there would have been multiple adults standing very close and supervising, lifting the kids up, ensuring that everyone was perfectly safe. That’s been a pet peeve of mine for quite a while. There were two teachers watching from a distance and I walked over to talk to one of them. I explained that we were from the US and that I liked seeing how the kids were allowed to play by themselves and figure things out for themselves. He told me that he’d had training classes where they told him about the practices in the US and China, where kids aren’t allowed to make their own mistakes. The teachers here are actually taught to leave the kids alone to play and learn on the playground. I think this will give future Norwegian adults an advantage over future American adults.

Jeff’s Opinion: for children, growth and development is more important than safety. That’s a controversial opinion.

At the edge of the park, we discovered a statue of King Sverre, who is considered one of the most important rulers in Norwegian history.

“Sverre Sigurdsson (c. 1145/1151 – 9 March 1202) was the king of Norway from 1184 to 1202.Man y consider him one of the most important rulers in Norwegian history. He assumed power as the leader of the rebel party known as the Birkebeiner in 1177, during their struggle against King Magnus Erlingsson. After Magnus fell at the Battle of Fimreite in 1184, Sverre ruled as sole king of Norway.”

Then we passed by this statue of a woman with an ox that didn’t have an inscription. I liked it, it was quite detailed.

We walked by the local marina and had a nice view of the Trondheim Fjord.

We walked some streets with older houses, probably built around 1900.

We walked into the main town square, called Torvet, where there is a famous statue of King Olaf Tryggvason on a column. Here’s Patti taking a picture of the monument.

I zoomed in on him, you can see he’s holding the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch in his left hand. Monty Python would be proud.

“Olaf Tryggvason (960s – 9 September 1000) was King of Norway from 995 to 1000. He was the son of Tryggvi Olafsson, king of Viken (Vingulmark, and Rånrike), and, according to later sagas, the great-grandson of Harald Fairhair, first King of Norway. He is numbered as Olaf I. Olaf was important in the conversion of the Norse to Christianity, but he did so forcibly within his own kingdom. He is said to have built the first Christian church in Norway in 995, and to have founded the city of Trondheim in 997. A statue dedicated to him is located in the city’s central plaza.”

He is a very well-known and famous person in Norway, and rumor has it that he is buried under the cathedral here in Trondheim. There is also a Christian pilgrimage path from Oslo to Trondheim to honor him.

North of the square we passed the umbrella street. We’ve seen these in several cities around the world. I guess it’s a fashionable thing to do, it was mostly a shopping avenue.

We got to the Nidelva River where there are a lot of old warehouse buildings that have been rehabilitated and that have become iconic of Trondheim.

We walked out on a bridge and got a picture of both sides of the river.

Here in Trondheim we’ve seen warehouse views on postcards, refrigerator magnets, paintings, etc. and they really are very cool looking.

We walked by the Nidaros Cathedral — a very important site here in Trondheim. It’s the final resting place of King Olaf Tryggvason and also serves as the end of the pilgrimage trail from Oslo. Here I’m standing with the zero-kilometer milestone for the pilgrimage, in front of the cathedral.

“The Pilgrim’s Route, (Pilegrimsleden) also known as St. Olav’s Way or the Old Kings’ Road, was a pilgrimage route to the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Norway, the site of the medieval tomb of St. Olav. The main route is approximately 640 kilometres (400 mi) long. It starts in the ancient part of Oslo and heads north along the lake Mjøsa, up the Gudbrandsdal valley, over the Dovrefjell mountains, and down the Oppdal and Gauldalen valleys to end at the Nidaros Cathedral.”

Last year while we were in Spain, we walked about six miles on the “French” path of the Camino de Santiago. At some point in the near future, we would like to complete a multi-day pilgrimage path. If we do decide to complete one, we would probably walk about 6 to 8 hours each day, stay in guest houses at night with hot showers and warm comfy beds, and hire a service to carry our bags from village / guest house to village/ guest house.

In addition to the St. Olav / Trodheim (Norway) and Santiago (Spain) pilgrimages, apparently there are also important pilgrimages that end in Jerusalem (Israel) and in Rome (Italy). We saw numerous souvenirs in the gift shop that referenced these journeys (picture below). We’ve also heard about similar walks within the U.S., although I’m not sure if they are referred to as pilgrimages there.

As we were walking home from the church a local guy saw me looking at Google Maps on my phone and stopped to ask if I needed help. This has happened quite a bit in Norway, with locals wanting to help. I showed him that I already knew the route home, but we ended up talking to him for a while about Trondheim (he’s lived here for 20 years) and he recommended some things to do here.

On the way home we stopped by a postal service desk in a grocery store and talked to the guy about shipping a box to the USA. Patti needs to get rid of some stuff so her checked bag won’t be overweight next Monday when we fly to Stavanger. He said that the normal Norwegian postal service will ship boxes to the US and a 5kg box would cost around $60 USD. In other countries we’ve usually used a shipping service like DHL or Mail Boxes Etc., but here I guess we’ll just use the normal mail service.

When we returned back to the Airbnb, we changed clothes and went for a one-hour run / jog along some of the nearby walking trails. There are so many trails here for walking, biking, and jogging that we didn’t have to beware of traffic like we do in places with no sidewalks, so it was a pleasant workout. Later, we relaxed and talked about a plan for tomorrow. We’ll probably do another walk, this one going to other parts of the city.