This travel update is part two of our one-week stay in Trondheim, Norway. It covers August 30 – September 1. “Any text in quotes and Italics has been copied and pasted from some informational website like Wikipedia.”

August 30, 2023 – Thursday: Another Walk Around The City

The weather forecast looked good for today and we like seeing a city on foot, so we decided to do another city walk. Here’s the wandering route we ended up taking, Google Maps says it was about 8 miles.

We crossed a pedestrian bridge over the Nidelva River which was very calm this morning, it may have been close to slack tide.

The river was very pretty.

We came to an area along the river with exercise and play equipment. Patti decided to see if she could do an L-Sit and accomplished it easily. Earlier this year (in March) she fell and fractured a few bones in her rib cage while trying to do an L-Sit on some parallel bars at the RV Resort we were staying at in Jacksonville (as she was falling, her right-side rib cage area slammed directly on the top of a 4×4 wooden post that held up the bars). I’m thinking that now she wants to prove she can do it without injury. She says she believes the parallel bars in Jacksonville where further apart, and therefore, that is the reason why she fell, and wasn’t able to perform the move properly.

I decided to try to climb this ropes-climbing-thing that looked like a giant molecule to me and it turned out to be fun.

As usual in Norway there were lovely flowerboxes along the pathways and in front of buildings.

We had a nice view of the Nidaros Cathedral from across the river.

We liked the look of this old yellow building that has a bike shop on the ground floor on the right.

We went in the bike shop door to admire the inner courtyard and two guys in the shop came over to chat. We ended up spending about 20 minutes with them. The older guy retired last year, at age 63, and now works in his brother’s bike shop. He said his pension is about $2,500 USD per month. In Norway they can retire at age 62, but every additional year they work their pension increases, similar to how the U.S. Social Security program works. The younger guy was in the army and now works at the shop. They gave us a tour of the shop and talked to us a bit about bicycle brands. It was a nice stop for us, and here’s Patti with the guys.

We enjoy impromptu diversions like this as we wander.

From near the bike shop we walked uphill to the old fortress that stands on a hill overlooking downtown Trondheim. It’s called Kristiansten Festning.

“Kristiansten Fortress (Norwegian: Kristiansten Festning, historically spelled Christiansten) is located on a hill east of the city of Trondheim in Trøndelag county, Norway, named after Christian V of Denmark-Norway. It was built after the city fire of Trondheim in 1681 to protect the city against attack from the east. Construction was finished in 1685. It fulfilled its purpose in 1718 when Swedish forces laid siege against Trondheim. The fortress was decommissioned in 1816 by King Charles XIV John.”

I found some canon at the fortress.

The tower, painted white, is within the fortress walls and is now a nice little museum with lots of information, in English and Norwegian, about the military history of the fortress.

Here’s Patti in the tower reading some of the info.

And here she is on the top floor which had low vaulted ceilings and more canon.

There was a nice view of the city from the fortress ramparts.

We were glad we were able to see the fortress on a bright and sunny day.

We decided to eat lunch at a place near the bike shop, so we walked back down the hill. On the way we saw this sign for the Pilgrimage Path of St. Olav. It looks like the path is pretty well marked here. When they get to this spot the pilgrims are only a couple of kilometers from the Cathedral.

Our lunch spot was called Baklandet Skydsstation. We liked the look of the building.

From the restaurant website: “This building is among the best preserved buildings on Baklandet. We have a long and exciting history that dates back to the 1700’s. The premises were home to many different companies from a transport station (although this is not documented), to a milliner, a carpentry workshop, a dairy and a launderette.”

The restaurant has four small rooms, we sat in the green room.

Patti was excited to discover two white flower vases sitting on the tables. She says were distributed by Avon (ordered from a booklet from an “Avon Lady” as they were called back then) in the 1960s or 1970s, and they probably had either perfume or lotion in them. She actually has two of these vases that she got from her Mother — they are currently packed up safely in boxes in our storage space in Sarasota, Florida (USA).

I got the Reindeer Stew and Patti got the Smoked Cod with risotto. Both dishes were excellent.

It was a charming place and we were glad we’d picked it.

After lunch we continued our walk along the river and enjoyed the views of the old warehouses again.

We got to the area of town called Solsiden that resembles a yuppie habitat of up-scale restaurants and apartments with old shipping equipment like cranes still around for that steampunk ambiance.

It was a nice area, we may go return there and get lunch one day. We continued our walk west along the waterfront and got to the main train terminal where there’s a pedestrian overpass. Here’s a picture from the overpass the includes a ferry boat coming into the Trondheim harbor, with Monkholen Island just behind it.

We walked past the ferry dock just as the boat was coming in. I like watching boats.

We went by a tourist shop that had a troll out front and Patti posed with him.

We went by a pretty marina with lots of sailboats. I like looking at sailboats like this because Patti and I have sailed on similar boats.

For about half a kilometer the path was a waterside walkway, similar to the Malecóns we’ve seen in Spanish-speaking countries and the promenades we saw in Morocco.

No matter what they’re called we usually like them.

When we got close to our Airbnb, we stopped at the Coop Extra grocery store for some provisions, and also talked with the guy at the Postal Services desk there about shipping a box to the states. He confirmed we could do it and we bought their largest box which we will probably use for our shipment.

On the way home from the grocery we walked through our local park, and I took this picture of a fish ladder, which should help migrating fish navigate the rapids and spawn upstream.

After returning to the Airbnb, we did quite a bit of computer work looking for an Airbnb for our upcoming stay in Bergen. The options there are limited for the timeframe we want to be there, and we haven’t made a reservation yet.

August 31, 2023 – Thursday: A Day Off

We planned to do not much today, mostly just relax and get caught up on some things. We did make an Airbnb reservation for a place in Bergen for two weeks. It looks like it will be a comfortable place to stay.

Today I wore my new Thor’s Hammer amulet that I bought yesterday.

“In Norse folklore, the hammer is a symbol of the power of the earth as well as death and rebirth. Stories describe Thor both creating and destroying things with his hammer. Thor’s hammer, also known as Mjollnir, is a popular pendant found in Viking burial sites. Wearers of the Thor’s hammer pendant hope to invoke the favor of the thunder and fertility god Thor.”

So, hopefully, Thor will be watching over me now.

At lunchtime we walked downtown and ate at Mir Kebab, I had a kebab and Patti got a hamburger (of course she did). On the way we noticed that our local church’s door was open, so we went in to see it. It’s a lovely church.

The organist was practicing, which would have been exciting for me to hear back when I could hear normally. Unfortunately, my new cochlear implant doesn’t do a good job with music, so the organ sounded strange to my cyborg right ear.

The altar decoration was nice.

After lunch Patti stayed downtown to do some shopping and I went home and relaxed.

September 1, 2023 – Friday: Thwarted Plans

Today we planned to ship our box back to the U.S. then get lunch downtown somewhere and go to the St. Olaf’s Cathedral complex of church and museums. We set off mid-morning carrying our box and headed to the closest post office location. We’ve shipped boxes back to the U.S. from most of the countries we’ve traveled in. The boxes usually have mostly souvenirs for us and gifts for family, plus Patti usually decides she doesn’t need everything she brought and ships some of it back. We’ve never been able to use the country’s postal service, we have always used DHL or Mail Boxes etc. However, in Norway, the regular mail ships parcels to the U.S. so we’d bought one of their boxes a couple of days ago and this morning we filled it up.

Based on what we’ve seen, the post offices in Norway are located in the grocery stores. The closest one was at the Coop Extra grocery where we’ve been shopping. When we arrived at the store, we bought some packing tape, and I strapped the box with it, while Patti completed the shipping form. Earlier this morning, I created an Excel spreadsheet itemizing everything we were shipping. We came up with a value of $365 USD for customs purposes and we put that on the shipping form. The worker there was from Germany. She said she moved to Norway 20 years ago, when she was 15, with her family. We chatted with her as we completed the paperwork. Below are pictures of me taping up our box, and of the young lady preparing our package for mailing.

Our box weighed 7 kilograms. The whole process was very quick and easy and cost about $75 USD which was cheaper than similar boxes have been when shipped from other countries like Italy, Thailand, Mexico, Portugal and the United Kingdom.

After the post office we walked downtown, and I got lunch at a Ramen restaurant at the mall and Patti got a cinnamon roll. She’s still on a cinnamon roll kick and eats one nearly every day. We passed by this pretty flower garden with a bench where I took Patti’s picture. You can see she’s wearing her new dress today.

Upon arriving at the Cathedral, we asked to purchase the combo tickets so we could go to all three places (Cathedral and two museums). However, we were told that they were closing at 3PM today, and it was already 1:30PM, and that is not enough time to see everything. We thought everything stayed open until 5PM and that would have been plenty of time to see the church and two small museums. However, today is a special day in Trondheim. It’s September First! It’s not a public holiday, but they informed us that it’s considered to be the first day of the beginning of the winter season . . . meaning summer vacations are over and therefore, there will be less tourists coming to Norway, and so business hours at sight-seeing places and other tourist excursions are reduced. Beginning today, the hours at the Cathedral and its associated museums are 9AM to 3PM — we will return tomorrow.

We decided to walk through areas south of downtown where we hadn’t walked yet. We walked by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology and enjoyed seeing all the young people looking like college students look. Outside one of the student cafeterias was this bear statue. He looks like he’s got his nose inside the building. We decided to stage me in the picture with the bear.

We stopped at a grocery store on the way home to pick up provisions (food) so we can have a picnic tomorrow while we visit the museums.