Norway Landing


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Europe » Norway » Trøndelag » Trondheim
June 7th 2013
Published: June 29th 2017
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Geo: 63.4346, 10.3985

Today we finally landed in Norway, our first stop being Trondheim. Our first impressions were slightly underwhelming. Inland, in still waters, Trondheim is Norways third largest city. It consists of beautiful colourful houses on a forested and hilly backdrop with a canal running through the centre. With no tour planned for the day, we elected to explore on foot. An ATM gave us our first dose of the Norweigan Krone. A 1,000 Krone note basically = $190AUD. We continued on, dodging swarms of straggling, stumbling elderly cruise critters, before reaching the Nidaros Cathedral. Starting as a church in 1070 and named after the original name of the city, the cathedral was finally completed to stand as it does today around 1650. We bought a multi admission pass to the cathedral, neighboring Archbishop museum and display of the 1813 Norweigan Crown regalia. The crown was spectacular, used to segregate the Norweigan monarchy from Denmark. It was used until the 1900s when a blessing in the cathedral now replaces a proper coronation, making the crown jewels essentially ornamental only. The museum had some interesting artifacts, but was a bit ordinary. The great gothic cathedral was the highlight, with a grand design. We chose to pay a little extra to climb the tower. It was worth it, offering a spectacular view at the cost of 160 tiny and extremely tight, claustrophobic winding stairs.Next, we wandered on along the canals over the bridge and up a majorly steep hill on to the Kristiensten Fort, built in the 1600s to protect the area from the east. The main building was interesting, the floorboards feeling flimsy beneath our feet.Peckish, we stopped in at a cafe for a snack. Norway is expensive, period. A beer, wine and Norweigan soup to share cost 251 Krone, or $45AUD. At least I got some time to use free wifi for a while. We started to head back, thinking we had 2 hours. I checked my phone to note that had been cut to 1. For the second night in a row we had meant to readjust the time by 1 hour. We arrived back on board around 5.15, with 15 minutes to spare. As others had miscalculared the ship was delayed anyway.Pre dinner, Nat and I went to a hypnotist show out of curiousity. It was extremely interesting with people acting ridiculous under the apparent influence of the spell of the influence, in a trance. I remain unconvinced. Dinner was nice enough and involved a theological conversation for dessert. Its been a heavy evening on the mind and now its time to sleep. We have a full day tour starting tomorrow morning to Trollstigen, or the Path of the Trolls near Alesund. We are hoping for some spectacular sights!


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