The cruise continues
Our next stop was the cute little city of Trondheim. Despite having only 160,000 residents, it is the third largest city in Norway.
I liked the brightly painted storehouse buildings on the pilings.
And their chic little water-front restaurant district housed in old factories.
We walked around the Nidaros Cathedral, a famous church where Saint Olav is supposedly buried.
Next to the church was the former Bishop’s Palace. We toured the museum that detailed the huge archaeological dig of the entire area in the 1990s. The bottom floor is built around the foundation of a mint they discovered. To preserve it, they have to mist the ground regularly. Just like the produce section of the supermarket!
Our last stop was the fort, which was up an extremely steep hill. From here we could see the harbor and check out some old artillery.
The next day we finally crossed the Artic Circle. There is a globe-type monument on a little island to denote it. It’s kind of hard to see in the picture:
About a half-hour later, the captain announced that he was stopping the boat to see if he could get some fresh fish from one of the fishing boats we passed.
Long story short: we got fresh salmon and the fisherman got a case of Johnny Walker and some cigarettes. Win-win!
That evening, around 10 pm, we sailed into Trollfjord, which seemed impossibly narrow.
The next day, we stopped in Gravdal and only ventured about a quarter mile to a little beach. This was our first instance of cloudy, rainy weather. But when you’re above the Arctic Circle, that’s expected.
Next stop: Honnigsvåg, the northernmost city in Norway (70° N!) Once again, we set off on our own to hike up a hill (and still not buy any souvenirs). I was really hoping we would see a reindeer, but we weren’t that lucky.
Only the gift-store polar bear:
Here’s the view over the bay:
There were oddly about 15 graves up here in addition to a statue. We theorized that the funerals here probably didn’t get great attendance, due to the strenuous journey. “Where’s Sven being buried? On the hill? Uhhh, I just remembered that I’m…..fishing that day. Yeah, fishing.”
Speaking of fishing, we saw quite a few houses with the fish hanging outside to dry.
All told, a nice little town.
The next day, the boat stopped in Tromsø, which neither of us cared too much for. It was about a 45 minute walk into town, with almost nothing interesting along the way. But to be positive, we did see these cool mosaics on one building:
The following day was the 4th of July, which was a day at sea. It was also a day to eat beyond excess because there was a huge international cuisine buffet with an obscene amount of food. And of course, everything was delicious.
Next post: Alesund, Bergen, and Oslo
Post a Comment