Arctic Circle Tour - Mo I Rana to Trondheim, Norway

On Day 11 of the tour we drove from Mo I Rana to Trondheim which was a 480 km or seven to eight hours drive and, thankfully, a TFD (troll free day).

We stopped for a quick look around the Dolstad Church and surrounding turf covered building at Mosjoen. Further south we stopped at Laksforsen waterfall and drove through the Namdalen

Valley. We were able to view much of the Trondheimsfjord from the top of the fjord before descending into Tronheim township.

Trondheim is a beautiful city on the shores of Trondheim Fjord at the mouth of the River Nidelva and has a population of about 193,000. There have been people living in this location since the bronze age. During WWII Trondheim became a major submarine base.

Nowadays Trondheim is a vibrant town with students comprising almost a fifth of the population. It has lively rock, classical and jazz music scenes and skiing, ski jumping, cross country skiing and biathalon are very popular. Monty Python parodied Trondheim culture in a skit featuring the Trondheim Hammer dance.

The location of our hotel Trondheim Quality Hotel Augustin was really

great, right in the middle of Trondheim. It was a lively district with lots of speciality shops, bars and beautiful old buildings.

We explored the area around our hotel with our friends Ric and Dawn. The cobble-stoned streets are wide and elegant.

We went to Nidaros Cathedral, the most important Gothic monument in Norway, but were too late to catch a tour inside. Our friends, Ric and Dawn (who were becoming a very bad influence on us) made us go into the church to look around despite the signage that clearly stated visiting time was definitely over. The cathedral façade is richly decorated with statures and obviously significant scenes. We haven’t yet worked out why there is a scene where a bishop holds a bowl full of severed heads.

We looked at the old wooden warehouses that line the river. They have been restored and are painted in bright colours that you see all over Norway – sooooo photogenic.

We spent a bit of time in a supermarket checking out food – so much

yummy fish and found bottle of Bundaberg (my home town) Ginger Beer and other flavours selling very cheaply at only $7.43 a stubby.

We went out for dinner to Peppes Pizza which is Norwegian pizza franchise. Quite tasty but as usual, quite expensive. They had really cool utensils that lifted and cut the pizza. Almost as good as the really fancy egg slice Jeff and Jax sent us.

Next: Arctic Circle Tour –Trondheim to the Geiranger Area, Norway