Hurtigruten day 3 (13/3)

On the third day of our trip, we docked in Trondheim very early in the morning, though after our nocturnal adventures the night before we did not see this first hand! Trondheim celebrated its 1000th anniversary about 10 years ago and it used to be the capital of Norway, so we were keen to have a look around. After a quick breakfast around 8, we set off to explore the streets of Trondheim before we left again at 12.
The docks of Trondheim are probably not the most exciting places in the world, but a short stroll through them saw us in the city itself, which was much prettier! We started off in the old part of town where we saw Norwegian coloured houses again, as well as the only bicycle lift in the world, installed to encourage locals who were scared off by an enormous hill to cycle more. It seems the bicycle lift is closed in winter however, as it was frozen over. The brave explorers (us) set off to walk up the big hill anyway and continued up to the fortress in Trondheim (Kristiansten Festning). But it was a cold day in Trondheim and the roads and rocks were icy, so we (well, I) made slow progress up the hill. The view from the top over Trondheim was nice though and we enjoyed our stroll around the cannons and buildings.

Once we descended, we headed over to the Nidaros Cathedral, which is the national cathedral of Norway and is historically very significant, having been built around 1320 over the burial site of (St) King Olav. It started snowing as we arrived at the cathedral and the graveyards, gothic architecture and snow made it look quite scary!

Covered in snow and unsure about where to go next, we decided to head for a coffee. I wanted hot chocolate, but declined when I saw it was 43NOK (around $9.50). This was a normal cafe and none of the locals seemed surprised by the prices! I settled for tea at 30NOK ($6.50) instead!

After another stroll through the town we headed back to the ship, and into the pool for a quick dip and spa! As we relaxed in the panorama lounge later, we passed a tiny red lighthouse on a small island in the middle of nowhere which used to be inhabited by a brave man and his family.

Later that day, after another fantastic 3 course meal, we stopped at Rørvik for a brief time, at the same time as the southbound Hurtigruten was there, so we were invited to go and have a look. It was the oldest in the fleet, built in the 1950s and was so different to the mammoth we were travelling on. Everything was wooden, cosy and authentic (they even had cod slung over the pipes!) and a lot smaller (see the picture below, unfortunately bad quality). On the way back, a Scotsman asked me what I thought of it, and we agreed it was gorgeous, but we were happy with the one we had, complete with spa, pool and bathrooms inside our rooms.


We finished off the night with more bridge and also posted our entries for the arctic circle competition- a competition to guess the time at which we would cross the arctic circle the next day.