Hurtigruten Day 4: Trondheim, Trondheimfjord, Stokksund, Rørvik

We ordered a wake up call at 7.00 a.m., as we have to be ready at 8.30 a.m. for the land excursion; When we have our first view through the window, we are already passing through the Trondheimfjord and the city is in front of us. There is the "MS Nordlys" that is going in southern direction, at the harbour, and our captain has to park the ship backwards. He seems to do this regularly, as he does it in a jiffy.

Today, the weather is not so fine. It is grey and it slightly rains. But this doesn't matter in the bus and we surely will survive the short ways outside. Several buses are ready, one with a german travel guide and one Norwegian/English.

We drive a little criss-cross through Trondheim to Nidarosdom. The biggest church of Scandinavia and the most northern gothic cathedral, as everything here is the biggest and located at the most northern point. But this church construction is really impressive, nearly purely gothic, only the transept was already initiated in the Romanesque. Unfortunately, this church has a very eventful past and numerous burnings and the reformation highly afflicted it, so that until the beginning of the reconstruction in 1869, only a ruin was left. The massive west portal reminds on the French cathedrals. Numerous monuments of Norwegian Kings, bishops and biblical figures and a massive rosette are visible; At first, the interior seems to be very gloomy, only after the eyes get used to the light conditions, the details are recognizable. The colourful church windows divulge a festive atmosphere, specially the rosette over the new Steinmeyer-organ unfolds from the interior a thumping effect.

The bus is waiting. We drive through the city, pass the old trade houses and the modern office buildings. At the most north eastern edge of the city we drive up the mountain side to the Ringve Gård Museum. In the 20ies, the landholder married a russian woman both loved the music and started to collect music instruments. Also, they arranged some rooms of their house in the style of the time of the famous composers. Thus, there is a Mozart-, Beethoven-, Chopin- und Grieg-room. The collection of music instruments is from historical up to modern instruments. There is even one moog-synthesizer built by Roland and a Hammond organ. The young lady that showed us all this is only perfect at the classic keyboard instruments, as in fact she only can switch on the synthy. What a pity.

The whole estate is located in a little botanical garden that we only can see from the bus, as we had to be back. The demurrages are just limited. We have to come again. It still drizzles while we watch how a range of new Toyotas disappear in lightning-speed in the belly of our ship. It is around 12:30 p.m. when we cast off. This is half an hour later as planned, and we were supposed not to recuperate this time any more for long.

When we pass the island Munkholmen, a former convent and prision, we continue in western direction. After each kilometer, the weather gets better and at the end of the Trondheimfjord the usual weather is back, blue sky, some little clowds and no waves. Neptun is really nice to us, as we read in the weather reports that the opposite is possible.

After an hour we are again in the north sea. Again the usual environment, islands ad infinitum, face granded by the glaciers of the ice age, occasionally a light house as the one of Kjeungskjaer (a lovely word, pronounced as "Cheungschjär"), many orientative signals, nicely painted red and white. On the most flat islands, there is sometimes at the top a stone mountain as a flowerpot that is upside down, it looks like a submarine and it ptobably served to confuse the enemies.

Around 4.00 p.m.Morten, our tour guide, adverts us per announcement to the coming Stokksund. All photographers swarm at the bow in order not to miss anything. In the Stokksund, the ship goes pretty tightly between the islands in slalom, sometimes the waterway has a width of only 40 m, considering that the width of the ship is of 19,2 m, it is nearly possible to pick up some flowers at the right and the left side by passing. There is also an history of the King William II., who was a big fan of Norway and came each year to this place with his yacht, as people say, he lost his head here and took the rudder off the pilot.

After the Stokksund, we slowly also leave the island area and enter the open sea for the next hours. The stretch up to Rørvik runs through the "Folda", an area that is not safe in which many vessels, including one of Hurtigruten, got lost. But surely not in the case of such a calmed sea as we have today.

Our dinner menue of today: as a starter, asparagus on (elk-)ham, fish and vegetables, again excellent! We feel good. For our digestion, we have the usual walk around the deck no. 5. We enjoy the sunset and watch the inlet into the harbour of Rørvik. Here, we meet the next ship of Hurtigruten, the "MS Midnatsol". These ships, 11 in total, run up and down the norwegian coast like a string of pearls; Every day at 8.00 p.m., one starts in Bergen to the direction of Kirkenes and is back after 12 days. Inevitably, one comes across to all ships in the course of the trip, but sometimes one oversleeps the passing, as also some harbours.

In Rørvik, people hurry during onloading and offloading, but we keep the delay of 30 minutes. Today, the sunset is specially nice, one can't stop watching it and make pictures of it. But shortly before midnight we drawback and disappear in our cabin. We miss the "reward of the night", a circumnavigation of the "Torghatten", the mountain with the whole in the middle, as we already sleep then.

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Author: Rudi Kronenberger; Copyright: Patrick Wagner, www.urlaube.info