Day Three (and last bit of Day Two): Trondheim: in which the Weather Gods smile on me once again

[notyourmonkey]

Post-Molde, I had just enough time for a little Bushmills in my tea mug while watching the lights of the city slide away before dashing up for dinner. I was a couple of minutes late, as there had been a crowd lined up outside the dining room doors since at least six o’clock, and I wanted to avoid that. I’d located my assigned table earlier, a single four-top in the midst of eight and twelve-tops, and it was right by the door. Okay, fine, single girl making good, whatever. Four is a much more manageable number when they’re all strangers.

And then I showed up, and there were only two place settings at the table.

Four is amusing; two is pretty much terrifying. What if you don’t get along at all? There’s no escape, and even the best food can be dulled by stony silence. My chagrin deepened when it became apparent that the main rush of diners had already been seated and no one had joined me. Perhaps it was a pity place setting, to make me feel less alone?

I sat alone for probably fifteen or twenty minutes, long enough to order and receive drinks, bread, and salad (not to mention dash back downstairs for my book). Just as I started the clipfish and olive salad (over arugula with a really nice vinaigrette - awesome all around), Ella (not Alice; my bad) and William walked into the dining room and announced that they were crashing my table, that it wold be unconscionable for me to sit by myself. I knew there was a reason I liked them.

Not thirty seconds after they had gotten seated, my actual dinner companion arrived. Melissa is a forty-something non-profit project manager from Denver, here on the full round-trip after finishing up a three-year project. In an instant, I had gone from sitting by myself to having a full table of interesting, lively people, and we seemed to have far more fun (and made far more noise) than any of the other tables nearby.

We had a very lovely dinner (some sort of dried fish on fresh arugula with olives, tomatoes, and a vinaigrette, chicken over lentils and risotto (I think?) with strips of bacon and parsnip, and then some sort of custard on top of oatmeal crumble crust with raspberry sauce), talking everything from politics to the guy who made a song out of the periodic table, and afterwards we went to the 7th floor bar for free tea and (terrible) coffee, where the one attempt at on-board entertainment (a bored looking Bulgarian girl with a beautiful voice plowing her way through nightclub stands. Ella instantly dubbed her the Norwegian [sic] Karen Carpenter) was doing her best. We went our own ways around ten, which is when I finally wrangled the ship's computers to do my bidding and take me to the internet. I drifted off to bed shortly thereafter (and stayed up until one reading Heyer.)



This morning I woke up promptly when we docked at 6 am (I actually think that explains my wakings the night before - every time I looked at the clock was roughly when we arrived somewhere), then rolled over and went back to sleep until a little after eight. Ella, William, and Melissa had all talked about rising early and hitting the town, so I figured I had missed them. However, when I strolled into the dining room, Ella and William were still lingering over (mediocre) coffee. I tore through some oatmeal and a “pancake” (non-filled crepe thingy), and we reconvened at the disembarkation point at nine.

A slight note - when I woke up and for at least a half-hour afterwards, it was grey and windy and snowing most assertively. Huge flakes just pounding down. I had the conversation with myself about how this was part of what I signed up for, that of course it was going to snow in Norway, that this just made my trip more “authentic,” or whatever. I was going to see Trondheim, dammit, no matter what precipitated upon me! (And, upon pondering that for a moment, I decided that mostly I was just glad it wasn’t sleet.)

Before leaving the ship, I went back to my room and layered up - long underwear, sweater, fleece, coat, scarf, hat, gloves, the works. It was supposed to be a twenty minute walk into town, and I was by god gonna be ready.

By nine, the snow had almost completely stopped, and by the time we made it to the Nidaros cathedral forty-five minutes later, the sun was even trying to come out. Our last hour and a half tromping around Trondheim was gorgeous - cold and bright, with a light dusting of snow to make everything pretty. The walk was far shorter than twenty minutes, and after you got out of the shipping district, even the non-historically significant bits were lovely. It’s all clapboard and Art Nouveau interspersed with cathedrals and palaces from the 1100s. I could have spent much, much longer wandering about.

Actually, I think today was the first time in maybe ever that I have done the stereotypically tourist thing - off the boat, camera around neck (hey, pulling out of my pocket all the time is tricky with gloves on), on a mission to hit all the major attractions in two hours or less. Okay, there was still a lot of side street rambling, and we ducked in the local mall for Ella and William (who only have half-board) to pick up lunch, and I ducked into the grocery store for a wine opener and trail mix at a non-highway robbery price, but still. I wore my camera around my neck. (And took a boatload of photos, incidentally.)

We only had two hours or so, so we saw the cathedral and trooped right back to the boat, making it on with five minutes to spare. Not that there were that many other options, honestly. In the list of must-sees in the guidebook, every single entry had notations like, “open May - August,” “open June - September,” “open at noon” (the ship left at noon). The one that had the notation “open year round”? Yeah. That one had an additional note - “closed on Mondays.”

At least, though, there were people around. Sure, Trondheim is a bigger “city” than either Alesund or Molde, and it’s a Monday not Sunday, but those were ghost towns. There were actually people walking about that I was reasonably sure lived in the city today.

In conclusion: A+++ would visit again. Trondheim would be a lovely city in which to set up base camp, explore the region a bit. For my next Norwegian holiday, I’ll be sure to do just that.

Our next stop isn’t until nine this evening. Today is the day of long stretches of sailing. After Rorvik tonight, we won’t go much more than three hours without a stop for a couple of days. Tomorrow’s planned excursion is a Wiking Feet (or Viking Feast, whatever), which I’m passing on. We’ve got a two and a half hour stop at Bodo at noon tomorrow, and most of the other stops are only fifteen or twenty minutes. Lots of relaxing boat time between now and then.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I”m going to go admire the Trondheimfjorden a bit. Third longest in the country, I hear. 130 kilometers. I’m going to be a walking guide book by the time I leave.