1982 Trondheim, Norway (7/16/1982)

Friday, July 16, 1982

About 1:30 we went through Myrdal and you could see snow-covered “hills.” At each end of the cars in Norway, there is a glass bottle of water and paper cups.

We arrived in Oslo at 7:12, and heard an announcement that the train to Trondheim was leaving at 7:13. We hurried to board the express train that had plenty of empty seats, but the conductor made us move after we paid the 7 NOK/$1.10 supplement. We left a couple minutes late, pulling out of Oslo into New York State countryside with rolling green hills of farms, drying hay, and grazing cows.
It was stuffy in the train and you could not open the windows, so I was falling asleep and waking up groggy. By the time we reached Dombås, we were above the tree line. Later we descended back into the forests where you could see there was a lumber industry.
We arrived at sea level in Trondheim at 14:20.

First we got our 7 NOK/$1.10 supplement/reservations for the night train to Bodø, then locked up our bags. At information the best we could do was a booklet with a map in German and Norwegian. We left the station, crossed the “canal,” and headed to the indoor fish market which had about a dozen stalls. We could identify the laks/salmon, torsk/cod, and sild/herring. There were others and a few lobsters, too. Plus piles and piles of reker/shrimp.

Farther on a commercial street, we stopped at the Munken Kro/Monk Tavern or Pizzeria Frati/Friar Pizza, a restaurant of authentic Italian cuisine! Sue ordered spaghetti and the waiter thought I ordered the same. We each got large Coca-Colas, and bowls of shredded cabbage and carrots with a spicy Thousand Island-type dressing. We each had two helpings of salad, then had trouble getting through the pile of spaghetti.

After lunch we went next door to the Stiftsgården/Royal residence (1774–1778), the largest wooden building in Northern Europe.

Stiftsgården/Royal residence

Articulated bus

The stalls were packing up in the large market square. Passed a small statue of frolicking deer. Continued to the imposing Nidaros Domkirke/Nidaros Cathedral (1070-1300), the northernmost medieval cathedral in the world.

Nidaros Domkirke/Nidaros Cathedral

Admired the statues on the façade and tried to name the twelve apostles. Walked through the cemetery and to the Gamle Bybrua/Old Bridge constructed by Johan Caspar von Cicignon in 1681, very unique with red arches.

Gamle Bybrua/Old Bridge

We crossed the bridge and climbed the dirt road to Kristiansten Festning/Fortress (1685). We passed homes that seemed to belong to a New England summer colony. We walked around the small castle and I found a four-leaf clover. Returned back across the bridge and followed the river with the old wooden warehouses and their hoisting hooks, dating from about 1708.

Bryggen/Wharf Warehouses

Back at the train station, we sat on a bench across the canal from the train station. A man with a backpack came huffing and puffing to sit next to us, and began to talk away, despite our not understanding a word. At 19:30 we got an ice cream snack, and I tried to pay with coins the Liens had given me, but the lady would not accept old 1 and 5 øre coins. She gave them back to me, but accepted the rest of the 3.50 NOK (3.44 NOK/55 cents) as payment. She lost 0.9 cents on the deal.

Trondheim to Bodø seat reservation

We sat outside the station the rest of our wait for the 22:55 train to Bodø or Fauske and played the alphabet initial game while a drunk ate dried fish when sitting on the ground next to Sue. He mumbled to himself and left, to be replaced by another drunk looking for glass bottles in the trash can. We’ve seen more drunks in supposedly alcohol-free Norway. We were then trying to get as many words as we could from the word “halvliter” seen on an advertisement. At 22:30 we retrieved our bags from the locker and boarded the train on car 637, seats 59 & 60. A lot of people were looking for free seats, but it looked like the train was fully reserved. We left with standees in the aisles.

Outside the cloudy sky was pink.

At 23:30 we passed through Hell, a small village at a railway junction.