A Wet Day in Trondheim

21/08/2025

Trondheim currently holds the trophy for the most expensive stopover in Norway. I’m not complaining (much), it was completely our choice to park as close to the centre as possible. With rain forecast all day we didn’t want to be trudging out of town, or waiting for a bus. We just opted for the most expedient option.

Trondheim Motorhome Parking

We drove around Trondheim on the E6 before approaching from the east. It seemed the easiest option rather than driving through the city. The motorhome parking was just east of the river, in amongst the docks, industrial buildings and out of town shopping. The nearby Kjeldsberg factory treated us to the smell of roasting coffee and proclaimed itself ‘Norway’s favourite coffee’ or some such sentiment. Luckily, even though I don’t drink coffee, I quite like the smell.

The parking had to be paid in advance at the terminal and a choice of pitch made. I went for a pitch in the middle, trying to keep as far from roads and trainline as possible. With electricity it was a completely ridiculous 660 NOK – £48.03. As I write this I’m getting cross with myself for paying it. It wasn’t even a peaceful night as you can probably guess from my description of the location.

We ignored the exhortation not to park before 13:00 (it was 12:55, I cant imagine the 5 minutes would make much difference). We settled into our designated space and hooked up to the EHU. At this price we were charging everything while we were out.

It was a busy stopover, there were plenty of people already in situ and more arrived. Mind you we saw just as many people drive up and then drive off, making for somewhere cheaper or free. As we found when we ventured into the city, there are plenty of places to park for free within walking distance to the city. In future we would just drive in to visit for the day, parking outside the city would be cheaper and more peaceful.

The historic wharves

We donned our waterproofs and headed out. Paul chose to wear shorts, believing the adage that it’s easier to dry skin than clothes. I think he regretted his choice by the end of the day.

From the parking it was really easy to find our way along the pedestrian/cycle paths to a pedestrian bridge across the Nidelva (literally Nid River). We walked north along the backs of the riverside buildings. One or two gaps between the buildings gave us access to the rivers edge where we could see the more impressive view of the timber buildings standing on their huge pilings. Originally these would have been warehouses and maybe merchant’s offices, but now a lot of them seem to be residential buildings with enviable views over the river. Most were rebuilt after the fire of 1681.

Also built after the fire was the ‘old bridge’ – Gamle Bybru – this would have once acted as a gateway into the city with toll and customs booths. Now it’s a tourist attraction and was busy even on this miserable day.

Cathedral and Bishops Palace

We continued along the river to Nidaros Cathedral – the most northerly Gothic Cathedral in the world. Nidaros was the original name for the city of Trondheim and when the cathedral was built it was the capital of Norway. Like many gothic cathedrals it took a long time to build – from 1070 to 1300 – with generations of artisans working on it. Maybe it’s because I’m British and have seen too many gothic cathedrals (I lived in Salisbury for a few years) but it wasnt impressive enough to tempt us to pay for entry.

The cathedral is built on the resting place of Norway’s patron saint – Saint Olav. Olav II was also ‘king’ of Norway although he spent a lot of time in exile and was ultimately unsuccessful in retaking Norway from King Canute. But the myth of St Olav is something that seems to have helped the succeeding generations of leaders to unite the country and convert the population to Christianity.

Similar to many buildings of it’s age it h

as been nearly destroyed several times, fire and lightning have destroyed the interior and large parts of the building. And the process of restoration and conservation is unending. The West Front with it’s many statues of saints, was reconstructed in the 1920s and 30s but there was so little documentation of the original structure that a lot of it was educated guesswork.

Trondheim Museum

After the cathedral we moved on and our next stop was one of the many museums in Trondheim. We wanted to visit the University Museum because it holds many of the artefacts found at Vangfeltet where we’d been only the day before.

These finds were probably the least interesting part of the museum. There were many many artefacts, swords, jewellery, tools. But they were in a very old fashioned part of the museum with very little context of explanation and no English.

Much better were the other exhibits, a very interesting exhibit about the historic trade in Walrus ivory. I had never really thought about ancient Ivory artefacts, like the Lewis Chessmen, that were made before Elephant Ivory was available in wester Europe. This was quite an eye opener. The Viking exhibition may have been more aimed at children but was fun, and we learned that the term Starboard comes from Viking ‘steering boards’ (rudder) being on the righthand side of their ships.

We only realised with half an hour to go before closing, that there was a further part of the museum in another building. We dashed over to see the Medieval exhibit (and make use of the toilets) which was also excellent.

Overall the whole museum gave us a really good overview of the history of Trondheim.

A walk along the promenade

From the museum I had planned a walk along Trondheim’s promenade to get back to our start point. I’m sure this would have been lovely in the dry weather we’d been experiencing until recently, there are steps to access the water for swimming, even diving boards and pontoons. Unfortunately it just wasn’t the weather to make the most of it.

We debated whether to go out for a drink and food that evening, but as the weather hadn’t improved we stayed in for some home cooked food and one of our treasured alcoholic drinks.