Trondheim tv and pilgrimage

Trondheim:  small, perfectly located on a fjord - dynamic, innovative while maintaining the best traditions especially friendliness.

Shuttle bus and last of the snow

One of the best looking rubbish bins in the world.

Part of the original city wall, behind the Bishop's palace

The Bishop's Palace

A very strange statue

Entrance to City Hall

 

As I got off the ship, a reporter from tvadressa.no asked me what I expected to find in Trondheim.  Of course, I was not as well-prepared as I was 2 hours later after thinking about it but I managed to stammer out something vaguely intelligent.

Side of the cathedral

Front of the cathedral

Then, I set off for the city.  First thing:  the cathedral has an entrance fee which I always refuse to pay in countries where the churches receive their money directly from taxes collected by the state.  The American system of not taxing churches or church property is not better.  Imagine how rich some governments, especially state governments, would be if church property were taxed.  My fantasy is that it would mean lower taxes for the rest of us but ....fat chance of that happening.

Founder of Trondheim who forced Christian conversion

 



Most important is that the cathedral is dedicated to St. Olav and is a pilgrimage site in both the Catholic and Lutheran churches - something I had never heard of.  St Olav is the patron saint of carvers but the literature did not explain why.  His axe is in the Norwegian coat of arms.

Garden behind Bishop's palace

Houses along the inlet

Drawbridge

Votive candles in a Lutheran church

Bell tower of a chapel

Seal of Trondheim

Back to Trondheim.  I walked, got wet, got dry again, met about 10 friendly, helpful citizens, including a French woman who spoke Norwegian then English with a French accent.  When I responded in French, she beamed and answered slowly - I was looking for earphones for my ipod.

M and M will remember how healthy and cheerful the people we met in Sweden were - they seem even more so in Trondheim.  I had a serious conversation over tea and biscuits with a college student.  He had heard me in the tourist office saying that I was an English teacher.  The conversation ranged from "why don't you come to Trondheim and teach here" to the horrific Oslo bombing and subsequent massacre.  His hope and mine is that neither that massacre nor the radicalization of some of the Moslem immigrants will change the openess of the Norwegian society.

I was also interested in the impact such a large influx of German tourists would have.  He said that it was a matter of no concern to people his age but it bothered his parents and had bothered his grandmother greatly as she had lived through the very brutal occupation.  John Steinbeck's THE MOON IS DOWN is a brilliant fictionalized account of it.

So, I wandered, taking shelter in shops and at one point, in a hands-on children's science museum, creating electricity, waves on water and measuring radio waves.  Also, I bought a "mood" ring which changes color.  According to the chart, black means stress and it turned black the next day, at North Cape.