Day 04 - Tue - 09/30/2025 - Trondheim
On this sunny morning, we woke up on the final stretch into the port of Trondheim. We weren't scheduled to arrive until noon so we first attended the interdenominational Bible study, which was held in the wedding chapel on deck 16. A retired pastor from Tennessee, Darrell, led an inductive study in the book of Mark. His method of leading is one that I've used for many years and I have actually taught the book of Mark this way on a ship in a similar fashion while traveling to Australia. We found the study very encouraging and loved the format.
After the study, we went to the Lido for a nice breakfast before I went up to deck 15 to watch final sail in and docking procedure at Trondheim. The Captain and his crew skillfully guided to ship to a safe and smooth stop at the berth. What was especially interesting about the docking procedure here was that the port crew used several small power boats, one at the forward part of the vessel and another at the stern, to capture the mooring lines and take them to shore to be fastened onto the mooring pylons.
With the ship now safely docked, we headed back to our state room to gather up our things to go ashore. It's over 3000 passengers I anticipated it would be a lengthy process to get off the ship and I was not wrong. We joined the line to get off the ship in the art gallery and were off the ship around 12:15 PM . Our plan was to immediately walk to the cathedral as it was only open until 2 o'clock. It was a nice walk off the pier and along the waterfront and then over an elevated bridge to cross the railroad tracks. I have an app called GPS my city, which gave us the exact walking track to the cathedral. Once at the cathedral, I purchased tickets which were about $14 per person. We then attempted to find the entrance which was not marked and ended up walking entirely around the cathedral. I then checked the door that I tried pulling open because it had handles. But this time I pushed on it and it opened and we were now inside the cathedral. We were greeted by a friendly attendant. I told her that it was difficult to find the opening and that we walked around the cathedral once. She smiled and said "you can be a pilgrim if you walk around two more times".
The inside of this cathedral has many very beautiful stained glass windows and is fairly sparsely decorated. It is an active cathedral, and there were lots of seats for worshipers.
Using our app, once you left the cathedral, we headed for the Old Town bridge, which was the next historical marker on our app. This very old bridge is now relegated to pedestrian traffic only and crosses the river Ni. The road across the bridge, then heads up a steep hill to the Kristiansten Fortress, which was our next attraction. This hill also features a bicycle lift which was not operational today. It's rather unique and might be fun to take. I also noted my very first all battery powered heavy duty front end loader. It was totally silent to operate and pretty cool to watch.
Once at the top of the hill we entered the fortress grounds and were treated to very nice views of the city and river below us. Because it's off-season, the fortress museums were closed, but it was free to tour the grounds. After taking a few pictures, we then took a side path back down to the road. That path was rather steep, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.
Back down at the bottom of the hill, we crossed the bridge and found the old Rathus or City Hall, which is now a library. From there, our route took us in a southerly direction along Kongens Gate road where we checked off several very old churches and a statue of King Olav. There, we also found a McDonald's and sampled a cheeseburger and a fish sandwich and they were very comparable to what we would get in the states. However, the fish sandwich was considered way larger than the current offering in the USA. Armed with some refreshment, we headed out and found the Stiftsgården or Royal residence, which is the largest wooden palace in Scandinavia with 140 rooms. It was built as a private residence in 1774-1778.
We continued our walk south and found the octagonal church (Hospitalkirchen) which is part of a hospital complex. It was built in 1705 and replaced a previous church which was built in 1277. It became a model for 70 some churches of the same design throughout Norway. Our final Church, the Ilen Church was not difficult to find, but we did have to divert around a bunch of construction to reach it. The significance of this church is that it was the first church built after the reformation and represents the church of Norway.
With our last historical site now obtained, we walked back to the center of town and back to the bridge over the railroad tracks where there were a couple souvenir shops. But our goal was to find the Leif Erikson statue, which was donated by the city of Seattle to the city of Trondheim. It turned out the statue was located right near the bow of our ship and it made for a good photo opportunity. We also checked out a little local grocery store on our way back to the ship. The walk had been just bit over 8.3 miles.
We scanned back onto the ship just before 6 o'clock and dropped our things off at the stateroom before heading up to the Lido for dinner. After dinner, we headed to the showroom for a very nice presentation of sand painting by Svetlana Vadko. Tonight was the first of the series of auditions for the Voice of the Ocean, which is patterned after the TV show The Voice. There were some good singers and we had a chance to vote for which one of the singers we thought was the Voice of the Ocean. There will be another round or two of sing offs and we'll learn who are the final contestants before the live performance on the main stage Princess Theater.
Continuing our nightly tradition, we donned some warm clothing and then went outside to look for the northern lights up on deck 16 midship. We spotted some, but the colors were not that brilliant yet. Hopefully that will improve over the next few days as we will be north of the Arctic Circle . I headed off to the stateroom, and Angela went to karaoke. I fell asleep and barely remember her coming back to the stateroom after her karaoke session.
It was a good day in Trondheim and we both felt it was just a scouting trip as there was so much more to see. Tomorrow we have a sea day and the following day we are scheduled to dock in Tromso which is our second port of call on this leg of the voyage.
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