July 21, 2024
Day 20: Stjordal to Trondheim
The easy day is not so easy
“These kilometers are going so slowly today,” Patrick says. Perhaps, it’s the expectation that this will be an easier day from the last few days. Perhaps, it’s the big steep hill that starts in Hell just a few kms from our hotel. Perhaps, it’s looking forward to a few days off the bike after two weeks cycling with only one rest day and just wanting it done. Whatever it may be, we arrive in Trondheim where the weather is sunny and warm.
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We start with a nice full breakfast buffet that is included in the room price. We set off and reach “the big hill”, the first of two hills today at Hell. We have a bike path pretty much the whole way to Trondheim. There are signs, but not everywhere so we have to do some GPS navigating.
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Midway we stop at a gas station for coffee and pastry. As we suspected, the prices in Norway are about 50% more than Sweden. Patrick has a conversation with the Syrian clerk. All over Sweden and now in Norway we have been seeing Syrians working in gas station, junk food restaurants and doing the food deliveries in towns. In Storlien a guy said he had been in Sweden for three years, but had not yet been allowed to bring his wife and son over. The guy Patrick talks to today has been here eight years and says that after seven he got Norwegian citizenship and brought his family over. Patrick asks how he likes the winters. His response: In Norway we say: “there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”.
As we navigate to the city center, there is much construction, streets torn up. We stop near the city center to check messages if our room is ready. The hotel will send a code number that will get us into the hotel and our room. Since we left Sweden our cell phone has been “roaming” and we do not have roaming data turned-on.. Patrick asks a local if he knows of a location with free WiFi. The city center is just around the corner and we find a Burger King and outside on the street Patrick gets a message to Bjorn in Stockholm asking about the problem of no data.
We get a message with the code and check in to our hotel room, it’s bigger than the room last night, which will work better for us to repack for the boat ride. After cleaning up we walk around, have a Mexican food lunch (and a beer), walk to the Nidaros Cathedral a Church of Norway cathedral. Here we see the zero marker for the St. Olavsleden trail. There are lots of street markers pointing to areas of interest, we walk to the historic district in Bakklandet and see the old bridge across the Nivelda River and the colorful waterfront wooden buildings.
The weather is warm enough now that we are ready for ice cream.
In walking around we see many statues one is known as Go'dagen, which translates to "The Good Day" in English. This is a delightful bronze sculpture by Tone Thiis Schjethe, that has captured the affection of many in Trondheim and embodies the essence of daily life and warmth in the city. The sculpture portrays an elderly woman, evoking the image of a friendly neighbor running errands, chatting casually, gossiping, or catching up with friends in the square. Another statue prominent in the city square is of Olav Tryggvason, the first Viking King of Norway.
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We take a bit of a break to watch the final stage of the Tour de France, then head out to get some more pub food. The microbrewery we were interested in is closed today, instead we find a local bar that drew our attention because they play CCR. Beer can be very expensive in Scandinavia, but something does not quite make sense. For lunch we have a pint of beer for 55kr ($5.5) each. Very reasonable. The much larger glass at dinner though costs 150kr ($15!). Goes down very well though with a shared Fish-and-Chips. Bjorn has researched our data issue and it turns out as simply to fix as by turning on "data roaming", a toggle somewhere in the phone's settings. Who knew?
Today's ride: 36 km (22 miles)
Total: 999 km (620 miles)
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