What
could be more beautiful than a winter weekend escape to Norway? Well not much
it turns out. With a mere five hours of daylight per day at this time of year
we decided that to stay in one place for a couple of days would allow us the
opportunity to soak up the Nordic Christmas atmosphere. There had been a large
dump of snow in the preceding days, but when we arrived in Trondheim on the
Friday evening it was drizzling a bit. This makes for a tricky combination when
it comes to pedestrian navigation.
We knew that the Nidaros Cathedral ran a tour in English only once on the weekend so we were keen to join it. Our modest accommodation was minutes from the town centre and we’d taken a stroll around the area the night we arrived to orient ourselves. The Cathedral is beautiful up close and of course I was keen to photograph it before our tour began at 10am. Remember the snow, then rain, then freezing temperatures? You have probably guessed that they combine beautifully to create impromptu ice rinks in improbable locations. The lawn around the cemetery and garden surrounding the Cathedral is one of those places. Looks like wet grass feels like wet glass. I didn’t know what hit me, until it hit me, the ground that is. To my horror I pitched forwards onto my beloved Nikon. Despite having the lens partly embedded in the dirt it suffered no ill effects. Thank Olaf!
I recently became afflicted with, as my dear friend Louise calls it “an older ladies’ problem”. Much as I want to contest that label of “old lady” there can be no denying I’m getting on and my body is resisting my attempts to remain eternally youthful. A few months ago my right shoulder became inexplicably and very painfully stuck. I was shocked and thoroughly disheartened that practically overnight my arm movement became so severely restricted that dressing myself became an ordeal. I was diagnosed with Frozen Shoulder, with no known cause and no known cure. The good news is it will resolve itself. The bad news is, it will take between one and two years. Yes, that’s right folks one and two YEARS!!! There is a restricted movement with pain phase followed by a restricted movement without pain phase. I’m still in the former. There is a last ditch treatment that can be performed under anaesthetic by an orthopaedic surgeon where they basically wrench your shoulder joint about and forcibly unstick it. It has limited success and sounds horrendous to be honest.
So that brings me to my very own little bit of DIY physiotherapy outside Trondheim’s Nidaros Cathedral. Within a split second I manoeuvred my arm into a position more than 90 degrees past anything I have been able to manage for more than two months. I didn’t break my nose or my jaw so all good then. There was a whole new world of pain and I think I made some noises which may have sounded like a native moose caught in barbed wire, but it subsided eventually. Unfortunately while it was subsiding I was sitting on aforementioned ice/grass/glass-like surface so I attended the excellent and informative cathedral tour shortly after with a very damp bum. At some stage while I groaned and grimaced and got soggy and waited for the pain to ease, I may have struggled to get out the words “I don’t like Trondheim any more. I want to go home.” But of course that was just the frozen shoulder talking.
Trondheim is beautiful and with the help of some hastily purchased slip on ice spikes, we walked many kilometres to check out the lovely coastal city. I, of course with an uncharacteristic dose of hyperbole, referred to these handy contraptions as our ‘crampons’ as though wandering through a Christmas market in a town square is somehow equivalent to ascending the north face of Everest. When you are as inept at negotiating unusual terrain as I am, everything is relative.
We had a delicious three course Christmas dinner of tissue thin tuna carpaccio with radish and pomegranate; then reindeer steak with roast veg followed by an ice-cream, chocolate, candied nuts and clementine affair that was amazing. We walked through the Christmas market stalls as the snow swirled around us and tried Juleglogg which warmed our cockles but was super sweet – no match for the Romanian concoction we tried a few weeks ago.
The Sunday dawned bright and sunny and 7 below zero. We continued our walking investigation of the city. Trondheim was founded in 997AD and served as the country’s capital during the Viking Age until 1217. The part Romanesque, part Gothic Cathedral is built on the site of Saint Oluf’s tomb (the patron saint of Norway, aka Olaf). It is stunning inside with its vaulted ceilings and sacred burial site set in an octagonal nave. The church also sits on the site of a well, said to produce healing waters, which is still there today in the same nave.
Somehow
you don’t expect to come across a well in your local Cathedral but there it is.
Our tour guide was a most enthusiastic Lutheran nun who unfolded the history of
the structure like an excited storyteller. All about the “Wikings” and fierce
King Oluf who converted from his wild Wiking ways to Catholicism. It is pretty
amazing to see an original inscription celebrating the consecration in 1161 carved
into the stone wall. There is obvious inspiration from Canterbury’s cathedral
in the development of this one thanks to the exiling to England of Norway’s
Archbishop in the twelfth century. The façade is a 1930s reproduction of the
original destroyed by fire in 1328 so they certainly took their time getting
around to that but the result is a who’s who of kings, prophets, virtues and
saints (Including one dude holding a bucket of human heads!) together with a
stunning stained glass Rose Window.
I bought a fabulous little metal Viking, sorry Wiking, fridge magnet from the gift store which I’m pretty sure is good ole King Oluf in his pre-Christian incarnation.
Trondheim, with a population of 193,000 is Norway’s third largest city. It is situated on Trondheim Fjord which is about 130 kilometres long, so water is a big feature of the town. The waterside and harbour areas are a lovely mix of new, old, and well restored buildings which give the views a picture postcard perfection, especially when the sun is out, the water is still and the reflections are superb.
The town is also ringed with low mountains or high hills (not sure about the distinction) which were all snow covered. We saw many people waiting at the bus stops with skis and poles tucked under their arms, no other baggage, not even a cover for the skis, and ski boots on their feet, presumably just popping up the hill for a ski. I don’t know why I found that so amazing but the notion of just going out to get the bus to have a ski like we would pop down to the beach for a quick swim seemed very novel. Thankfully we tend not to do it in just bikinis or budgie smugglers with a towel thrown over our shoulder. The Norwegians are obviously very talented when it comes to locomotion on slippery surfaces. They negotiate the ice by sliding their feet as though they are skating or cross-country skiing, both activities they will have been engaging in since they were upright on pudgy little baby legs. Some people wear runners with metal studs that clatter as they jog by but most wear warm functional and very stylish winter footwear and just walk about with not a hint that their next step may be their last. Having bitten the slush once I was particularly cautious and I’m happy to report I remained upright for the rest of the weekend. The repercussions of my prone shoulder manipulation was a sore neck, a sore rib cage and an aching shoulder but nothing that a few doses of paracetamol couldn’t ease. I actually think I may have improved my mobility by as much as ten percent so maybe it was just what I needed.
We found the Norwegians very friendly, very helpful and with a better command of the English language than we have. You get a jaunty ‘Aye, aye’ as you walk into a store or café and then when you reply in English they just seamlessly slide into it themselves. They probably speak another European language also such as German, French or Spanish and they can be understood in Sweden, Denmark and Iceland. Makes us feel completely inadequate really.
I spent a couple of weeks in Norway many moons ago, during their summer which was a marvellous experience. From our little taster of the splendours of Scandinavia, Ian would very much like to come again in the loooooooong days of summer to see some more. We’ll have to see if we can fit that in. I still haven’t seen a moose yet and so I am on a mission!