You can spot the cruise ship in the background: i can see why cruising in this part of the world has become so popular – the fjords are very deep and the views, as you have seen, spectacular!

Trondheim strikes me as a really lovely city, certainly this time of year. Broad avenues, magnificent civic buildings, lots and lots of restaurants and cafes [blood curdlingly expensive, of course, but that’s Norway….], water everywhere – fjord, river, canal. The city elders seem to have made a great job of modernising the old docks, puts me in mind of the Albert Dock in Liverpool although on a rather smaller scale.

Hopefully these pics will give you a flavour of it all….

This strange looking set up is a bike lift – what??? The city elders decided to encourage bike riding to improve the health of the folks of Trondheim…. they then decided that this particular hill is so steep they’d need a little more encouragement and so they installed the bike lift to carry you and your bike up the hill!!! I never saw anybody use it, but it is all geared up with the ability to accept plastic cards so i guess it must get some use…..

The gothic cathedral was started in the 11th Century and is a magnificently impressive construction: i would love to have gone inside, but there was a huge Q for tickets, then another huge Q to get in, so i have made do with external pics….

The flying buttresses are not on the same scale as Notre Dame but still pretty impressive. As with many of the medieval gothic cathedrals in Europe the facade is a truly remarkable and detailed piece of work on a grand scale.

Next door to the Cathedral is the Archbishop’s Palace, another remarkable and ancient structure still extensively used by the city father’s for all sorts of receptions and gatherings. Here is a short video:

If you are looking for a really interesting destination for a weekend, then you could do a lot worse than Trondheim: Norwegian Air Shuttle flies direct from Gatwick, just a 2 and half hour flight, but it’s a bit pricey at about £250 return.

So, onward and upward tomorrow: the itinerary gives us a choice of a direct route and a scenic route and up to now i have always chosen scenic. Tomorrow the direct route to Mo i Rana is 300 miles and the scenic route 400, so i might face up to my limitations and take the direct route!!!