12.07.2011 – 12.07.2011  16 °C

Early start this morning as we had a 07.30 walking tour of Trondheim. Trondheim is a really beautiful city, lots of old buildings and cobblestones as well as some new modern areas.

The walk itself was really welcome after a day of relaxation the day previous. We started the walk by checking out down town and market square before heading to the Nidaros Cathedral. Nidaros is one of the oldest churches in Norway. It was erected in the late twelfth century and is home to the remains of Saint Olav. St Olav is the patron saint of Norway and people still pilgrimage to Nidaros Cathedral to pray before his remains. We were too early to enter the cathedral so we left the church and headed into the old part of town to see the buildings. The old part of town is built on the canals of Trondheim. The buildings in the old part date back to the early 1700s and are all wooden buildings on stilts. The buildings are all painted different colours and some have quite a slant going on them! To enter the old part of town you need to cross over a river via an old wooden bridge that used to open for ships. The old section is certainly enchanting and you can imagine many ships docking here in the old days with their catch!

Later in the afternoon the ship docked in Kristiansund, and we hopped off to catch a bus that would take us down the Atlantic Road. The trip took us just under 5hrs with our destination being Molde. The trip along the sea is basically island hopping. There are so many islands in that part of Norway that we spent a lot of time driving over bridges. The islands themselves were quite shallow and flat. I guess a good rising of the sea level and some of those islands would probably go under. The trip along the coast was really picturesque. The sea was very calm, the sun was relatively low in the sky and the sun was obscured by clouds. Therefore you could see shafts of sunlight beaming down onto parts of the ocean. Really beautiful.