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Oct. 26, 2007
ANITA ALAN Contributor- Carmel, CA
Too Little Time
Trondheim.
The name tolls with the resonance of a bell. Trondheim. Norway’s third largest city with its third
largest public art collection is located on its third longest fjord. In other ways, rate Trondheim
first. Its clean waterways, broad paving-stone streets, museums, cafes, boutiques, and discos charm
visitors and residents alike. This has the feel of a place you might like to live. A city with
over a thousand years of history, this university town once served as capitol of Norway. Colorful
18th Century Bryggen warehouses stand in distinct contrast with the pleasure craft that line the
canal.
When
Trondheim celebrated its millennium in 1997, descendents of Scandinavian emigrants donated a statue
of Leiv Eiriksson. The original Seattle sculpture at Shilshole Marina is the work of August Werner.
Seattle’s Leif Erikson Society funded the replica from donations given in honor of US immigrants.
In spite of missing so very much, our day felt complete. When one sees a place just
once, impressions count more than a scorecard tally of things to see. Still, if time permits, places
one should visit include 
Sverresborg
Trøndelag Folkemuseum, Ringve Museum and Garden, Thamshawn Narrow Gauge Railway and Copper Mine,
and Stifsgårten. Though still used by the Royal Family, Stifsgårten opens many of its 140 rooms
to the public. Enjoy Trondheim, City of the Viking King, by streetcar, bus, boat or on foot. The
Market Square Tourist Office has friendly, knowledgeable staff ready to help. In January of 2007,
the population of Trondheim was 161,730, about 25,000 of whom are students, so this is a bicycle-friendly
city. How friendly? It commissioned the world’s first bicycle lift! A lift card takes you and your
bike uphill east from Gamle Bybro (Old Bridge) almost to Kristiansten Fortress. It operates similar
to the San Francisco Cable Cars, but on a far smaller scale and for a shorter distance. The lift
can carry a maximum of six passengers at one time because the foot-blocks are 20 meters (66 feet)
apart. The total lift length is 130 meters (your turn to do the math). It travels at 4.5 MPH, with
a total ride time of about one minute. It can take 360 riders per hour. The highest elevation it
reaches on Storheia Hill is 1850 feet above sea level.
Once
there, visit Kristiansten Fort, which the city built following Trondheim’s great fire in 1681.
The fort later prevented an attempted Swedish invasion in 1718, but centuries later had a less
fortunate fate. For five years, of WWII, when the Germans occupied Norway, soldiers used the fortress
to execute members of the Norwegian Resistance. On a lighter note, we learned that students (at
least two that we met) are allowed to offer their pooches a canine education (of sorts). On the
city bus, two college students headed to class—taking along their Chinese Crested dogs. A sign
of the times? What else might one see while traveling by bus? Is there graffiti in Scandinavia?
Where there are humans, count on it. All that appears new about graffiti is the medium. Today felt
pen and spray paint take the place of earlier dies and carvings—though carving continues through
the centuries. Graffiti has few fans, but in Scandinavia, it reached its pinnacle of success on
the boxcars of freight trains, where one might say it neared an art form. After a month in Scandinavia,
this ranks as the author’s # 1 favorite 
graffiti
offering: HECK. Nothing else on the wall. No punctuation. HECK, we all have days like that. Heck?
Even punctuating it cannot bring Heck(!) to the rank of insult or fury. Gets one thinking about
the randomness of swear words—what constitutes them and what doesn’t ... and ... who decides?
Next time, the sublime: Nearly any perspective in Trondheim yields a view of the main spire of Nidaros Cathedral, the spiritual center of Norway.
Norwegian American Weekly
