Not
terribly much to say about Trondheim. I got the feeling most people
just pass on through it. It was pleasant enough though – a lot of
parks and a nice trendy harbour-front. It actually reminded me of
Christchurch.
I
pretty much just wandered around and spent most of my “tourist
time” at the main sight – the cathedral. The cathedral building
was started in 1070, over Saint Olav's grave, and added on to (up
until 1300) as more and more pilgrims came to drink from the spring
next to the grave (which would cure all ills) and as the church's
status got upgraded to “cathedral” (when the first Norwegian
arch-bishop moved in). Though the spring is dried up now you can see
that the stone around it is blackened and smoothed from from all the
pilgrims touching it over the years. You can really feel the
history! There are still marks there from the various stone-masons
that built the place too.
They
have done a pretty amazing job reconstructing and preserving the
cathedral – a chunk of it was destroyed after the “reformation”
from Catholic to protestant and the church never had the money to
rebuild it after that. When the government finally did decide to fix
it they had to go around reclaiming pieces of the building from local
houses (medieval recycling) to figure out what it originally would
have looked like. Not that you can tell now. I still find it hard
to imagine such a complex building having been built in the first
place – given the lack of technology around in 1070! It really
humbles you.
It's
fair to say I was pleasantly surprised by the cathedral and deem it
to be worth the 50nkk to get in. I was there right on time for the
organ recital too. Not normally my thing but the organ they have
there is baroque style (from the 1700's) and one of only 3 of the
type in the world that can still be played. Apparently organists the
world over fight for their chance to play on it.
