After another calm night with no ports of call we woke up this morning in Trondheim, the third largest city Norway. Of course it was still pitch black outside as we sat eating our early breakfast so that we could be in time to catch the city tour bus that left at 8am. I have to admit it was a total struggle to wake up this morning after such a good night’s sleep and with a body clock that appears to think that dark equals night time I spend the first half hour of the tour in a bit of a blur! I think I was not alone though as the bus was pretty subdued at this point. Goodness only knows how I will get on towards the very end of the week when we will only be getting about 4 hours of day light – hopefully the group will have asked all their complicated and technical knitting questions before then!
Trondheim is an unusual city in that it is divided by the river Nidelva which snakes through the lower part of town – in fact the islands that the river creates (and on which Trondheim is built) is only attached to the main land by a stretch of land just 100m wide. We were taken up into the hill behind the town and, not only saw a great view of the city waking up, but also the remains of the first winter snow fall which came a few weeks ago. Much of the snow is now grey and mucky, but never the less it was a lovely sight across the roofs and gardens of the mountain side houses. The fresh mountain air seemed to wake us all up and by the time we reached the city Cathedral we were ready to take in the information our knowledgeable guide provided.
Having learnt about the Viking King Olav and the reasons why the Cathedral was built, we were taken by our lovely Arena guide Lynn to visit 3 of the city's yarn shops. Needless to say this seemed to be the highlight of the day, with many of us buying some of the wonderful yarns that Norway has to offer. Unlike everything else here, the yarn is good value and wonderful quality so I think we all felt compelled to add just a bit to our stashes! As you will see from the image I was so excited that I was in a yarn sweety shop that I failed to take a decent picture of some of the girls enjoying themselves in one of the stores!
After a lovely lunch on board we spent the whole afternoon knitting once again. The fairisle bags (and cushions) are coming on well although there was quite a lot of ‘backwards knitting’ going on towards the end of the afternoon!
We entered open water for the second (and last time) at about 6pm tonight and it got just a tad choppy for an hour or so. I rather enjoyed it as it was a bit like walking around a little drunk, but of course without the hangover tomorrow or the effect on my finances! A couple of the group obviously didn’t enjoy it quite so much as there were a few late arrivals for dinner. All is calm now and we are settling down to an evening of more knit and chat.
