Trondheim Again
I went back to the University in Trondheim for another night. I spent the day walking around town and trying to find their famous bicycle lift. I was very confused on just what this thing was. People kept telling me that it was a sort of elevator to take bicycles up a really steep hill to get to the other part of the city.
The first thing I did was look up. I thought that it must lead to the highest point in town. So, I found myself at the old fortress. It had a wonderful view of the city. However, there was no bicycle lift to be seen. I asked a young woman who worked at the coffee shop. She and I walked over to a photo map of the city. It showed all the hills and everything very clearly.
“So, you take a right out of here and then walk straight down. It’s right there behind that house,” she said.
“There?” I asked. “But, I thought that it went up a hill,” I said.
“Oh yes, well it really is a pretty large hill. It just doesn’t look like it from here,” she said.
I was confused, I had walked right by this hill somehow and not even noticed it. So, I took her directions and found myself walking opposite a boy pushing his bicycle up a small hill. Then, I saw a cat off to my left, as I walked over to pet it, I noticed that it was sitting on some strange track in the sidewalk. Sure enough, this was the bicycle lift. I looked down the street ahead of me and scoffed. Now, I am from Michigan and it is not really that hilly there. However, I have lived in San Francisco and I can verify that this was no hill of great mention.
A Wonderful Break
After staying one night at the Montana Hostel in Bergen, I knew that I had to get back towards Oslo to catch my plane in a couple of days. There was still a lot that I wanted to see in Munich, so I decided that perhaps it was a good idea for me to go straight there and spend two days there. I got on the train in that direction.
Once I was there however, I thought, “Boy, what a shame it is that I joined the Norwegian Touring Club and never took advantage of any of their many cabins that cover the country.” So, I looked in my book and found that there was one along the way to Oslo. I got off the train there instead and thought that if nothing else, I could hike to the glacier and then catch the late train.
Well, I walked to the cabin and immediately knew that I had to stay there. It was only about $15 a night and I wound up paying a bit extra to get a magnificent meal at dinner time. I began walking to the glacier and nearly got there when I found myself at a river that I thought to be impassable. I watched many people walk across the snow that covered the water. I opted to skip that route.
I had seen a good number of kids at the camp in Switzerland try to do that and fall right through into freezing water. This water also happened to be rushing. But I walked down river a bit and thought that I had found a better route where a small suspension bridge stretched across. Three times, I stretched my foot over to touch the wobbling boards and couldn’t ever quite get myself to lean forward on that foot to walk on it. Instead, I walked back to the cabin, and took lots of photos on the way.
A Huge Mistake
I wanted to head down the west coast of Norway to see the magnificent fjords. So, the best way that I could do that was by boat. I was told by a poorly informed source that the only way for me to get to Bergen from where I was, was to take the Hurtigurten. The Hurtigurten is a huge cruise ship that goes up and down the coast of Norway all the way from the southern tip up the Russian border in the Arctic. Along the way, you can hop on and get a room if you want to.
I boarded that ship at about 1am. However, as soon as it pulled up to the dock, I looked up and laughed so hysterically that tears came to my eyes. I had never seen such a huge ship. There were seven floors! Seven floors! That’s not a boat! That’s a floating city!