Navigation
Where am I?:^mistymornings-->Cycletouring-->2008-->Norway.-->Day 22

Day 22-3. Ytre Snillfjord to Trondheim contd.

After a further ten minutes and an old tunnel later we stopped at lay-by with a view of the farmland across the fjord. The lay-by was an old bend in the road, first superseded by a second bend in the old road and now both bends were superseded by the new motorway, one of the new tunnels just visible in the backgound. Layers of redundant infrastructure, in this case all of them still in use. This is a good way to provide quiet routes for cyclists and local traffic. We had a drink and a snack and admired the view and in Damae's case the sea. Then we were off again.

The road was now quite wide and nice and quiet. Here we cycled next to steep cliffs which in places hung out over the road rather like those on the coast after Alesund. The cliff edges also put us in the shade cooling us down and about the same time the sun decided to disappear behind some thin cloud cover which gradually thickened. We passed a brightly coloured factory looking like something that would have appeared in a 1920's art deco advertising poster and then through what appeared to be the first of the Trondheim suburbs. It was time to concentrate on the cycling and traffic and the weather was turning as well. The peace a quiet of the old road running alongside the fjord couldn't last forever either. Ten minutes later we ended up on a cycle track running alongside the E 39 (or was it the E 6?). In places we were less than a metre from the main road with traffic heading towards us and no crash barrier between the cycle path and the busy main road. A summer squall had developed with a strong headwind and horizontal rain drops. Our relaxed afternoon cycle was now at an end.

At around four we arrived at a large Statoil service station on the south side of Trondheim serving the busy E6. It was a grimy busy place that seemed to be doing a brisk trade in the usual service station items. The rain had stopped so we decided to take a break and check our maps before making our way into town. We found a picnic table and I sat in front of the maps whilst Damae nipped into the shop to get a portion of chips (fries to some of you) and some pop. As I was sitting there I noticed a set of signs for local bike routes. This was good having signs to supplement our maps and helped navigation considerably on the way into the centre.

Armed with a good dose of extra calories, a better idea of where we were going in town and the bike signs, we headed up towards Heimdal. Heimdal is a narrow valley that the road into Trondheim runs up. On the way up from the south whilst there are signs there are no cycle tracks and the road winds its way through the valley. There are plenty of blind corners hiding cyclists from unwary drivers. Fortunately we were heading uphill into Trondheim whilst the rush hour traffic was heading downhill out of Trondheim. The few cars that passed us on our side of the road did so carefully. Once at the top of the hill, when we had less need of it, a cycle track appeared on the other side of the road. This was fun but too had its dangers. It had some blind corners one of which caught me out. As I raced down the hill I was surprised by someone coming the other way. There was little danger of a collision but I was a bit more careful thereafter.

The road levelled out as it came to a T-junction. Our signs told us to take the right turning over the river if we wanted to go into the centre of Trondheim. There followed a short sharp climb up toward the centre before we could relax and make our way into Trondheim. We appreciated the trouble that the City of Trondheim have gone to by providing cycle tracks in the centre. We stopped on the way in, first on the Elgeseter bridge spanning the Nidelva to take pictures and then to peek in over a wall at an outdoor theatre production. What a cool place to be was our first impression and we wondered if there was a festival going on.

It was time to find the Tourist Information and a place to sleep. We managed this without too much ado and armed with a map and directions for getting to the Youth Hostel continued on our way crossing the Nidelva again over the Gamle Bybro. True to form the hostel was uphill and Trondheim has a number of very steep uphills that you can't cycle up. Not even without baggage. So we picked our way carefully up the hill by repeatedly taking a left turn followed by a right one and by six we were standing in the reception. The good news was that they had one room left for tonight the bad was that if we wanted to stay a second night we would have to hope for a cancellation. Oh well we'd made it and got a good deal on the room due to Damae's student status, our own room and a place in the cellar to store our bikes out of harms way. That was good enough for now and we proceeded to take our bags off the bikes moving them into our room and our bikes downstairs.

Previous page Next page