Roros

My mom was here in Trondheim for nearly 2 weeks so we saw a good bit of the local sights including the Nidaros Cathedral, Archbishop’s Palace, and the Crown Jewels. Seeing the crown jewels was interesting since there are not much of them. Norway was a very poor country before they discovered oil so the jewels are pretty minimal and the kings had to buy the jewels themselves since the government couldn’t afford them. It was quite a contrast to the British crown jewels. We spent some time at the local St. Olav’s Festival with commemorates St. Olav’s death (he is a huge Norwegian saint).

We also took a two and a half hour train ride to a town called Roros. It is an old copper mining town that is an UNESCO World Heritage site so most of it is protected. The buildings are all really cute and many of them have sod roofs. There are also the remains of the smelting process. The church in the town is quite large and it has the mining company’s logo on the bell tower since they built it. I think it is the only church in the world with a corporate logoJ We had a nice dinner in town and then took the train home. We ran into my landlady and her husband at the train station since that is were he is originally from. We ended up taking our landlady to her house and she gave us some cloudberries to try. They are somewhat rare and don’t bear fruit every year – not my favorite berry…

We also headed out to an island very in the Trondheim Fjord. It is a 10 minute ferry ride and the island is mostly used for sunbathing and picnicking by the locals. The island called Munkholen – used to be an execution grounds in Viking times, a monastery, a prison and most recently a German camp in WWII.