I'm back in Trondheim, Norway, for a few more weeks visiting a colleague at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). I wrote earlier about our successful viewing of the Northern Lights.
Trondheim itself is a lovely small city. It's located along a fjord, with the city centre sandwiched between a river and the fjord, and the residential areas (and the university) located south of the river. Trondheim was the capital of Norway during the Viking age, apparently, and the city still has some very nice old streets and buildings.
Yesterday I went for a hike in Bymarka, the large (80 km square) forest located immediately west of the city. It's gotten quite chilly here, and yesterday the temperature hovered around freezing most of the day, but that actually made for perfect hiking weather. In part, that was due to the trails that I followed through the park.
The maps and trail signs, I came to realize, were primarily focused on cross country ski trails. Most of them are quite suitable for hiking, but at least one part of the trail I was taking went through a bit of land that was more like a bog, and I would have gotten quite muddy had the ground not been frozen.
My destination was the Grønlia hut in the centre of Bymarka, a little coffee shop overlooking a beautiful lake. It was packed with people despite being only accessibly by at least a 4km hike. I took a different route back through more of the park, this time on trails more appropriate to hiking. While I took a train into the park at the beginning of the day, I ended up walking all the way home, for a total hike of 16.3km, in around four and a half hours (including my hot chocolate stop in Grønlia). My legs and feet were a bit tired last night, but it was a great day.
Here are a few more pictures, and you can find more in my photo gallery.
