The last couple of late nights have obviously taken their toll on us as we didn’t stir until the alarm went off this morning. After breakfast we went back to the cabin to get ready for our quick visit to Trondheim, we are at 63 degrees North and will end the day at Rorvik which is 64 degrees north, tomorrow we cross into the artic circle. We docked in Trondheim about 10.00 and we have three hours here, we didn’t book on any trips today as we are going to spend a couple of days here later in the trip but instead after we finally managed to get off the boat we walked to Kristiansten Festring or Christians Fort which provides great views over the city. We walked around the outside of the old town as we are going to explore this in a week or so and went straight to the road that leads up to the Fort. This was built on top of a hill overlooking the town which meant that they could see anyone that was trying to attack the town. It is a steep hill up to the fort and on the way we saw the famous bike lift which I have to say sounded better when I read about it than it did when we saw it in action. You basically put your right foot on a metal plate, sit on your bike with your left foot on the peddle and push a button this causes the metal plate to push you up the hill. The person we saw using it seemed to know what he was doing but all the same looked pretty terrified! We watched him get to the top then continued our climb to the fortress. You cant go in any of the buildings but a walk round the grounds does give views over Trondheim although some of the trees are now quite tall which rather gets in the way of the view. We then decided to head back to the ship as we only have a limited time here and as soon as we got back we went into lunch which meant that we got in ahead of the crowds. This afternoon it is just a case of sailing up the coast as we don’t call in at another port until Rorvik later on tonight. As we left Trondheim we had a good view of Munkholmen which is about a mile offshore, it was originally an execution site in the Viking era then used by Benedictine monks who built a monastery in the early 11th century which is believed to be one of the earliest monasteries in Scandinavia. In the 1658 it was converted into a prison and fortress, and later a customs house. The next notable landmark was Kjeungskjaer Fyrtarn or Kjeungskjaer Lighthouse. This is a fully automatic lighthouse but it currently not in use as we have now entered the area where we are in 24 hour daylight so it is not necessary as pilots can see what is ahead. Apparently you can actually book a stay in the lighthouse which sleeps eight people but I am not sure I would ever want to be quite that isolated! We spent the afternoon sitting on the deck watching the world go by, we passed a number of nice little villages, quite a few fish farms and even a wind farm then about 6pm we decided to go back to the room to freshen up before having a pre-dinner drink. I am not sure if we will stay up to midnight to look at the sun but as we have been finding it difficult to know when to go to bed anyway we will probably still be awake!
