Trondheim

We came to Trondheim almost by accident, breaking up a long drive north, and ended up staying four days because Lia refused to leave a city that finally had cafes open past eight. After the grandeur and emptiness of the fjords, where every view demands to be photographed and nobody seems to live anywhere, Trondheim was a relief. It is a real city — Norway’s third largest — built where the green Nidelva river loops back on itself before reaching the sea. The Vikings founded it in 997, it was the country’s capital for centuries, and Norwegian kings are still consecrated here. And yet the dominant sound on our first morning was bicycle bells, because a third of the population seems to be students at the university.

The cathedral and the old bridge

Nidaros Cathedral is the reason the city exists, built over the grave of Saint Olav, and it is the largest medieval building in Scandinavia. I am not, by temperament, a cathedral person — I tend to do the dutiful lap and leave. But the west front of Nidaros stopped me. It is a dense forest of carved stone figures, kings and saints and apostles, and the soapstone has weathered to a grey that makes them look like they are emerging from fog. Lia, who knows about these things, pointed out that much of it is actually a late reconstruction, the original carvings long gone. It did not matter. The effect is overwhelming in person and absurd in photographs.

From the cathedral we walked to the Gamle Bybro, the old town bridge, with its red wooden portal that everyone calls the Gate of Happiness. Stand in the middle of it and look upriver and you get the postcard: the Bryggene, rows of tall wooden wharves on stilts, their reflections wobbling in the Nidelva. They were warehouses once, storing grain and fish. Now they hold apartments and offices, and the colours — ochre, rust, deep red, mustard — have the slightly faded quality of paint that has survived a lot of winters.

Bakklandet, coffee, and a fortress

The neighbourhood on the far side of the bridge, Bakklandet, is where I would live if I lost my mind and moved to Norway. Narrow cobbled lanes, leaning wooden houses in sherbet colours, and an unreasonable density of coffee places. We spent a slow afternoon there, and I will admit the cinnamon buns are better than the ones I am loyal to in Mexico, which pains me to write.

For the view, climb to Kristiansten Fortress on the hill above Bakklandet. It saved the city from a Swedish siege in 1718, and today it mostly saves visitors from a dull afternoon: the whole city spreads out below, the cathedral spire, the river, the fjord beyond. We watched the light go flat and golden around nine in the evening, in no hurry, because in a Trondheim summer it does not really get dark.

When to go: May to August for long days and open terraces — late June around the solstice is magical and the city barely sleeps. September brings crisp light and student energy as term begins. Winter is dark and cold but the cathedral lit against the snow is worth the discomfort.