Trondheim is the third largest city in Norway with a population of just over 200,000 and it certainly feels like it. We didn't experience any traffic jams really, but there are traffic lights and lots of people about. And we saw grafitti for the first time in a long while. And for the first time since the beginning of the trip, there was another ship in port - the very large Mein Schiff 2 from Germany. (Mein Schiff translates to My Ship. Those Germans are so creative.)
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| Looking from our deck we could see lots of apartment buildings, but I found it interesting that most of them seem to be facing each other rather than out to sea. |
Our tour today took us to a musical instrument museum and the cathedral.
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| This museum houses most of the collection of Christian and Victoria somebody, who had lots of inherited money and no children. They were passionate about music and traveled the world collecting instruments. Most of them are here in the former family home which dates to the 18th century. |
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| A Murano glass chandelier made for them as a wedding present. |
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| Our delightful guide demonstrated this organ. You have to pump up the bellows by the foot pedal (under her left foot) and then you play as the bellows empty. It had a lovely sound, but all the pumping would be a bit distracting, I would think. Maybe they had a servant for that chore. |
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| The same piano that Beethoven had. She played a little of his music. And demonstrated how he used vibrations to compose when his hearing started to decline. |
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| This chaise lounge belonged to Chopin and the little piano keyboard hanging on the wall was used as a traveling piano for practice when on a concert tour. It was more to keep the fingers limber than to make music, of course. |
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| These are molds of the hands of Chopin (right) and a Norwegian composer whose name I didn't get. The Norwegian's music wasn't as delicate as Chopin's and it seems obvious why. They were actually a little too lifelike with the coloring, if you ask me. |
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| It's a little hard to see, but under the four main strings are four more smaller ones that reverberate the sound and make it a little richer. Those strings aren't played or tuned; they're only for the sound. She demonstrated that as well. |
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| And here are samples of the beginning of "automatic" music with an early form of our LP recordings and a paper scroll for player pianos. |
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| She demonstrated this player piano for us. You adjust the volume and the speed with levers where her hands are and you make it go by pumping the pedals like mad as you would an organ. She seemed surprised when I told her we had a player piano when I was young, although I admitted that ours was electric. |
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| Here you can see the pedals and if you look closely beneath the back legs of the chair, you'll see sticks nailed into the floor. They were there to prevent the chair from being pushed back as you pumped away hard at the pedals. |
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| This is a "harp-guitar" - why it was created, I don't know. |
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| And a "harp-piano". Again, I have no idea. Wonder why it never caught on? |
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| And if you have some spare instruments hanging about, why not make them into cute creatures like a duck and a bird? |
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| The grounds of the museum were very pretty too. |
As we were getting back into the bus, someone asked the driver how he liked driving the electric bus (made in China) and he shyly admitted that he really preferred gas/diesel busses since he had to be so careful of the batteries on this one. He couldn't let it run to keep the AC going (which we needed since again the temp was in the mid 80's). Well, I guess the bus didn't take too kindly to that because once we were all loaded, he couldn't get it to start. It would start to slide backwards and stop with a jerk. One woman was really worried we were going to go over the slope behind us and asked to get out. That started a movement and so we all got out and stood in the shade while he got it sorted, which took about 20 minutes. And then we had to wait a few more minutes for those inconsiderate passengers who had gone off to the museum's cafe for a coffee.
Anyway, all was well and off we went to our second stop, the Nidaros Cathedral, which was built between 1070 and 1300 AD. We've been here before, but didn't get the chance to go inside those 2 times, so today was a treat.
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| Today it was packed and I didn't get a chance for an outside photo, so here is the photo from our trip in 2022. The scaffolding and stage equipment are no longer there of course. |
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| This terrible selfie was the best I could do today |
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| The larger of the two organs. They play them a few times per day, but alas, not while we were there. |
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| This is the "smaller" organ. |
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| Another view of the bigger organ |
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Just a little gaudy in front. This was also built as a Catholic church, but it was "converted" to Lutheran at the Reformation in 1507. (I don't think it decided to convert on its own.)
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| This baptismal font is a little more ornate than the simple one we saw a few days ago. |
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| This is the top of the dome inside. I took the photo in selfie mode, which is much easier than trying to lean back and get the shot. |
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| Wish we'd had a guide to explain what this special floor and altar-like feature were all about. |
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| A pretty view through the trees of the cathedral's side. |
A very easy Trivia today so we got the top award of 15/15.
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| Cruise Director, Andrew, was the showman tonight. This is the first show we've been to in its entirety. He has a lovely voice and his song selection was made of familiar songs. And most importantly, the band was not too loud so we could hear Andrew and not cringe because it hurt our ears. Wish all the shows were like that. |
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