Trondheim countryside

My final view of Trondheim goes a little way out of the town in to the neighbouring countryside.

This was always my plan, and was the reason that I spent four days there and only one or two days at all the other places that I visited, but to make it happened I needed some decent weather and a means of transport. Luckily I got both.

Apparently Trondheim had several tram routes but now it only has one, imaginatively numbered 1.

This takes you from the city centre out to the South-West following roads for a while before heading off on its own route. It was surprisingly busy and a few people got on and off at most of the frequent stops.

The tram abandons you in Lian, which you can just about see a short distance from the centre of the map heading East and slightly South.

You can also see some footpaths marked out in thick lines of red, blue and green. Other paths are marked with thinner red lines and then lowly dotted black lines.

The plan was simple; take a bold route to Solemsasen and another one back again. This was changed slightly and I headed up the road marked in white safe in the knowledge that I could join the thick red route later.

I even took the precaution of taking a photograph of the map with me. This was displayed prominently in Lian but I was not sure how well the rest of the route would be signposted.

The plan went wrong quite quickly.

I arrived at the end of the track with no evidence of the main red route that it was meant to meet there or of the thin red route that I should have been able to take just before that to join it.

So I headed back to Lian and started again.

This time I was determined to follow the main route all the way, rather than hoping to catch it later.

I was reassured to see the occasional post announcing that I was on an official path.

Sadly it was the wrong path.

This became apparent when I stumbled across the tram line which means that I was following it East toward the city rather than North in to the countryside.

Being on the wrong route did not matter that much as I had no particular reason for choosing the original path and this one was pretty enough.

The new plan was to follow this route to the edge of the map, then to turn North along the red route, West along the Blue and finally a thin red back to Lian.

It almost worked.

Filled with new confidence and purpose I threw myself in to the new plan. The walking was lovely with few signs of other people or of anything that people may have built.

The red route and then the blue route were found with some ease. The map's honesty on the route also applied to the terrain and the area marked with thin blue lines proved to be seriously damp, despite the lack of recent rain.

This is a fairly typical picture of the path. At times it was worse than this and only the sheer joy of facing a ridiculous challenge kept me going. That and seeing two girls heading down the path to Lian without a care as if people really were expected to go that way.

I followed the route they took (I think) but did not see them again, or anybody else for that matter. It was hard to believe that this path got enough passage to justify that title.

The path decided not to take me to Lian but back to the tram line instead.

Having got there I could see that I had taken the dotted black line South rather than the thin red path West.

Officially this was a mistake but clambering down the muddy hillside was such fun that it is hard to be critical of the poor map and signs that allowed me to get so lost so often.

It was a very pleasant walk that combined exercise, exploration and environment. For most of the day I was on an ill-defined muddy path surrounded by trees, bushes and grasses. And that is all that I hoped for when I climbed on the tram.

The same tram arrived as if summoned to the little station that I found myself at and kindly took me back in to the town to reflect on a wonderful day.