Winter Europe Trip 5th December 2022 (Monday) Day 9

(This posted is written on 12th March 2023, I finally have time as the school term has ended and I really missed our Europe trip)

After the previous day, we were really looking forward to the daily excursion and we were all ready to get out when the ship called at Trondheim around 10am. We already had breakfast earlier and we quickly went back to the room to get ourselves wrapped up as everything looked really snowy outside. 

It was quite surreal to see the massive amount of snow, we quickly get dressed and wrapped up as we only have around 2.5 hours to visit this town. When we got down to level 3 where the gangway was, there were already a crowd gathering around and waiting to go out. There was an announcement warning about the snow and saying that it might be slippery so we brought our snow cleats for our shoes. We bought those in Oslo but it was all fresh snow on the ground and these were still soft and 'crunchy' so we did not have to put on the cleats. 

We have reached snowy land! 

The cars parked near the dock area

All cities in Norway are really clean

Trondheim is quite a major city, bigger than Alesund

1030am and the sun was still not fully up yet

From that point on, everything really felt magical as we had not been so far up north ever, the sun was still trying to rise up higher at 1030am and it was snowy everywhere. Trondheim is quite a big city and it's a pity we were only at the port for a short period of time. There was quite a walk to the city centre but we followed the rest of the travelers streaming down from the ship and got to the christmas market where all the action was after roughly 30 min. The snow started drifting down halfway through the walk so it was quite nice and fun.

People were out and about at this area

The entrance of the christmas market

Starbucks along a snowy street

Stalls at the christmas market

Stalls were just opening

Interesting city

We went in to use the toilet at this mall

Trondheim is quite a large city, its a pity we did not have much time here so we only roughly looked at some of the stalls briefly at the christmas market and that was it. We had to leave an hour allowance to start walking back to the ship in case we lose our way and so on. There was a famous church here which is the landmark of this city but we did not have the chance to explore. We did go into a smaller church though, as P love to visit these whenever he can. 

Very neat church and I guess they support LGBT there

Cool christmas setup

We saw this church and went in for a quick visit

P lit a candle for us

We also left a message in the visitor's book

We went into this church which was really nice, with many nice elderly standing around and chatting. They had a kitchen area at the front of the church where they prepared food in the morning for anyone there. They offered us food kindly but we declined, they did not bat an eyelid even though we were clearly visitors who did not understand what was going on. We lit a candle, left message in the visitor's book and made our way back through the city to get back onto the ship.

The sun was setting again when we were walking back

The sunset hues against the snowy landscape

I guess the lights can never be off at this part of the planet

The ship's jacuzzi from Level 7 deck

It's weird as the sun just rose up when we were walking to the city centre about an hour ago and now when we were on our way back, the sunset hues turned up again. I guess eventually we will not really see the sun much as we travel up further north. 

We made it back to the ship much ahead of the time and they had allowance for people to board while the guys handled the cargo so the ship was still at dock for quite some time. P saw that there was an outdoor jacuzzi onboard and he had this idea of going for a soak as he loves loves jacuzzi and hot tubs. I thought it was a crazy idea as we are at this place where it is snowing and the temperature is so cold. 

Anyway he proved me wrong as he went to the reception to book the jacuzzi the day before and we realised people do book it for a soak although we never did see anyone there. I was relieved the day before as he got a slot after dinner and he decided that he was too full to soak. I suggested that he can go for a soak now since the sun is up at the moment and he thought it's a good idea, so we went to the reception to book an immediate slot.

I guess its not such a crazy idea afterall

He looked so happy

Me all wrapped up while waiting for P

The sunset view was amazing

I'm the king of the world! 

P kept telling me that it was simply shiok to soak and I guess he's right afterall, we do soak in onsen in Japan at this temperature as well and people do go for rotenburo, the water temperature will make one will so good and refreshed. I was secretly telling myself that I will join him the next day as he was saying he felt so good and he's going again the next day.

We headed back to the room and went to look for the laundry room after P was done with his shower. It cost only a few bucks to do the laundry onboard so we told ourselves we would do laundry another time before disembarking to even out our first very expensive laundromat wash.

We got free mussels 

P was just in his Tshirt and shorts while the rest all wrapped up

While we waited for the laundry to be done, there was an announcement for some events up on Deck 7 and we went to take a look. Everyone was very well wrapped up as it was super cold but P was just in his T-shirts and shorts. We grabbed a cup of free mussels each and went back inside. It was still early and hours before dinner so we just lazed around in the room, watching World Cup knockout rounds and enjoying our snacks when I suddenly felt the ship moving really high and low for a extended period of time. I was complaining about that but little did I know everything went downhill from there. 

The waves was really choppy at that part of the sea after we left Trondheim and it was really bad even as we got nearer to 6pm and there was announcement for the first seating of the dinner. I remember I even remarked that luckily we were not having dinner then as my stomach felt really queasy and all I wanted to do was to lie down. But the ship movement remained as such for hours and when it got closer to 8pm, we tried to get up and get changed as we did not want to waste the dinner but I felt really sick. I asked P to quickly get me the vomit bag and I threw up the snacks and stuff I was having earlier. P told me he did not feel as sick actually but the moment he saw me doing that, he felt sick as well and he threw up in the toilet too. Well, vomiting is contagious. 

We were really too sick to get up to have any dinner and thankfully I brought motion sickness pills so we popped it and knocked out till the wee hours. I still felt groggy when I woke up hours later in the morning, I think it was 2am or 3am. Thankfully the ship was no longer shaking so much. Phew! But that was really a horrible experience and up to that point I was really keen to go on more trips on board Hurtigruten cruise, I guess being seasick is inevitable for such trips but it really dampened our mood and literally left a bad taste in our mouth. 

We were given such leaflets in the pack and I guess we were at Day 3 Folda area

There's always such signages around the ship showing the next port

From watching and reading the reviews of people on board this coastal liner, there is a chance of spotting the Nordlys on board, especially the last two nights as we were crossing into the arctic circle soon the next morning. I thought it would be super cool to do so and I was hopefully we could have such experience but alas, we did not have such luck. We were super lucky once we reached Tromso though as we spotted the Northern Lights almost every night.