Attractions

An Escapist's Retreat -- The Ringve Botaniske Hage (Ringve Botanical Gardens) lie on Lade Allé 58 (tel. 73-59-22-69) and form part of the University of Trondheim's Museum of Natural History and Archaeology. This is one of the finest places to be on a summer day in Norway. You can wander through a historic and Renaissance-style herb garden, enjoying the trees of the Northern Hemisphere. The entire park is laid out in the English garden style. Head for the nearest bench -- and the day is yours. The admission-free park is open all year.

Zealots, "Perverts" & the Ax Man

Munkholmen (Monk's Island), is a small, rocky, inhospitable, and richly historic island a short distance offshore from Trondheim's core. When the weather permits, daily ferries depart from a point at the northern terminus of Munkegate at hourly intervals between 10am and 7pm for the 10-minute jaunt offshore for picnicking, bird-watching, and beach excursions on the island. Round-trip passage requires less than 12 minutes each way and costs 50NOK ($7.70/£4.10) for adults, 30NOK ($4.60/£2.45) for children under 15. Advance bookings aren't necessary, and you can buy your ticket directly from the on-board driver. When the boats operate, departures from the landing stages at Trondheim are hourly, and the boats pick up whichever Munkholmen passenger is trying to reverse his or her direction.

But there's more to this sparse island than fun, games, and picnicking sites. For hundreds of years, beginning in 1658, the island functioned as a prison and an execution site, with a prominent hangman's scaffold, instruments of torture, and wooden blocks where ax men would lop off the heads of wretches condemned as criminals, "perverts," or enemies of the church or state. Before that, in the 11th century, the island was developed by Benedictine monks into one of the first two Christian monasteries in Scandinavia, housing zealots who shivered away the winters as winds and snows howled down the edges of the fjord. You can take a guided tour of the island's historic fortress for 30NOK ($4.60/£2.45) for adults and 20NOK ($3.10/£1.65) for children. There are many panoramic sites if you've opted to bring a picnic. You can buy supplies at the Ravnkloa fish market, a few steps from the landing piers. Otherwise, a cafe and snack bar are built into the much-restored fortifications.

Today Monk's Island is moderately popular as a destination for beachgoers, historians, and bird-watchers, even though the beach is small, gravelly, and relatively narrow, and the island is also very small. Some locals even insist the place is haunted. What you may come away with -- at least, in our opinion -- is a pervasive sense of melancholy and a profound new appreciation for the hardships and severity of life in medieval Norway. Most first-timers to Munkeholmen return to Trondheim and head immediately for the nearest bar for food, drink, and a replenishment of whatever good cheer they might have lost during their excursion.

Incidentally, Munkegate, the broad boulevard known ironically (facetiously?) as the "Champs-Elysées of Trondheim," was named after the medieval monks who lived here and who made frequent, sometimes daily, processionals between the landing pier at the avenue's base and Trondheim's cathedral, a 20-minute walk to the south.