Trondheim, Norway: 24 December 2012

24 December 2012

Today was a great day.
After a turbulent, stormy night in the Norwegian Sea we arrived in Trondheim on Christmas Eve. It was a frosty arrival. Icy, windy, sunless. Perfect Christmas climate. I loved it. I walked from ship to hotel while the others took a taxi.

Earlier in the week, we learned that Norway closes for business on Christmas day and the days just before and just after. Our hotel, the Britannia, may be the only hotel open for the three days of our stay. But restaurants are all closed. Entirely closed.

This afternoon we went to visited the Nidaros Cathedral for the four o'clock mass. We walked on snowy sidewalks in twilight to the church gates. Between the gates and the sanctuary door is the cemetery.  The dates are from many centuries ago. Tall elliptical gravestones. Candlelit. The oldest stones atilt. Tall, leafless trees overhead.  Resting in an undulating flat grassy field. Against a twilight sky, hazy blue,  illuminated by a half-moon.

We passed through the Romanesque doorway into the church. It is magnificent. A long expansive space with a tall rectangular tower near it's center. It is enormous. With gothic vaulting that thrills the eyes.  It is all so perfect in form and line.

The space was filled. The people looked joyous. Dressed well. Many children. People in traditional dress. A man with black shoes with silver buckles, white cable knit socks up to his knees where a red braided tassel was tied.  Black wool breeches from his knees up. A white collarless starched shirt under a colorful knit vest in red, buttoned up to his clavicle. Finally, a wool coat, white, snowy, fine, with two vertical rows of silver buttons and elegant, discrete ornamental stitching.

We took our places. The choir began. Boys and men singing. The organ played. It filled the room with quaking sound. The program followed the format of a traditional mass. Singing. Standing. Sitting. Sermon. Etc. Etc. Until the Hallelujah Chorus. The tremendous bells began to chime, heard throughout the town. The people rose and filed out into the Christmasy ambiance of Norway winter.

We had lowered our expectations for food. Then back at the hotel, the staff surprised us. They showed us to an elegant dining room built in the eighteen-nineties. Chandeliers. White roses. Candles. Red walls. Glossy black tall wooden doors. I felt I had fallen into a Christmas scene in a Bergman film. We were each presented with a plate of various foods. Salmon. Cheese. Potato salad. Cold poached turkey. And a bottle of Spanish wine from Catalunya. Afterwards, there was a triple-tier of cookies. All variations on butter cookies. And delicious coffee. The hotel presented all this to us as a gift. It was all very wonderful. The stuff of sweet dreams. Which I will now lay down to.

Marlow and Wes
The Brittania Hotel
Trondheim, Norway
24 December 2012
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