Different country, same weather!

Trying to escape the bad weather, we moved north a fair bit, to the city of Trondheim, the biggest city in central Norway and therefore center of commerce and education in the region.

Around 15% of the population here are students, and another 10.000 people work at the University hospital St. Olavs.

The local football team, Rosenborg Ballklub, even qualified for the Champions League multiple times, where they beat AC Milan and Real Madrid, besides others.
Their last qualification was in the season 2007/2008, though.

Gaudi-esque

This vehicle had a French number plate

The Nidarsdom is the most visited attraction in the city, being the most important church in the country. For almost 1000 years the Norwegian Kings have been crowned here!
It also marks the end of a number of pilgrimage trails.

From the Gamle Bybro, the old bridge, you can marvel at the colorful houses of Bryggene.

Have you ever seen a baby seagull? How would have guessed they are so cute?

The Christiansen Fortress, perched on a small hill above town, was built to protect the city from attacks from Sweden. By the time it was finished, it was almost obsolete and never really used.

It was the plan all along - but now we were hoping for it to be an escape from the weather as well - to drive back over to Sweden from here to do a big loop around the heartland of the country.

So off we went, in the direction of Östersund.

On the way, we stopped at a couple of spectacular waterfalls, some of the biggest in the country.

Tannforsen

Ristafellet

Who else is thinking "Canada"?

The nature reserve of Acksjön is known for its wild orchids.
Now, as you probably know, my human isn´t exactly an expert when it comes to plants and flowers, but even she could not not notice the Lady´s Slippers along the way, the biggest type of orchid in Sweden.
It is a very slow growing flower, taking up to ten years to bloom!

Our spot for the night, not too bad!

The small town of Östersund is probably a really nice place to visit on a sunny day, with its kilometers of walkways along the water, outdoor cafés and pleasure boats. 
Not so on this drizzly, grey and cold day.

Which made us move to another nature reserve, Tysjöarna, only a few kilometers up the road, but better rain in nature than rain in the city.
And we were lucky for it to almost stop on the way.

A beautiful walk leads, largely on a boardwalk, through one of the largest marl areas in the world. Besides, there are several springs and richfens with calcareous tufa formations.

This runic monument is the northernmost in Sweden, erected around 1050

We left Östersund in the direction of Strömsund, where we got onto the Vildmarksvägen route, a roughly 370km long scenic drive, partially in Lapland, leading through vast plains, past countless waterfalls and lakes, with the possibility of spotting reindeer and other wildlife.

And we did not have to wait long for our first reindeer, it pretty much ran onto the road 50 meters in front of us. A good thing I have new front brakes!
It didn´t seem to phased, had a good look at us and then trotted off into the forest on the other side of the road.
Before we could take a picture, unfortunately.

Driving through this landscape, you can´t help but feel like you are in Canada. Even if we have never been there and only know it from pictures and documentaries, but this is what it looks like, maybe on a slightly smaller scale.

Trappstegesforsen

We visited Fatmomake, an old Sami church village, which still get´s used these days, if only for Midsummer and a couple of other festivities throughout the year.

The name Fatmomake means "the place where we embrace each other", quite nice, I think.

These pews are only for small backsides

The Sami are the indigenous people inhabiting the region of Sapmi, which today encompasses large parts of northern Norway, Finland and Sweden, as well as the Kola Peninsula in Russia.

There are roughly 100.000 Sami these days.

They have their own language and have pusude a number of livelihoods in the past, like coastal fishing, fur trapping and sheep herding. 
Their best known means of livelihood is semi-nomadic reindeer herding, which around 10% of the population pursue. It provides them with meat, fur and transportation.

For traditional, environmental, cultural and political reasons, reindeer herding is legally reserved for only Sami in some regions of the Nordic countries.

As with all indigenous people of the world, there have been and still are plenty of issues regarding acknowledgement, land rights and representation in government.

Stekenjokk, as seen above, is a vast plain on the Vildmarksvägen.
A major mining operation was run up here in the 70s and 80s. During the 12 years of work 7.1 million tones of ore were mined, containing 90.000 tones of copper, 170.000 tones of zinc, 140.000kgs of silver and 980kg of gold.
Not a bad yield!

Despite the weather being what it was (and has been for around four weeks now) the Bjurelväns Nature Reserve called with a couple of nice hikes, and so my human went.

Never mind her coming back dripping wet and kinda gloomy. But we are here now, what can you do?

Does anyone know what animal that was?

Sign posts for snow mobiles are everywhere

Korallgrottan

To also mention the light in the darkness, or rather grayness of the rain clouds, we haven´t been harassed by mosquitoes much yet.
Only on one hike where they out in force and aggressive.
That´s something!