A brand new bathing beach in Trondheim, imagine that!
After 12 years of construction, Grilstad Marina is approaching completion (2024). The entire project consists of approximately 800 apartments, 110,000 m2 of commercial space, a marina and recreational areas, all made possible by the stone masses from the road tunnels between Stjørdal and Trondheim. There are swimming opportunities here! So much so, that the residents for a long time have complained about happy, load, youths jumping from piers and bridges, ref our bath ‘Grilstad Marina‘. But this time, the new Fullriggerøya (The Sailship’s Island) was to be visited.
The cross-rigged sailing ships must be considered to be the summit of the sailing ship era. These were large, beautiful ships with square sails on all masts, which required a large crew. They did best on long-distance sailing, where speed was crucial, and in the navy. Competition in the merchant fleet was fierce, those who arrived first were paid better for the goods. Tobatheornottobathe has not found the name of any fully square rigged ships built in Trøndelag, but we would like to attach a drawing of one of H.J. Sommer’s beautiful ships, cleared from Trondhjem in 1915.
It is actually a good idea to call the new, artificial, island Fullriggerøya. Why not, when the whole project is built at sea? Apart from the canals, however, there is not much of a maritime feeling in the new buildings at Grilstad. These are apartment buildings, with sometimes large terraces, but they do not resemble piers. And the titles? Bryggetun, what is it? And pier villas? A villa is a house with a garden for one or a few families, inspired by the country estates that the Roman upper class built 2000 years ago, for example by Lake Albano (ref our bath ‘Lago di Albano‘). The villas at Grilstad do not have gardens, and there are 10-15 apartments in each apartment building. A completely wrong use of words! We understand that some estate agents want to ’embellish’ the concepts, but with the architects’ acceptance? We simply do not understand it.
Interestingly enough, a forest has also been developed on the island, by the name Fullriggerskogen (forest). And yes, 20-30 trees have been planted between the houses, in between childrens playgrounds, paths and lawns. Why not call it all a park? Isn’t a parc good enough?
What we really like about this project is of course the swimming facilities! From the first floor you can throw yourself into the water, but there will be some climbing back up. For us, a dream scenario for retirement, apart from the fact that most of the apartments with direct bathing actually have no view of the fjord other than the canal. But the beach is nice!
The Grilstad Beach is the first beach in Trondheim that faces south. Trondheim struggles with having its back facing the sun. 75 lorry loads of fine white sand have been brought here from Denmark, and the beach is relatively steep so that you don’t have to wade very long to swim. However, we were a little surprised by the stone embankment 10 meters from the water’s edge, where it was very shallow, before entering the fjord. We do assume that the stones are supposed to hold the sand in place, and that is fine, just a little surprising during this first bath.
The new beach gets top score from Tobatheornottobathe! A special plus for the sauna (we hope to visit it sometime), along with benches and children’s playground. So now we hope that the beach will reduce the jumping from the canal bridges, so that the poor, irritated residents can have peace on their terraces.
Thank you for the beach!
