After the young ones have left the nest, we haven’t watched the traditional children’s parade on the Norwegian national day of May 17th, but taken a hike instead. A couple of years we went on top of Storheia, Trondheims highest mountain. This is a nice little trip, with only a short walk down to town afterwards (easily combined with a bath at Sjøbadet). But after the city was joined with the neighbouring Klæbu in 2020, Trondheims highest top is now Kråkfjellet and much less accessible.
So we took a shorter option, went by bike to Bekken gård and walked up to Estenstadhytta. The cabin wasn’t open for serving, but we knew that and had everything we needed with us!
May 17th 2022 at Estenstadhytta.
Of course we also wanted a bath and on the way down we went by Estenstaddammen. Trondheim was blessed with phantastic weather, so we don’t believe anyone was shocked that we cooled ourselves down a little.
Correct bathing outfit for the national bath.
In Norway there has been much debate lately about our national costumes not being suited for people not comfortable with standard stereotypes like male/female. So we tested a switch.
Select any letter you are comfortable with: LBGTPQHWNEUSGD…
No doubt that a bath is the right thing to do on May 17th!
“Burns’ supper” is celebrated around the world about 25th of January every year. Then it’s time to eat haggis, drink whisky and preferrably recite some poems of Scotlands national poet Robert Burns. He lived in the latter half of the 1700s and wrote about politics, but also everyday life and of course of love, in a way people could understand and relate to.
Best known around the world is probably “Auld Lang Syne”, but his most iconic poem many would say, is “Tam o’ Shanter”. It tells about Tom, who is riding home in a heavy rainstorm and comes across the Devil himself and a gang of witches dancing. It ends with the witch Nannie and the whole lot setting after Tom. Nannie manages to grab a hold of the mare’s tail just as it jumps upon a bridge. And thereby saves Tom and herself, because: “A running stream they dare not cross!”. But back on the riverside, Nannie stands with the mare’s tail in her arms.
To honour Robert Burns, we held a “Burns’ supper”, corona-restricted to just a couple of friends. Next day we went for a photo shoot. Firstly, we needed a horse. After some thinking we checked the market online for rocking horses and soon enough could pick up one almost for free.
As a suitable bridge, we had read about Trondheim’s possibly oldest bridge: Stokkbrua, a nice, vaulted stone bridge. Knut even went to check out the bridge beforehand.
The crossing between “Gamle Jonsvannsveg” and Stokkbekken, as described, was easy to find, but the bridge had lost some of it’s former glory:
… where the construction of the new road had removed the vault. Somewhat disappointing, but right below it, we discovered a small walking bridge that was quite suitable:
… and even a nice bath tub between these two bridges.
So we took our scissors to cut of the mare’s tail and found a describing posture:
…Nannie with the mare’s tail
While we changed clothes for the bath, a familiy with a small girl came by. Since the horse had served our purpose, we gave it to them and they could continue their Sunday walk happy, but slightly confused, with a rocking horse and a disconnected tail in their hands.
Stokkbekken has a fun bath tub with a natural jacuzzi.
Even though the bathing spot worked nicely, we are not sure we will recommend it. We both thought there was an unpleasant smell in Stokkbekken. Nothing to do with the haggis the previous day!
Afterwards, we have found that we had visited a (nameless?) bridge on what the map says is called “Gamle Jonsvannsveg” today, while Stokkbrua is under what now is a gravel walking path a couple of hundred meters further upstream. This gravel road was an even older version of “Jonsvannsvegen”. And the real Stokkbrua is still intact in all it’s glory! And most likely built during Burns lifetime!
This is the real Stokkbrua, maybe Trondheims oldest bridge!
Suddenly New Year’s eve 2021 had arrived, and we imagined that a bath with fireworks in the background would have been nice. We celebrated the new year at Idun’s big brother Asgaut in Rissa, Fosen. The hospitality included consumption of both wine and aqua vitae with the traditional Norwegian “Pinnekjøtt”, and lead to the conclusion that taking a bath as the year turned to a new number wasn’t really a good idea.
So we postponed the New Year’s Bath to the first day of the new year – there are lots of bathing opportunities between Rissa and Trondheim. But the matter of hospitality came in the way again! The breakfast was suddenly a loooong brunch and we didn’t get going before the sun
was almost down. A sour eastern wind fortified the decision of postponing another day.
On the 2nd of january , however, we received an invitation to reopen the “bathtub” in the ice on Kyvannet again. Our bathing friends Taru and Klas had a plan, and we wanted to join, of course.
The “Bathtub” in Kyvannet is marked with yellow tape and light reflectors.
Before Christmas, the hole was marked with a wall of blocks of ice, frozen in milk containers. Unfortunately, some hilariously funny people had thrown all of them into the hole! We brought some new ones, but it requires quite a lot before it can be called a wall again (se lower left corner of the next picture!). Anyone is welcome to bring some more ice blocks and help build the wall up again. And we dare you to do that without getting “Another brick in the wall” stuck in your brain! Impossible!
The ice was rather thick (10-15 cm) and the hole hadn’t been open for a college of weeks, so it was quite a job reopening it. Taru has a good ice saw, and after using an axe to make a hole first, sawing wasn’t too exhausting. Protecting glasses and water proof clothing might be a good idea if you make the first hole with an axe instead of an ice borer.
He came, saw and sawed!
The biggest problem turned out to be to get rid of the ice flake that now was floating in the hole. The ice is heavy and it would be quite much extra work if we were to saw the flake in pieces and drag them up. The solution was to push the flake down under the ice. An operation we weren’t really equipped for. No one had boots or anything to grab hold of the ice with. With use of the ladder, coordination and collaborate effort, we managed to do it after a while.
We were totally 7 persons bathing: 3 finnish and 4 norwegians.
Idun used the opportunity to take pictures and was happy with the work distribution: 6 workers and 1 photographer. The ladder was a little short and wobbly and floated up, so it was quite a balancing act to use it. Later it will get weighted down so it gets more sturdy.
The bath tub is ready!
Time to throw away the clothes and get in! We are beginning to have control of the planning. Layer upon layer of wool, changing to swim gear before leaving home, and foot pads to stand on for changing after the bath.
Good mood and colorful hats. This can be recommended! Really!
After the bath (we are talking around 1 minute, this time Knut stayed the longest – 90 seconds – it feels much longer, time goes slooow while you are ice bathing!) it is time to get dressed as quickly as possible, no time for fumbling with bras or complicated stuff.
And after the bath: Hot beverages. In Moomin cups, of course, to keep the Finnish “Sisu” spirit. Hyvää uutta vuotta!
In olden times people knew the perfect spot in the Trondheim fjord to load and unload boats (“lade” in norwegian means to load). In the viking era Lade was the seat of the chief of the “Lade Earls”, a powerful clan which often opposed the norwegian kings. In the middle ages they anchored here to go to church – Lade church. There probably was a cross to mark this place, hence the name “Korsvika”, meaning “Cross bay”.
The plan for Christmas eve was to do the cleansing process in Sjøbadet in Trondheim (the sea bath), where there normally is a social and fun gathering. But corona keeps on bothering us – Christmas-21 was not for being social in big groups! So we went to Korsvika instead. There where 9 degrees Celsisus minus and a rather cold draft, so we almost considered postponing til Christmas day. It was starting to get busy as well – important to get back home in time for the couch, fire in the fireplace, hot chocolate and Cinderella on TV. But when you have managed to persuade 3 youngsters to get up “early” on Christmas Eve to take a cold bath, you have to see it through.
The mood in the car was a bit nervous. Especially the West-African Frenchman, who had never been to Norway before, wasn’t really looking forward to this. Numerous escape attempts like: ‘I can take the pictures’ had been neglected for days already. Despite that – outwards the moods were lively and we felt happy and a bit crazy: ‘At least the beach won’t be crowded today!’ … just to discover a few seconds later that there actually already were other bathers there – seven of them!
Korsvika, including the photo tripod of our prebathers.
This time we were well prepared: Standing pods, wool socks and wool mittens for everyone. Nothing to do but change and get into the water. Mom didn’t want to delay things and went out first. And soon the youngsters did follow.
Mom smiled bravely and tried to pretend it wasn’t cold. It was cold!
A quick dip and that was it. Where did all the youngsters go?
Quote after the Christmas bath 5 years ago: ‘Why do we have such awful traditions in our family?’
A great bath! On the way home we let Edith Piaf sing out our feelings: “Je ne regrette rien”! And my oh my how great to crawl in under the blanket with hot chocolate and see “Three nuts for Cinderella” afterwards. The Czech version, of course, with Knut Risans voiceover, even though 2021 was the year this movie came as a norwegian movie. BUT – then there was this thing about sand. We’re not too fond of sand in general, and sand in the house in particular. A cleansing bath in Korsvika on Christmas eve means another round of removing sand from every room in the house.
The best Christmas gift?
There will be bathing in 2021 as well! With swim cap anno 1955.
And with that we wish all our followers a merry Christmas!
Corona restrictions were again reducing our freedom, but some arrangements were still allowed (December-21). We had expected a cancellation, but the concert with Travelling Strawberries on Ladekaia was carried through. Ladekaia is an eatery and concert venue located at the hiking path Ladestien. This old german baraque and quay from WWII has a charming, rough style. The renovated baraque got Trondheim Municipality’s price for “Good practice in housing design” in 2016. It can be highly recommended if you want a coffee and cinnamon roll on your sunday trip or a dinner and concert in the evening. The place has a big outdoor serving area, where you can admire the view of the fjord or study the WWII structures, including railroad tracks on the quay.
This is how nice the place looked this December evening:
But first a bath! We didn’t want to create attention and chose not to jump from the quay. East of Ladekaia there is an idyllic little bay where you can take a bath undisturbed, even without reserving a spot with your towel hours in advance:
From the bay Ladekaia looks like Soria Moria Castle from Norwegian fairy tales:
We had learned a little trick from Taru and Klas on our last bath: bring something warm to stand on. Our seat pads are hereby renamed standing pads!
Everything OK so far. But those small rocks… We should have brought neoprene socks or sandals as well, this wasn’t too comfortable for the feet. The advantage could be that we forgot that not only the feet where cold?
The big suspense was in the picture production. Would the GoPro manage to capture any of the nocturnal activities? The answer was: not quite! But that wasn’t really the camera’s fault, more a case of “human failure”, as the nice way of saying it goes. Firstly, we had underestimated distances and light. Secondly, the camera tipped over before we got into the water, without us noticing! This time we are therefore unable to provide real bathing proof, only photographical gems like this:
Notice the ray of light in the water going diagonally upwards to the right. That was from the flashlight meant to light us up during the bath. About half of the people present thought we most likely almost certainly for sure had pictures, so we didn’t need another round in the water.
A (not taken on purpose, he just went in the way) picture of Knut, at least proving that we actually where in the bay at some point:
And the bath itself? With crystal clear water, the surface plane as a mirror and veeery shallow until some meters out: Magnificent!
Next: Time to go to the concert and eat christmas food. Music from The Julekalender, Beatles and others and as extra treat in the end: “O helga natt”. Not a dry eye in sight.
Great atmosphere!
…until we checked the pictures and realized we didn’t have any of the bath! Of course we concidered taking another round after the concert. But bathing in cold fjords in the darkness after wine and aqua vita is something even we don’t recommend, so we got right into a taxi home.
Some tension two days later though, when we realized we forgot the backpack somewhere! But thanks to good service from TrønderTaxi we could pick it up on Monday, with GoPro and everything intact. Towels and swimming gear were a little smelly, but we can’t blame anyone else for that. That’s how the days go by…
Finally, after several weeks without any outside baths because of colds, we are now both well again and our new web pages are ready to tell about our bathing adventures!
This bath was initiated by our good bathing friends Taru and Klas. What are friends for, if not to throw you into a hole in the ice? No better thing to do a lovely day in December, is there?
We drove our newly bought old Little Lif and parked by Sverresborg Museum. This is how nice the fortress looked in winter suit:
…which also is a reminder to Idun to mind the horizon when taking pictures!
From Sverresborg it’s only a short trip on foot to Theisendammen.
Some of us considered to slide down the waterfall on the right side, but we concluded that not doing it was more beneficial for our health.
The dam was built at the end of the 1700s by chancellery counsil Simon Lorentz Thaysen to secure steady water supply for Ila mills.
Into the dam comes Baklibekken and out goes Ilabekken. The latter ends very beatifully in Ilsvika, between a corn storage and the most beautiful little beach you can imagine.
Between 1889 and 1979 Theisendammen was the source of all drinking water in Trondheim. There used to be good fishing here, until it was treated with Rotenon in 2016. Today Theisendammen has no fish. Which means it is excellent for taking a bath summer as winter, without being afraid for your toes!
The hole in the ice is made by the group: “Trondheim Cold Exposure”. They take a bath there every day before christmas, increasing water time with 30s every day.
Nice hole in the ice, thanks!
… and a ladder was very practical. The hole is placed wisely so you can stand on the bottom of the lake. But not enough space for a swim, though.
We didn’t manage any picture of all 4 of us in the water. Anyway; great spirit during the bath! …and thus we send a warm thought and cold greetings to Græni Hatturinn concert venue in Akureyri in northern Iceland.
We didn’t get to warm ourselves in the sun this day, but Munkholmen (the island in the fjord) surely did.
Afterwards we went to the christmas market in Trondheim. Great day!
