Nidaros cathedral

yesterday i finally went to tour around the Nidaros cathedral of trondheim together with jenelyn, as they had put Idar back under a cocktail of drugs to make him sleep again as he needs the rest. Quick facts of the cathedral include it being built from 1070 onwards , is the most important Gothic monument in Norway and was Northern Europe's most important Christian pilgrimage site during the Middle Ages. Its the northenmost medieval cathedral in the world and Saint Olav is buried somewhere in it. oh and miracles happened where his body was first buried apparently.

i just fell in love with the cathedral windows because of how beautiful they looked with the sun shining in.
the cathedral is really high inside, and it was used for coronations at one point but stopped in the very early 1900s.
some female saints here ithink? my eyesight is bad so i couldnt read the names. bit if you click the pic to enlarge you can see the details better.
this is where we lit a candle or two for Idar, in hopes that his recovery will be smooth. we could also write prayers on cards that will be read out on sunday during mass.
for 90nkr, we could visit two places. inside the cathedral and the museum at the archbishop's palace right next to it. they had a scale model of the Nidaros, which i took pics of to better show the whole structure XD

of course this model didnt have the statues of the saints, because that would be a LOT of detail!!
impressive isnt it?
then we have their biggest window there, which i bought some postcards of because it was simply beautiful.
the archibishop's palace we couldnt explore all of course, just part of it that was the museum. but i liked how they had models showing the changes in its structure from when it was first built till today.

at this point , it was used as a military building
and what it looks like todayand in real life! the road you see here leads to the Nidaros. Took this picture from inside the museum through a big glass window XD
one of the first exhibits is this... thingy depicting the life of saint olav.

and a statue of saint olav. why he's stepping on a centaur-ish king i dont know.
they also had cool slabs with runic inacriptions!

they have also managed to recover some statues and fragments from the cathedral, which got damaged quite alot over the centuries.
i took a picture of this one because i couldnt help thinking you could probably find similar in china?

and this one seemed mayan to me..

a picture of a face i found interesting...and this one is just creepy because in one game i watched alex play.. he went around hell trying to do stuff and there were souls in the walls of hell exactly like these. and there was a big chopper constantly chopping their heads off, which regrows. so they moan and scream the entire time.
a statue of a warrior, quite viking-like. i'm quite amused that even in norway you have little figurines of vikings that have horns on their helmets.. something they're NOT supposed to have.
this statue, i think, is of saint john.
they also have troll statues! from what i learnt from a norwegian movie, trolls dont like christians. so i thought it was funny to have trolls on a cathedral XD
a headless saint.
beautiful archway i wish i could have in my future house whahaha.
they have also preserved some of the archbishop's letters.
the original letter! if anyone ever thought my smallest handwriting was small.. wait till you see this guy's. its MINUTE.
quite alot of interesting preserved items there :) hundreds of years old!!

then they even have preserved food bits?...

this was once food XD.interesting fact i learnt: they had disposable GLASS cups. they would smash them at the end of a party. XD
while in the cathedral, i fancied myself in the great hall of Hogwarts. so when i saw this face.. i really couldnt help thinking it was a house elf XD

The oldest intact mint in Europe is here! so much interesting things in one small area.

this is part of the original mint, which is tiled with what was back then very expensive flooring.
and this is what the mint looked like back in its former glory.
whats left of the expensive tiles is now this
they even have some very well preserved coins
at one floor, they had this sign that said the heads and stuff are 'true to life', blablabla.. then i saw THIS.

who the beep looked like that?! but i guess perhaps this might be copies of the original figures XD

they also had a small section of pottery and fragments from various parts of the world, even chinese.

didnt strike me as a very old piece, plus they didnt state a date for it. so might as well have gone to a shop, buy something cheap, and break it to display XD.


that was a long post! shall take a rest now. its been so busy i've had no time to prepare at all for any special cny things. ah well..