Stjørdalshalsen, Stjørdal for short, is a town in Trøndelag in Norway.
Understand
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Stjørdalshalsen is at the mouth of the valley Stjørdal. It is the centre for Stjørdal district. The Stjørdal valley stretches for some 70 km from Trondheimsfjord to the border with Sweden. The lower part of the valley is relatively wide agricultural flatlands. The flatlands at the mouth is home to Stjørdal town with some 12,000 people as well as Trondheim's airport and the Hell suburb on the other side of the airport. The upper part of the valley is more or less a river gorge, except at Meråker village.
Stjørdalshalsen/Hell is an important junction as the road and the railway connections with Sweden joins the Norwegian network there.
Hell
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Hell is a village and suburb of Stjørdal town, separated from the centre by the runway. Hell has some 1,400 inhabitants administratively part of the Stjørdal municipality. While there's very little to see there, except for an annual blues festival in September, it's always fun to get a picture of yourself outside Gods Expedition (freight forwarding office).
While the Old Norse word Hel is the same as today's English Hell, the name stems from the Old Norse word hellir, which means "overhang", "cliff cave". The Norwegian word hell can also mean "luck". As a proper noun, Hel was the ruler of Hel. In modern Norwegian the word for hell is helvete.
Hell is 1.5 km (1 mile) from the airport.
Get in
[edit]By car
[edit]The town is on E6, Norway's main north-south highway, 40 km east from Trondheim, the road continuing to the north from Strjørndal.
Coming from Sweden, E14 (from Östersund and E45) ends in Stjørdal north of the airport.
By plane
[edit]- 1 Trondheim Airport Værnes (TRD IATA). There are plenty of flights every day from Oslo and several other important cities in Norway and elsewhere in Europe, as well as from some Norwegian short-field airports. There are also flights from many destinations in the Mediterranean and on the Canary Islands. There is a train and bus connection from the airport.
By train
[edit]Trains are operated by Vy (formerly NSB), who also sells the tickets.
- 2 Stjørdal station.
- 3 Værnes station. Railway station for the airport.
- 4 Hell station. Local trains from Trondheim, the airport and Steinkjer stop here. There are one or two departures per hour. There are also trains from Sweden (twice per day) that stop in Hell. If you want to take the train from Hell, be aware that the train will only stop if they see someone standing at the platform, otherwise it will pass.
Get around
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See
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- 1 Hell station (Hell stasjon). Hell's railway station. The Gods Expedition is the small building next to the railway, and the famous sign is on the wall towards the tracks. On the second floor of the station itself, there is a devil drawing in the window, most likely put there to entertain tourists. Regardless of its infernal name, the station itself is a sympathetic little wooden building worth photographing.
- 2 Rock carvings. At the Steinmohaugen there are rock carvings that might be 6000 years old. Rock carving is helleristning in Norwegian.
- 3 Lånke Kirke. There's unsurprisingly no church in Hell, but rather in the village of Lånke, 2 km to the east.
- 4 Stjørdal River. Separating Hell and Lånke from the airport and Stjørdal itself.
- 5 Hell signs. If the railway station isn't enough, you can also photograph road and street signs. Moreover, there is a "Hell" sign on the mountain (perhaps inspired by the "Hollywood" sign in Los Angeles but smaller), visible when arriving from the airport.
- 6 Vikanbukta fulgefredningsområde (behind the industrial area north-west of the centre). Bird sanctuary at the bay Vikan. Trondheimsfjorden is shallow around the mouth of Stjørdal River. At low tide a wide mudflat is uncovered, attracting wading birds.
- 7 [dead link] Steinvikholmen Castle, Stjørdal (on a small island near the shore, 10 km north-west from the centre, across the peninsula). Olav Engelbrektsson, the last Catholic archbishop of Norway, fled to this small fortress from his residence at the Nidaros Cathedral (Trondheim). He brought with him St. Olav's shrine with the earthly remains of St. Olav, Norway’s patron saint. In April 1537 the king finally managed to take the fortress and send Olav into exile in Belgium. His exile ended the opposition to the reformation in Norway. 50 kr.
Do
[edit]- 1 Climbing (just east of Lånke). Great climbing site. Mountain guides are not available locally, you need to contact the climbing club in Stjørdal or Trondheim.
- 2 Rallycross in Hell (at the Lånkebanan track, 10 km south from the centre). yearly in June. A car race at Lånkebanan, part of the FIA World Rallycross Championship.
- Blues in Hell. A blues festival held each September.
Buy
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Among English-speaking tourists, popular postcards depict the station with a heavy frost on the ground, making a visual joke about "Hell frozen over." Temperatures in Hell can reach −20 °C during winter.
- 1 Hell kjøpesenter (between the airport and Hell).
Eat
[edit]Self-catering is also an option; there are grocery stores in the mall and the airport also offers lighter meals. For finer dining, head to the restaurant at Rica Hell Hotel.
Drink
[edit]Vertigo Bar is at the Rica Hell Hotel.
Sleep
[edit]- 1 Radisson Blu Hotel, Trondheim Airport, Lufthavnveien 30, ☏ +47 74 84 36 00, [email protected].
- 2 Rica Hell Hotel, Sandfærhus 22, ☏ +47 74 84 48 00. A first class establishment with prices to match. Has a good range of business amenities given its proximity to the airport, and a restaurant and bar. Standard double rooms go for around 1000 Kr.
Connect
[edit]- 5 Stjørdal library (Stjørdal bibliotek), ☏ +47 74 83 39 40. M W F 10:00–16:00, Tu Th 10:00–19:00, Sa 10:00–14:00. Free usage of computers. Printing is also available for a small fee.
Nearby
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- 1 Meråker ski resort, Fagerliveien 454 (E14 or railway from Trondheim or Hell), ☏ 406 13 300Country code missing, [email protected]. Alpine, backcountry and cross-country skiing. Despite its modest altitude (100–200 m above sea level) Meråker ski resort has a relatively long season.
- 2 Tautra (Tautra island). Tautra is a small island in Trondheimsfjorden. The island is a bird sanctuary and the site of a monastery abandoned after the reformation. Ruins of the buildings. Access by bridge from Frosta.
- 3 Frosta. A fertile peninsula in Trondheimsfjorden. Assembly hill (Tinghaugen) at Frosta was the site of the medieval parliament for Trøndelag and adjacent areas. These areas were governed by Frostatingsloven, the law (or law book) of Frosta Assembly. This law included the famous phrase at lǫgum skal land várt byggja en eigi at ulǫgum eyða (with law shall our land be built, and not desolated by lawlessness, reproduced in modern Norwegian on the monument there). The law originates from before year 1000 and in oral form it is perhaps much older, making it one of the oldest in Norway. The law was consolidated in written form around 1100 and is a relatively sophisticated legislation. Several elements of it are retained in Norway's modern legislation. Frosta was effectively the capital of Trøndelag until the assembly was moved to Trondheim.
Go next
[edit]- Sweden: Storlien – ski resort, the first town in Sweden after the border. It has a railway embankment, being rebuilt into a bridge, which is called "Stora Helvetet", literally "Big Hell", on intention because of the trouble of building it.
- Trondheim – the oldest of Norway's major cities.
| Routes through Stjørdalshalsen |
| Trondheim ← Hell ← | SW  NE
|
→ Mo i Rana → Narvik |
merges with  SW ←
|
W  E
|
→ Meråker →  Åre → Östersund
|