NIDAROS - the Jerusalem of the North - was a very important pilgrimage destination for centuries - until the Reformation. For some years now, pilgrims again have been making their way along St. Olav Ways to Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim in Norway.

Whether you want to explore Norway’s fjords and Denmark’s historic sites, shop for innovative Swedish design and eat Nordic cuisine, or soak in an authentic Finnish sauna or Iceland’s geothermal pools, the local Fodor’s travel experts in Scandinavia are here to help! Fodor’s Essential Scandinavia is part of the award-winning Fodor’s Essential series recognized by Booklist as the “Best Travel Guide in 2019.” This guidebook is packed with maps, carefully curated recommendations, and everything else you need to simplify your trip-planning process and make the most of your time. This new edition has been fully-redesigned with an easy-to-read layout, fresh information, and beautiful color photos. Fodor’s Essential Scandinavia includes: AN ILLUSTRATED ULTIMATE EXPERIENCES GUIDE to the top things to see and do MULTIPLE ITINERARIES to effectively organize your days and maximize your time MORE THAN 30 DETAILED MAPS to help you navigate confidently COLOR PHOTOS throughout to spark your wanderlust! UP-TO-DATE and HONEST RECOMMENDATIONS for the best sights, restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, performing arts, activities, side-trips, and more PHOTO-FILLED “BEST OF” FEATURES on “Norway’s Natural Wonders,” “Iceland’s Museums,” “Scandinavia’s Fairytale Castles,” “Picture-Perfect Towns Across Scandinavia,” and more TRIP-PLANNING TOOLS AND PRACTICAL TIPS including when to go, getting around, beating the crowds, and saving time and money SPECIAL FEATURES on “Aurora Borealis 101,” “What to Watch and Read Before You Visit,” and “What to Eat and Drink” HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INSIGHTS providing rich context on the local people, politics, art, architecture, cuisine, music, geography and more LOCAL WRITERS to help you find the under-the-radar gems NORWEGIAN, SWEDISH, DANISH, FINNISH, AND ICELANDIC LANGUAGE PRIMERS with useful words and essential phrases COVERS: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Iceland Planning on visiting Germany or Great Britain? Check out Fodor’s Essential Germany and Fodor’s Essential Great Britain. ABOUT FODOR'S AUTHORS: Each Fodor's Travel Guide is researched and written by local experts. Fodor’s has been offering expert advice for all tastes and budgets for over 80 years. For more travel inspiration, you can sign up for our travel newsletter at fodors.com/newsletter/signup, or follow us @FodorsTravel on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We invite you to join our friendly community of travel experts at fodors.com/community to ask any other questions and share your experience with us! *Important note for digital editions: The digital edition of this guide does not contain all the images or text included in the physical edition.

NIDAROS - the Jerusalem of the North - was a very important pilgri- mage destination for centuries - until the Reformation. For some years now, pilgrims again are making their way along St. Olav Ways to Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim in Norway. In his third pilgrimage book about the Ways of St. Olav, Michael Schildmann describes his experiences on this very special Scandinavian track: from Karlstad in Sweden via Inbygda to Nidaros Cathedral. After his succesful German trilogy of the Ways of St. Olav, here you find the thought-provoking diary and guide to a pilgrimage route that not many people have found by now. - Schildmann made his first pilgrimage in 2007 on the Way of St. James from Somport Pass to Santiago de Compostela and Muxia.

Nature sports in general and hiking in particular have become, in our urban and post-industrial societies, a growing phenomenon practiced by millions of citizens. The motivations and interests of this large group are varied, but they have a common element: to disconnect from stressful modern life and reconnect with nature. National parks and other protected areas are the preferred destinations, but they present an challenging contrast for land management: conservation versus tourist use. While once considered a romantic practice of escape and discovery, hiking is now a consumer product and a tourist experience. It promises experiences of disconnection, quiet and health; yet, natural spaces are increasingly scarce and more often than not they are crowded by other recreationalists. This book presents a multidisciplinary perspective on the latest trends and developments in hiking. In particular, the authors work from a European perspective with various outdoor recreation models represented and different conservation initiatives explored in the contexts of Spain, Norway, Poland, Germany and Lebanon. Collectively, the authors attend to hiking as a social phenomenon and economic opportunity, which has the potential to sustainably revitalize rural destinations, if managed properly.

Pilgrimage, as a global activity linked to the sacred, speaks to the special significance of persons, places and events. This book relates these sentiments to the curatorship of the Camino de Santiago that comprises a lattice of European pilgrimage itineraries converging at Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. The detailed analysis focuses on the management of pilgrimage settings as heritage and tourism linked to the shrine of Saint James and gives particular attention to investment guidelines, land use planning regulations, environmental stewardship, information dissemination and museology.

After Norway's patron saint, Olav Haraldsson, fell at the battle of Stiklestad in 1030, Nidaros (now Trondheim) and the grave of Saint Olav became a destination for people seeking salvation. This updated booklet is a guide for modern pilgrims who want to follow in the footsteps of those earlier wanderers. Today's pilgrim paths give the contemporary wanderer a sense of what pilgrims in the Middle Ages went through on their way to the shrine in Trondheim. All the paths and routes to Trondheim are described with accompanying pictures and maps. The book also contains brief texts about Saint Olav, Stiklestad, Nidaros Cathedral, and the medieval landscape, as well as useful information about today's Trondheim and its many attractions.

Pilgrimage, Landscape, and Identity: Reconstructing Sacred Geographies in Norway explores the ritual geography of a pilgrimage system that arose around medieval saints in Norway, a country now being transformed by petroleum riches, neoliberalism, migration and global warming. What it means to be Norwegian and Christian in this changing context is constantly being renegotiated. The contemporary revival of pilgrimage to the burial site of St. Olav at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim is one site where this negotiation takes place. St. Olav played a major role in the unification of regions of Norway into a nation united by Christian law and faith, though most contemporary pilgrims have only a passing interest in the historical background of the pilgrimage. The pilgrimage network comprises a wide variety of participants: individuals, casual groups, guided group pilgrimages, activist pilgrims raising awareness for causes such as climate change and hospice services, as well as increasing numbers of local and foreign pilgrims of various ages, government officials, pilgrimage activists, and pilgrimage priests supplied by the Church of Norway (Lutheran). Part of the study focuses on the Olavsfest, a cultural and music festival that engages the heritage of St. Olav and the Church of Norway through theater, music, lectures, and discussions, and theological and interreligious conversations. This festival offers an opportunity for creative and critical engagement with a difficult historical figure and his contested, violent heritage and constitutes one of the ways in which this pilgrimage network represents a critical Protestant tradition engaging a legacy through ritual creativity. This study maps how pilgrims, hosts, church officials, and government officials participate in reshaping narratives of landscape, sacrality, and pilgrimage as a symbol of life journey, nation, identity, Christianity, and Protestant reflections on the durability of medieval Catholic saints.

Pilgrimage beyond the Officially Sacred: Understanding the Geographies of Religion and Spirituality in Sacred Travel examines the many ways in which pilgrimage engages with sacredness, delving beyond the officially recognized, and often religiously conceived, pilgrimage sites. As scholarship examining the lived experiences of pilgrims and tourists has demonstrated, pilgrimage need not be religious in nature, nor be officially sanctioned; rather, they can be 'hyper-meaningful' voyages, set apart from the everyday profane life—in a word, they are sacred. Separating the social category of 'religion' from the 'sacred,' this volume brings together a multidisciplinary group of scholars employing perspectives from anthropology, geography, sociology, religious studies, theology, and interdisciplinary tourism studies to theorize sacredness, its variability, and the ways in which it is officially recognized or condemned by power brokers. Rich in case studies from sacred centers throughout the world, the contributions pay close attention to the ways in which pilgrims, central authorities, site managers, locals, and other stakeholders on the ground appropriate, negotiate, shape, contest, or circumvent the powerful forces of the sacred. Delving ‘beyond the officially sacred,’ this collective examination of pilgrimages—both well-established and new, religious and secular, authorized and not—presents a compelling look at the interplay of secular powers and the transcendent forces of the sacred at these hyper-meaningful sites. Providing a blueprint for how work in the anthropology and geography of religion, and the fields of pilgrimage and religious tourism, may move forward, Pilgrimage beyond the Officially Sacred will be of great interest to an interdisciplinary field of scholars. The chapters were originally published as a special issue in Tourism Geographies.

"Like the United States' national parks, those of Europe--from the British Isles to Europe's border with Asia--help to preserve the human heritage while providing vital green spaces for the animals that make them home"--

The next book in the highly successful Kinfolk series, exploring the art of travel across five continents.