Where to Stay in Klæbu, Trøndelag

It was its own municipality once. Klæbu kept a distinct village life on the inland edge of Trondheim before it joined the city, and the place is still known by its old centre rather than as a city suburb. Klæbu kirke, an octagonal wooden church, marks that core, while the Klæbu bygdemuseum keeps the rural past of the district.

Up on the hill stands the small Vassfjellkapellet. Travellers find a quiet inland corner of southern Trøndelag here, close to the city yet rural in feel.

The church leads the way. Klæbu kirke is an octagonal wooden church, heritage-listed and standing at the old centre of the district. Above the village, the small Vassfjellkapellet sits on the hill, a heritage-listed chapel for the higher ground.

The rural past is gathered indoors. The Klæbu bygdemuseum keeps the folk history of the district in its collection, and sport draws people to the Klæbuhallen, the village hall that serves the inland community of this part of Trondheim.

Klæbu lived long as its own parish. The inland farms gathered around their church on the high ground of southern Trøndelag, and Klæbu kirke, an octagonal wooden church, rose to serve the scattered community that worked this rural country well away from the city. Faith reached the hill too.

The small Vassfjellkapellet was raised on the higher ground as a chapel for the upland, and both stand heritage-listed as old marks of the district. The everyday life of the farms, the tools and the customs, is the story the Klæbu bygdemuseum now keeps for the place. For most of its history Klæbu was a municipality in its own right, a self-standing rural unit on the inland edge of the region.

In the wider reorganisation of the country, it was joined into the city of Trondheim, becoming an inland district rather than a separate place on the map. Its old centre held its character through the change. The village still feels distinct from the city it now belongs to.

Klæbu lies inland in the southern part of Trøndelag. The old village sits on rising ground at the edge of Trondheim, where the farms and woods give way to the hills behind, with the Vassfjellkapellet marking the high country above the settlement. It is upland river and forest country.

The district runs back from the lower farmland into the slopes, well away from any coast, a rural inland corner of the city it now forms part of.

The inland hills shape the weather. Lying back from the coast on the rising ground of southern Trøndelag, Klæbu sees colder, snowier winters than the city shore below, with snow lying on the hill around the Vassfjellkapellet well into the spring, while the short summers stay cool and green under the long subpolar daylight of the region. Frost comes early in autumn here.

The high ground holds the cold longer than the lower farmland, so winter lingers across the district above the city.

The city road is the way in. Klæbu lies just inland of Trondheim in the southern part of Trøndelag, reached by the roads that climb out of the city toward the hills, so a short drive brings you from the centre up to the old village. Buses link it to the city.

Drivers follow the route up through the farmland to the higher ground below the Vassfjellkapellet, and the wider transport of Trondheim ties the district to the rest of Trøndelag, with the city's airport lying beyond the centre on the far side.