Category: Indre Fosen

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Route 755 – Inderøy and Indre Fosen

The start of route 755

Route 755 begins at the E6 intersection in Røra, in the municipality of Inderøy. The E6 is a south-north major highway route through Norway, having started at the southern tip of Sweden, running up the west coast of Sweden and continuing north through Norway and ending at Kirkenes, close to the Russian border.

Route 755 runs east to west from the intersection at Røra to the intersection at Vanvikan with Route 715, which is another south-north route.

When driving from the south on the E6, and you see this building, make the next left-hand turn. This is our local juice and jam factory.
When driving from the south this is the intersection of the E6 and route 755. There is a left-hand turn lane. The 755 goes to Vanvikan about 91 km away.

Coming from the south one makes a left-hand turn. In the years while I was working at Verdal Senior Secondary School, I went through this intersection twice a day. However, this is not how the intersection has always been. When I first started working in Verdal in 1988, there was a level crossing of the train tracks here, which created long line-ups in rush hour traffic as trains go by here at least twice an hour on working days. The current intersection opened in 2005 and everyone was glad when there was a bridge for the train and the road went under the train tracks.

The sign tells us that route 755 will take you to Straumen, Mosvik, Leksvik and Vanvikan. The closest bridge is the train bridge and the farther bridge is for cars and pedestrians. The intersection is a right-hand turn and just past both bridges. Note the farms in the background.
Approaching the intersection of the E6 and route 755 from the north. One makes a right-hand turn. The cars now drive under the railway tracks. The bridge you see is for cars and pedestrians.
Another view of the intersection, taken from the car bridge over the E6.

Røra to Straumen

Røra is a housing area in Inderøy municipality and also features one elementary school quite close to this intersection, one railway station on the railway line from Trondheim to Bodø (called Nordlandsbanen). In addition there are several companies that are located here, including a jam and juice company and several construction companies.

I am standing on a pedestrian/bicycle path beside Route 755, looking westwards.

A note about signs in Norway. The blue sign indicates that pedestrians and cyclists are to use the provided path. The yellow sign tells which route you are on (755) and the distances to major places along the route: Leksvik (62 km), Mosvik (25 km) and Straumen (7 km). The white sign indicates a business, in this case a hotel, Jægtvolden which is 10 km from here.

Route 755 is about 91 kilometers long, but it passes through various types of terrain, including farmland, shoreline on fjords, river valleys and forest-clad hills. The road goes downhill and uphill and rarely has straight sections. (See the Wikipedia article in English for other information.) For me, the importance of this route is that I used it for 30 years as part of my commute to work in Verdal. Now we mostly travel from home to Straumen. Every now and then we travel west of Mosvik. My husband worked in Leksvik for many years and he knew that section of the road a bit too well.

As one drives west from Røra, first the road passes the elementary school and the industrial area. Then it crosses farm fields before it goes downhill to Borgenfjorde, also called Bjørgin. Borgenfjord is tidal seawater and stretches north into Steinkjer municipality and is flanked by farm fields on all sides.

Borgenfjord on a day when the water was very still and gave beautiful reflections. Here the road runs along the edge of the fjord.
When a road runs along the edge of a fjord, it is never straight. It winds this way and that and reduces the speed that one can drive at. Here the speed limit is 70 km an hour, but I usually drive it at 60 kmph or even less when it is covered in snow or ice.

After crossing Straumbrua and the swiftly flowing current under it, one comes to Straumen, the municipal center of Inderøy and 7 km from the start of route 755. Here you find shops, a bank, three levels of schools , an art gallery and a lot of housing, both single family dwellings and apartments. There is also the intersection with a road leading to Steinkjer (route 761).

Straumen is seen in the distance, across Borgenfjord.
Straumbrua – Straumen Bridge built in 1958.

Straumen to Mosvik

Continuing west along route 755 one sees both the new church and the old church and continues between more farms on both sides of the road.

Looking west from the old church in Straumen, This part of the road is one that we have driven hundreds of times in the 32 years we have lived in Inderøy.

From Straumen, route 755 gives good views over Trondheim Fjord as the road follows the curves of the hillside and takes one through the area called Utøy to Skarnsund Bridge. Driving home from work along this road over the years, I watched the clouds discharging their loads, moving in the winds, or reflecting sunlight. It was never a boring route to drive, unless behind a slow moving tractor.

In its first years, Skarnsund Bridge was a toll bridge and we rarely drove over it, though we would walk over it for the exercise. Now that it is free, we drive over it regularly to go to Mosvik.

Skarnsund Bridge is a little over a kilometer long and bridges the gap between the peninsula of Inderøy and Mosvik. There will a separate blog article about the bridge and how it was built.

Once you have crossed the bridge the road mostly hugs the coastline along the fjord until you come to Mosvik.. You can see more about Mosvik in a previous blog.

Mosvik to Leksvik

This impressive mansion lies on the hill overlooking Mosvik. The landowners own a large part of the forest in Mosvik which is used to provide income.

From Mosvik route 755 heads inland, and over the hills, around the lakes and through the forest. There are few farms and a lot of wild areas. The road can be a bit lonely, especially in the winter when it is covered in ice and snow. There isn’t the same amount of traffic on this section of the road as between our home and Straumen.

The barrier in the road is to keep sheep on the far side. In the summer months, one must be prepared to see sheep either wandering along the road, or even sleeping on the warm asphalt. We were lucky that the sheep weren’t out yet.
This is a typical section of the road “over the forest”, as they say in Norwegian. Photo courtesy of Alasdair McLellan while I was driving.
Liatjønna, one of many small lakes along this road. This lake, or tern, has been made accessible for wheelchair users and fishing is allowed, as long as you pay a fee.
Every year this rock, that sticks out a bit in a bend of the road, is repainted by the secondary school graduates of Leksvik. This seems to be from last year’s graduates. Perhaps the pandemic has influenced this year’s graduates. Photo courtesy of Alasdair McLellan, taken while the car was in movement and through the windshield.
One large lake along route 755 is Melting Lake, which is used to provide hydro power.

Eventually the road comes out of the forest and heads downhill through farms to the village of Leksvik which lies on Trondheim fjord. We are now in the neighboring municipality of Indre Fosen.

Coming down from the top of the hill into Leksvik – here the valley opens out and the land is farmed. Facing south, the slope captures a lot of sunshine.
We stopped at the church as it is on the hill before going down into the village. Especially in rural areas, cemeteries are usually located beside the church. Down at the water’s edge, there is an industrial area. Up on the hill is agricultural land.

Leksvik to Vanvikan

As we continue westwards from Leksvik, the road mostly runs along the coastline affording views of Trondheim on the south side of the fjord.

Trondheim Fjord is quite wide at this point. Trondheim is in the center of the picture on the far side of the fjord.
This is looking back from where we came, in other words, looking eastwards. This is a very typical type of road in Norway.
We saw several waterfalls and this one we stopped and walked back to get pictures. Lakes and streams at the top of the hill will still have snow run-off, though there isn’t much snow left now on the tops around here. This stream is called Bjørnåa and the water falls 200 meters to the fjord.

One interesting stop along this route was at Hestdal Hydro Power plant, a small independent electricity production plant.

Here’s the stream that feeds the power plant which is in the red buildings on the right of the stream.
The red building in the center houses the power plant. It was quite noisy beside that building.
I found a dusty window I could get my camera to peek in. It was a beautiful blue turbine at work.
The stream is in the background and the water that has been used to turn the turbine can be seen coming out at the bottom of the picture. There had been lots of rain recently, plus there was still snow on the tops of the hills here, so water was still plentiful.

Vanvikan and the end of route 755

Vanvikan is a very small village of about 700 residents. There are some small industries here and you can get an express passenger boat from here to cross the fjord to Trondheim. We were lucky that one came in just after we had parked to look around.

We were in Vanvikan on a Sunday and there were quite a few people both getting off the boat and also going to Trondheim.. The crossing takes 25 minutes and on a Sunday it goes about every two hours.
I must admit I was impressed at how little space the catamaran needed to turn around before heading out of the small harbor and back to Trondheim. You can see some of the village of Vanvikan to the left of the boat.

Finally we came to the end of route 755.

Route 755 ends in a T-intersection with route 715. If you turn to the left, you can get to a car ferry across the fjord towards Trondheim. You can also continue around the southern tip of this peninsula which is called Fosen. If you turn to the right, you can travel north and find many small villages and eventually make a round trip and get back to Inderøy.
We, of course, had to turn around and drive home again and this was the first sign that indicated the speed limit (60 km per hour) and the route number (755).

The pictures for this blog have been taken on more than one occasion. We took a drive from our house to Vanvikan one Sunday morning, but with all the stops it took a lot longer than I had been expecting. In the end we drove straight home from Vanvikan with no further stops and it took us about 75 minutes.

The pictures of Røra and Straumen were taken on a different occasion and this section of the road I travel quite a lot.

I hope you have enjoyed this blog article. You will find other blog articles about different things along this route, including a walk at Liatjønna, the center of Mosvik, the tidal walk in Straumen and Skarnsund Bridge (to be coming soon).