The Norwegian city of Trondheim is positioning itself as a gourmet travel destination and has a partnership and several awards to back up its claim.
Trondheim boasts a strong focus on local food. Many establishments including pubs, cafés and restaurants serve a wide range of excellent locally brewed beers, often with food specially created to accompany the beer.
My love of Norway is probably beginning to show with two features in the space of one week, but here goes anyway.
This month Trondheim's Britannia Hotel, a member of Leading Hotels of the World, saw its Speilsalen restaurant awarded its first Michelin Star during the Nordic Countries award ceremony and launch of the Michelin Guide Nordic Countries 2020.
And recently, Trondheim has also seen two of its city restaurants (CREDO and Fagn) receive Michelin Stars for their fine cuisine.
Now, Visit Trondheim and Twinings Tea have announced the start of a collaboration designed to increase tourism interest in Trondheim and raise the profile of Twinings Tea in Norway. They say the collaboration will see the two parties work together on a series of initiatives in both their interests.
A long association
Twinings Tea has a long association with the city of Trondheim, where the company recently awarded its prestigious Best Breakfast Award to the Scandic Nidelven Hotel for the 13th time in some 15 years since the inception of the awards.
And since the reopening last year of the Britannia Hotel, Twinings Tea has supplied the world-class establishment with its selection of teas.
Twinings history dates back more than three centuries and the company prides itself on challenging the status quo of tea. Twinings claims to hold the world's oldest continually-used company logo – proudly bucking today's trend of frequently updating "the brand" – and is London's longest-standing ratepayer in the City of Westminster, having occupied the same premises on the Strand since 1706 (currently closed for refurbishment until 16 April).
The home of Nordic flavours
The collaboration will see the tourism board and the company co-brand and distribute gourmet city break packages across international markets, in a process geared to helping food and drink lovers choose Trondheim for their vacation.
Trondheim is emerging as one of the most important culinary centres in northern Europe, where the city's tourism strategy is now firmly focused on gourmet tourism, with the launch of Trondheim-Home of Nordic Flavours branding.
About Trondheim
Trondheim is both an attractive port city and a municipality in Trøndelag county. It has a population of 200,000 and is the third most populous municipality in Norway.
The city lies on the south shore of Trondheim Fjord at the mouth of the River Nidelva. It is dominated by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology ntnu.edu, St Olav's University Hospital, SINTEF sintef.no/en and other technology-oriented institutions.
The wide range of things to do in Trondheim may in part be attributed to the city's students, who number more than 30,000. The students leave their mark on the city by arranging many events as well as attending the city's other cultural offerings.
Museums with popular exhibitions include the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the Trondheim Museum of Art and the Archbishop's Palace Museum. A museum that stands in stark contrast to these is Rockheim, Norway's national museum of popular music.
The compact city centre with its interesting stores makes Trondheim a popular city for shopping. Here you can explore many independent shops selling clothes and accessories that you won't find everywhere, particularly in historic Bakklandet.
How to get there
TRAIN: There are four daily trains between Oslo and Trondheim on the Dovre line. The journey takes approximately seven hours.
BOAT: The world-famous Hurtigruten coastal voyage calls daily at Trondheim in both directions.
BUS: There are several daily bus departures from Oslo and other major cities to Trondheim. Travel time from Oslo is around eight hours.
CAR: The Norwegian north-south highway E6 passes Trondheim, while the coastal highway E39 has its terminus at Klett, 10 km south of Trondheim.
PLANE: Trondheim Airport Værnes serves international and domestic flights. From the airport you can go by express bus or train into Trondheim.