Stiftsgården: The Largest Wooden Palace in Scandinavia

Walking down Munkegata, Trondheim's central axis, you cannot miss Stiftsgården: a long, lemon-yellow Baroque facade with 140 rooms and 4,000 square metres of floor space. It is the largest wooden palace in Scandinavia, and since 1800 it has served as the official royal residence in Trondheim — used whenever the Norwegian monarch is in the city, and most famously during coronations and royal blessings at Nidaros Cathedral.

The mansion was built between 1774 and 1778 for Cecilie Christine Schøller, the wealthy widow of a privy councillor. Her ambition was to outshine every other private residence in the city, and she succeeded so thoroughly that the building bankrupted her heirs. After several changes of hands, the state purchased Stiftsgården in 1800 to house the regional governor, the 'stiftamtmann', from whom it takes its name.

Stiftsgården is unusual not only for its size but for being almost entirely intact. The original Rococo interiors — hand-painted wallpaper, tile stoves, parquet floors — have survived remarkably well, in part because the house was always lived in but never modernised beyond recognition. Guided tours are offered in summer, and on Norway's national day on 17 May the royal family traditionally appears on the balcony to greet the children's parade marching down Munkegata below.