Andreas Myhre and his wife Cecilie opened this hotel in a converted farmhouse near Trondheim’s Dronningens gate in 1870, choosing the name Britannia specifically to attract the British aristocrats then flocking to the region for its legendary salmon rivers. The strategy worked. Wealthy anglers known locally as Salmon Lords became regulars, and the hotel’s grand cream facade, added in 1897, gave it the look befitting Trondheim’s social center.
Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen made the Britannia his preferred lodging, briefing the world’s geological societies here on his polar expeditions and later using the hotel to plan Norway’s push for independence with the country’s political leaders. Norwegian kings, Queen Elizabeth II in 1969, and generations of dignitaries have stayed since. The hotel underwent a three-year, $150 million renovation before reopening in 2019 for its 150th anniversary, and its restaurant Speilsalen earned a Michelin star the following year.