We arrived in the port of Stavanger early this morning and after a quick trip to the Horizon buffet for breakfast, departed the ship to explore what the fishing town turned oil “tycoon” had to offer.
It turned out that another cruise ship had also just arrived in town so Stavanger was really rather busy actually.
Before leaving home I had drawn an itinerary for the day but that all fell apart and I didn’t end up doing half of what I had planned like visiting the Swords In Rock.
The colourful street of Oevre Holmegate in the Skagen area of town has a very hippie vibe and it’s here that you can find many quirky and cute cafes including Hanukah where I stopped for coffee and Wifi.
If you want to access the internet whilst on the ship you have to do so via satellite which is very expensive so I had prepared myself for a very tech-free week.
Stavanger made its fortune in the 1800s when an influx of herring came upstream….or is it down? The canning museum where a lot of the action went down is still one of the main attractions and then in the 1870s when the fish reserves were drying up and oil rig was discovered offshore and Stavanger lived to see another day…or few centuries.
On my journey through the town, I stopped at the medieval cathedral of St. Swithin’s which, according to my guidebook, employed many British mercenaries when it was built in 1270 because of the shortage of skilled, local craftsmen at the time.
Another thing that Stavanger is famous for is the Antony Gormley ‘Broken Column’ statue or rather 23 statues. You may recognise the name as the artist behind ‘The Angel Of The North.’ Sadly, out of 23, I only found one of them.
I was itching to get back to the ship so after a quick jaunt through the picturesque old town of Gamle Stavanger that’s exactly what I did and sampled Eric Lanlard’s Lemon and Zuzu tart in the Market Cafe.
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