So the last place I was heading was Stavanger. I managed to pick up a hitch from a german guy who took me as far as Sandnes, taking me through the main farming area in Norway first. It kind of looked like rural England with less twisty roads and bushes. I took a quick 15 minute train into Stavanger and chilled out with a little sightseeing whilst I waited for Ola (one of the couchsurfers) to finish work.
Hmm now I could give you a blow by blow account (I heard that snigger Lindsey) but again it’s all a bit tedious, so lets see what I can do...
Now although Stavanger isn’t a small city, the majority of the things you’d want to see if you were a tourist (and who doesn’t like playing tourist now and again?) are based in an easy 30 minutes walk. First off, let me show you the cathedral...
It’s a pretty cool place, the interior has huge chunky columns with little or no decoration, married with some serious crazy carvings on the pulpit. It was built some time between 1100 and 1125, by an English bishop. I like it, its small as cathedrals go but it has the sense of defence against the enemy about it. If that makes sense?
I also checked out Gamle Stavanger (which Vicky and Ben pronounced as Gormless, I honestly don’t know why though!) its another protected area of white wooden buildings (do you think Norway has a theme going here?) that I could be bothered to take a photo of this time...
I might break a solemn vow and use the word ‘quaint’. Which now I type it just looks weird. Just to balance all that oldy worldy stuff, they’ve built a museum further down the quay which looks like this...
bit of a contrast isn’t it? I really like it though. It’s the Norwegian Petroleum Museum. I think I probably find the building more exciting than the subject, however I did find out that Stavanger is Norway’s on-shore centre for its oil industry, so the museum makes sense. They also have a really cool playground right next to it. Now playgrounds are cool anyway, but this one is made out of an oil rig, so it gets extra cool points in my book...
I think the ball section was my favourite bit. It’s probably because of the oil industry that Stavanger is quite a prosperous town and has tonnes of shops. They also have the ‘colourful’ street, so named because (yes I know its pretty obvious) the houses/shops are painted pretty colours. Apparently it used to be quite run down and was regenerated with the buildings painted following some designers colour palette. See...
it makes a nice change from all the white and also just so happens to be where most of the ‘cool’ shops etc are. Good graffiti too...
I liked Stavanger, but maybe not the weather which gave me 2 days of raining crap and one day of decent sunshine. Ola was an excellent guy to meet up with and has more music in his library than either Me or Davide! Not to worry though as he was happy to share and I’ve picked up some good bands to keep up to date with (check out Motorpsycho, they don’t stick to one genre of music but they’re bloody good)!
I also spent a couple of nights with Ben and Vicky as planned and Vicky walked me around almost the whole of Stavanger (in the rain). I like seeing the normal residential (more white houses, just a bit bigger) and maybe rundown areas, as well as the tourist places. I think it gives you a better sense of the town. Ben and Vicky also took me to a pub in the center that specialised in Ales, both Norwegian and English and after a few pints I was feeling a little merry. Unfortunately the weird berry taste in the Christmas beer I tried didn’t agree with me and was part of the reason I had a complete fail in my attempt to get to Preikestolen (or Pulpits Rock) the following day. I guess I’ll just have to go back at some point and try again.
After Stavanger I hitched out to Bergen to meet up with Rachel. I’ll fill you in on that in the next post. I’ve just realised how slow the internet connection is here and I’ve more photos to upload!
Catch you soon x
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