Arriving in Stavanger

A light rain greeted me as I arrived by train a little past noon in Stavanger from Kristiansand, my previous stop on this Norwegian journey. I walked the couple of blocks from the station to my hotel with my rain jacket on and holding my open umbrella over my head.

I checked into the hotel and was pleased to learn that my room was ready despite my early arrival. Across the street from the hotel is a small lake surrounded by a mostly narrow ribbon of green. A portion of Stavanger lies behind the lake.

A fountain shoots up from the middle of the lake.

A flotilla’s worth of swans meander gracefully around the lake, occasionally ducking their heads down in the water and rudely pointing their bums up to the sky. Sometimes, some of the swan crew climbs up on a patch of grass to have a little sit-me-down and leisurely nibble on the grass. I guess swanning around the little lake is hard work.

My eleventh-floor room faces the lake. There’s a small balcony running the room’s width and deep enough to stand on comfortably and enjoy the vista. The view from the balcony or through the glass-pane door and adjacent almost floor-to-ceiling window is delightful.

I didn’t spend long in my room before heading out for lunch. By then the rain had stopped, but it was overcast and felt damp. The forecast called for the rain to start again soon and continue until evening. But, you know, forecasts. Who knows? I wrote this paragraph at lunch. I’ll let you know how the weather turns out.

Stavanger Weather Update

I wrote everything from this point on after coming back to the hotel upon finishing my afternoon’s activities. Rather than leave you in suspense, I’ll keep my promise and let you know if the forecast of all-afternoon rain held true.

Rain, yes. All afternoon, no.

When I finished lunch, I wished I’d brought my sunglasses with me and left my umbrella back at the hotel, rather than the other way around. The sun hurt my eyes.

I wandered around for about an hour while the sky got progressively darker. Then it started to rain fairly heavily. And a bit of a wind blew, rendering my umbrella a little less effective. Fortunately, at that point, I was only a couple of blocks from my hotel. I dashed back there and waited out the rain in my room. That took about 15 minutes and I went back out.

Except for an occasional brief drizzle, the rain then held off until late afternoon. At that point, I ended my afternoon activities and returned to the hotel to type this up.

Wandering the Harbour Area of Stavanger

Stavanger’s harbour is in a finger-shaped inlet that runs almost, but not quite north-south. The landward end of it is at the roughly southern end. I had lunch in a restaurant beside that southern end. The buildings on either side of the harbour are low- to mid-rise and of a variety of colours. It makes it look sort of like an easygoing fishing village. However, it’s not a fishing village as far as I can tell.

After lunch, I explored the area to the east of the harbour. It’s a mishmash of cobblestone streets, few if any of which follow a straight line very far. The buildings are generally two or three storeys tall. Most of them are constructed of wood, but there is a brick building or two and a few are made of materials unknown to me. Their colours vary.

The ground floors of most of the buildings contain shops and restaurants. It has a very quaint, warm, and welcoming feel. Strolling through it is quite enjoyable.

Atop a small hill in this part of town, there’s a stone watchtower that’s the equivalent of three or four storeys high. It used to be employed to watch for fires in Stavanger. That makes sense seeing as though most of the buildings are made of wood. The town’s watchman lived in the tower, but the last one moved out in 1922 and the tower hasn’t been used for that purpose since.

I read in the Google reviews for the tower that you can go up to the top and get some good views of the town, but the opening hours appeared to be random. The time I was there wasn’t one of those random hours.

Stavanger Domkirke

The cathedral in Stavanger (Stavanger Domkirke) is not far from the southern end of the district discussed above. Originally built in 1125, but added to after a severe fire in the 13th century, both of my guidebooks said it’s worth going inside as there’s a fair bit to see in there. The sign on the construction fence surrounding the Stavanger Domkirke begged to differ about going inside.

The paragraph in English on the sign said, “2025 marks Stavanger Cathedral’s 900-year jubilee. Comprehensive restoration works are currently being carried out to celebrate this occasion. Due to the ongoing internal restoration works, the Cathedral will be closed until 2023. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience and understanding.”

The cathedral must have gotten the memo about my coming to Stavanger, so it shut down. It’s now July 2024. The sign said it’s closed until 2023. They went above and beyond by putting the construction fence and scaffolding back up. They could have just locked the doors and put up a sign saying, “We’re closed until Joel leaves town. We apologize to everyone except Joel for the inconvenience.”

The Stavanger cathedral is beside that lake across from my hotel, so I went to the lake to commune with the swans. I found it hard to get a good picture of a group of them. When they’re grouped, they’re usually bunched up against the stone wall bordering the lake. They appear to be looking for people to throw them food. Some people do that, so I guess the swans now expect it. Another time they are in a group is when a few of them are up on a grass patch sitting, preening, and/or nibbling away. But they don’t look their most graceful in that setting.

On the walk by the lake, there’s a bronze statue of a boy kneeling on the ground feeding some ducks. I wonder how the swans feel about being left out of the statue.

It was while I was at the lake that the downpour started and I fled to my hotel.

Setting out again after that, I headed to the west side of the harbour. There, about a block back from the harbour and up a slight hill is the Gamle Stavanger district, the old town.

I walked along only one street there, Øvre Strandgate, which I think is the main attraction of the old town.

Øvre Strandgate is a cobblestone street that undulates slightly and gently for its length. The buildings on both sides are mostly two- or three-storey buildings and almost all of them are painted white and have red roofs.

There is some variation in the colours of the doors. I noticed a couple of shades of blue represented and a couple of shocking pink doors. Hmm. Maybe the doors are gender reveals. It makes a lot more sense than the exploding pink or blue colours that sometimes injure or kill people at gender reveal parties.

The vast majority of the buildings on Øvre Strandgate appear to be residences. For a couple of blocks, almost all of the houses had multiple flower pots lined up in front of them. It is a very charming street and a pleasure to stroll along.

After leaving Gamle Stavanger, I went back down to the harbour and spent some more time taking in the views there. Then I strolled back to the small lake by my hotel and walked around the full circle of it before heading back into my hotel and calling an end to my afternoon activities.

I’ve got something that I expect will verge on sensational planned for tomorrow morning. I hope it meets my expectations. See you then.