Kristiansand Domkirke, Christiansholm Festning, Odderøya

I know that in my entry yesterday on my arrival in Kristiansand I said I might not do much today. Nevertheless, just this morning alone I visited Kristiansand Domkirke (Cathedral), walked to Christiansholm Festnig (fortress), and perambulated around Odderoya (an island that used to hold a military installation).

When I got up, I didn’t think I’d do any of that except maybe duck into the Domkirke. You see, when I awoke it was pouring rain. I suppose it could have been worse. It could have been pouring boiling oil. That’s exceptionally rare, but I imagine it’s a tad unpleasant when it happens.

I hope I didn’t confuse you. I didn’t mean that it was raining on me in my bed. I meant I could hear the rain streaming down and occasionally pelting the window. When I got up, drew the curtains aside a bit, and peeked out, my eyes were able to confirm the heavy precipitation despite not yet being complemented with corrective lenses.

But my hotel room stayed decidedly dry. Until, that is, I took my shower. Then the shower stall in the bathroom, and only the shower stall, became wonderful wet.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. The rain. My weather app said it would continue.

I went downstairs for breakfast, resigned to a day that would consist of dashing to the Domkirke, taking a look inside, then dashing back to the hotel and spending the day reading and enjoying the beautiful view from my hotel room.

After breakfast, I stopped at the front desk and asked the clerk if she could suggest any indoor activities. She suggested two. One was a shopping mall, which didn’t interest me in the least because I’m morally opposed to torture, particularly when it’s done to me.

The other wasn’t open until 11:00. As it happens, I ended up not going there this morning. So I won’t mention it in this morning’s post as I’ll probably visit it this afternoon.

Why did I not go there this morning, you ask? When I set out a little before 9:30 I found that the weather god had, thankfully, not read the forecast today. The rain had stopped. It was still overcast, but the clouds didn’t look particularly threatening. So I scrapped the rainy day activities for the morning and headed out into the great(ly overcast outdoors.

Kristiansand Domkirke

I started by wandering in the general direction of the Domkirke (cathedral). I figured I could pop inside and pray for the rain to stop if it had started, or for it to continue to hold off if it hadn’t. Then, if my prayers were answered, it would reaffirm my intense, abiding faith that coincidences do occasionally happen.

The exterior of the Domkirke looks like a fairly new Neo-Gothic church. I read the Neo-Gothic part. The “fairly new” part is my description and probably results from what I assume was a recent power washing of the exterior walls.

The Domkirke was built in 1885. That’s nowhere close to being ancient, but the walls would be much darker with soot than they are if they hadn’t been cleaned since.

(In the above picture of the exterior, it looks like the church’s tower is leaning heavily. It’s not. It stands perfectly vertical. I don’t know what camera optics caused it to look like that.)

The interior of the Domkirke is not at all like the interior of the cathedrals I’ve seen in non-Scandinavian Europe.

The pews are uniformly forest green. The lower portion of the walls is a lighter green. Let’s call it moss green even though that might be wrong.

The ceiling of the cathedral is a tan-coloured wood. The pillars supporting it are made of the same wood.

The relatively small Domkirke (small for a cathedral) contains few decorations. There’s a painting behind the altar and two stained glass windows flank it. (Non-crystal) chandeliers provide the lighting in the Domkirke.

Despite the cathedral being minimally adorned, the wood suffuses the space with a warm, subtle beauty.

Outside, on one side of the Domkirke, there’s a small pleasant park. There’s a two-block-long public square on another side, with some handsome buildings on the opposite side of the square, facing the Domkirke.

Christiansholm Festning

When I left the Domkirke, it still wasn’t raining. There were even a few small slivers of blue patches taunting me with their potential.

Consequently, I decided to continue with outdoor activities and definitively put the rainy-day activity on hold for the afternoon. Those outdoor activities included more wandering around.

I walked some of the downtown streets and then headed back to the seafront. I hit the shore at about the point I turned back on my seafront walk yesterday afternoon. That point was at a sight I didn’t mention yesterday mainly because I hadn’t decided what to say. I’ve now decided.

The sight is Christiansholm Festning. Festning is Norwegian for Fortress. Christiansholm Festning was built in a fortification that Christian IV, king of Denmark from 1588 to 1648, ordered constructed.

The fortress is a small, stubby, cylindrical stone building with a red tile roof. It’s probably one of the cutest darn fortresses in the world. I can’t imagine any attackers being intimidated by it.

More likely vicious forces would charge towards it, see it, and say to one another, “Well, isn’t that a darling little boite? We should stop there for a spot of tea, or maybe some stronger libations, before attacking, pillaging, and subduing this town.” Of course, if they did that and forgot entirely about attacking the town then I guess the fortress would have served its purpose.

Be that as it may, the array of cannons in front of Christiansholm Festning pointing out to sea might have given the attackers pause if they approached by boat.

I don’t think tourists can wander around inside, and there’s probably not much to see if they can.

A sign in front of Christiansholm Festning had a few paragraphs of text, but it was entirely in Norwegian. I didn’t bother trying to use Google Translate, or any other translator, to interpret it. The reason I didn’t bother is that I think I got the gist of the discussion from the pictures that were also on the sign. They depicted the interior set up with banquet tables. I think it’s now used as an event space.

Odderøya

At that point in the day, there were yet more shards of blue in the sky teasing me. Apart from those shards, the sky was still overcast, but the clouds didn’t look threatening. So I decided to undertake the activity that I told myself I’d only do if the day turned out nice, Walk around Odderøya.

Odderøya is a hill of an island just off central Kristiansand’s coast. And when I say “just” off, I mean it. In fact, I doubt that it was always an island. Only a narrow canal separates it from the mainland.

I suppose it could have been a naturally carved channel, with the sides later fortified with stone walls to protect its use as a canal. But I strongly doubt it. Odderøya was probably originally a peninsula that became an island when they dug the canal.

However, if your life ever depends on accurately saying whether it’s a natural island or only an island as a result of a canal being carved, I’d recommend verifying that information first. And, if your life ever does depend on that, you’re living one gosh, darned bizarre life.

A strip of the island immediately across the canal from the Fiskebrygga district I mentioned yesterday houses a restaurant and a couple of other small buildings with commercial purposes, along with a couple of larger cultural institutions. But that’s only a very small proportion of the island.

Odderøya served defensive purposes starting in the late 17th century or so. Over time, fortifications, barracks, gun batteries, a lighthouse, and a cholera quarantine building were built on the island.

I don’t know when the military use of the island ended, but it no longer serves that purpose. Some of the buildings were turned over to artists for use as studios and galleries. And the public is now free to walk around the park.

The park is gorgeous. It’s well forested, with lots of vistas out to the sea. I was able to see rugged rock outcroppings in the sea that aren’t visible from the mainland because Odderøya blocks the view of them. And at several spots, there are gorgeous vistas of the rock of the island meeting the sea dramatically.

While I strolled through Odderøya, the weather remained either bone-dry or delivered just a light sprinkle—with one short exception. But that exception came at the worst possible time.

As I walked along, probably more than halfway up the hill, at the back side of Odderøya, I saw a few steps leading down to a not-very-steep rockface. The rock led down to a narrow plateau with a railing from which I imagined there’d be breathtaking views of the rocky coast. The sun was shining at that point, so I climbed down to take a look.

I was right, the views of the coast were breathtaking. I was down there only a few minutes when a cloudburst opened up, seemingly from nowhere. I had an umbrella and a rain jacket so I didn’t get too wet.

I waited down at the bottom for a couple of minutes, hoping that the rain would stop and the now-slick sloped rockface would dry off. But the rain didn’t show signs of stopping quickly and, even if it did, it would take a while for the rock to dry enough to lose some of its slipperiness. So I decided to try climbing back up.

I got one step and, despite being sold as hiking shoes and having a decent tread, my shoes refused to grip onto the rock. I slid down. I had already been leaning toward the rock hoping to get a handhold to augment my foothold, so I didn’t have far to fall. And my arms easily broke my fall. The only injury I suffered was some scuffed-up hands that didn’t even break the skin.

(By the way, I once read in a source of unknown reputation, that the best muscles to work on to promote longevity are your arm muscles. The reasoning was that falls are a major cause of death in old people. Strong arms will allow you to grab onto something and hold yourself up to arrest a fall. I’m pleased to report that my arms seem to be strong enough to do that. My torso and face never touched the ground. My hands and arms did a good job of preventing that.)

I was starting to panic about whether I was ever going to get up. (Yes, I know. It’s hard to believe that I’d panic, right?) I had crossed paths with people on Odderøya, but there was no one visible at that point who could help me.

I surveyed the situation a little and noticed that, off to one side of the rockface, there was a narrow strip where the rock was broken up naturally into stones, and there were patches of ground cover on it that was sopping up the water. I managed to gain traction on that, got up to the steps, and continued along my merry way. (“Merry” is a relative term that should be read in the context of my normally morose being.)

A couple of minutes later, the rain stopped and didn’t continue as I returned to the mainland to have lunch.