City Break in Stavanger

My 2018 resolution was to travel to as many new countries as possible. For some reason, I have never visited anywhere in Scandinavia despite it being known for its natural beauty (and bitter climate....) I wish we had realised the seriousness of the second one. I mean who on earth goes to Norway in the middle of winter? The temperatures can be as low as -16 degrees Celsius and the wind is harsh and vicious. Despite the arctic conditions, we ended up having a fantastic time in the charming city of Stavanger; famous for its Petroleum, Fjords and Street Art. Stavanger is the fourth largest city in Norway but is the heart of Scandinavian culture surrounded by the most beautiful fjords and snow-topped mountains.

The first thing you should know about Stavanger is that their public transport system is very easy to use for people from ‘out of town’. Despite our hotel being more than 2 miles from central Stavanger, it only took us 5 minutes on the bus! Anyway, enough drooling over their fancy bendy busses and speedy trains. Let’s get started!

We hopped off the bus at the Central Station before I was dragged immediately into the nearest coffee shop by James, my coffee-obsessed boyfriend. The coffee shop was called the Bluebird Kaffebar and is located less than 100m from the Kolumbus bus depot which was a perfect escape from the snow (and grab an essential coffee… obviously). The café was cosy and served a damn good hot chocolate. James ordered a Columbian coffee and was busy drooling over the different types of coffee bean, however, I spent my time wisely, making the most out of the free Wi-fi, by researching into different things we should do in our first official day in Stavanger.

After the coffee, we headed down to the marina to catch our boat for the Fjord tour! At this point it showed us how few tourists were here, there were only 5 of us on the ferry. We were offered drinks immediately after entering the toasty cabin (definitely helped to warm up after being walking around in the artic! The fjord cruise took us up the Lysefjorden. The tour took us past towering waterfalls, idyllic islands and breath-taking scenery. A fjord is a long, narrow and deep inlet of the sea between high cliffs on each side. The Fjords in Norway are famous for their beauty and being a UNESCO heritage site. The Norwegian fjords, in particular, were formed millions of years ago by the submergence of a glaciated valley (a bit of my geography knowledge slipping out there…) We also stopped at the secret Vagabond’s Cave. The Vagabond’s cave is a mountain cave named after the Fanta Vagabonds who were on the run because they hadn’t paid their taxes.  When the sheriff found them, they scrambled up the cliff and hid in the cave where they threw stones down at the lawmen until they gave up and let them go. The next landmark on the route was the Pulpit Rock! We would have hiked up to the Pulpit Rock but the trail isn’t open in the winter months, so we just had to gaze up at it instead. The Pulpit Rock is a very unusual rock formation with a plateau that measures 25x25m and is almost totally flat. It sticks 30m straight out from the sheer face of a cliff, over 600m above the water. It has a spectacular view on the top – so good that it has attracted more than 250,000 visitors a year! We also had a chance to take photos next to the ‘Heart on the Rock’ or the ‘Trolls heart’, which is pretty self-explanatory (the first name anyway). The unique formation is shaped like a love heart and has a little bench below it – the Trolls heart is also a popular place to get married! The final landmark of the Fjord was the Hengjane Falls (Hanging Falls – named after the farm at the top of the mountain). The waterfall is 400m high, water from the falls is so pure that you can drink it without any treatment required!

Our next stop was at the Norwegian Petroleum Museum, the name does sound a little ‘dull’ but don’t let that be your first impression as inside the museum was very interesting and interactive! The museum is split into two parts; the main exhibition hall and the offshore installations. The main hall is full of information boards and scale models of oil rigs and boats (it looks so much better than it sounds I promise!) The offshore installation is situated over the dock and is made to look like an oil rig, unfortunately the rain and snow was a bit torrential for us to be slipping around outside.

Directly in front of the Petroleum Museum is the Geopark. The park resembles the North Sea’s Troll Reservoir and is built completely from components from the oil industry! The geopark is used for a variety of activities such as skating, climbing and even beach volleyball. The whole park is covered in colourful graffiti and street art. In the UK this would probably be frowned upon but Stavanger is known as being one of the European capitals of street art. Typical ‘street art’ in the UK mainly involves tags and offensive things but Stavanger uses its street art to raise awareness to bring about change. The street art in Stavanger isn’t at all intimidating, unlike in the UK where you feel like you’ll be mugged in any area with a hint of graffiti.

Another day, another morning coffee shop!

The coffee shop we ended up in was called Kokko Kaffebar which was located down Oservag 43 and the façade certainly stood out! Many buildings in Stavanger are brightly coloured but this coffee shop has a bright orange canopy overhanging the street and the outdoor seating out front. Even though Kokko was opposite Stavanger’s most colourful street (Øvre Holmegate), it still stood out! The interior of Kokko was minimalist and very Scandinavian, they had books available for visitors to read – they were in Norwegian but the pictures were pretty so that’s all that matters right? I’m not a big fan of coffee but James seemed to enjoy his very much! He ordered a fancy Brazilian coffee where as I had a hot chocolate – not as interesting but just as nice I can assure you!

We decided that today would be our museum and street art day, so our first stop was the Maritime Museum. The ticket we bought also allowed us to visit other museums in the city for free, bonus! The maritime museum covers everything from herring fishing to big oil transporters and smaller cruise ships in the form of scale models and artifacts. The multi-story museum has plenty of interesting insights into Stavanger’s maritime history and how the fishing and oil industry revolutionised the city. The museum contains plenty of exhibitions that explore the past 200 years of maritime history, craftsmanship, trade and development of the city, plus the building that it is situated in, is one of the original merchant’s buildings, which is one of the best-preserved in the region. The ground floor of the museum holds the majority of the scale models and information boards and the floor above has it’s own kid’s area which is a recreated quayside marketplace from the 1950s, alongside other replica rooms such as a shipowners office and the sail loft. After exploring the museum, we headed out to find our next stop.

The second museum we visited was the Stavanger Museum, it was established in 1877 and currently contains a wide variety of exhibits. We spent a couple of hours exploring the expansive museum with its variety of exhibits on some very different subjects, such as; chairs, the origin of life, maps and zoology! The museum was also home to various art instalments, such as the room filled with animal skulls hanging from the ceiling, with singing human faces projected onto them – very odd…

Our third and final museum was the Viking Museum. It focuses mainly on the history of the Stavanger region, but the artifacts found in the area go back to the prehistoric times! There are plenty of exhibits on the archaeology, Viking religion and the regions natural history. This museum, unfortunately, wasn’t in the group of museums we could visit for free, but the exhibits were definitely worth paying for! My favourite exhibition was the ‘Meet the Human’ exhibition which had several different human skeletons from different periods, even from as far back as 8000 years! The skeletons all had a different story behind them, such as the 8,000-year-old skeleton of a teenager, or the six skeletons dating back from the Bronze age, found with vicious damages to the vertebrae, showing that they had died in battle. The most interesting one was the very well preserved skeleton which was found in a bog. Bogs (or springs) were often seen as a point of contact to another world in many old civilisations which could suggest that the bog body was a victim of a sacrifice… As dark as it seems, it is very interesting!

We spent the rest of the day exploring Stavanger’s infamous street art! Especially in recent years, Stavanger has become a must-visit European Street Art hot-spot. Artists from around the world have been creating masterpieces in the city for over 15 years. The street art is that impressive that the city hosts its own annual NuArt street art festival for tourists to explore the quirky and meaningful art that covers the city.

Unfortunately, this was our final day in Stavanger. The sun was out and the weather was surprisingly kind to us! We spent most of the day diving in and out of coffee shops, alongside collecting gifts and souvenirs to bring back home.

Our final meal was at a tiny Italian restaurant called Amici which was located down a small side street in central Stavanger. It didn’t even open until 6 pm – which is quite late compared to the usual Norwegian tea time. However, we were willing to wait, and what good job it was that we did! The owner was lovely and talked to us about his life and his family while we waited for our food. You can never go wrong with Italian food but it isn’t often that you have a meal that stands out above all the others. We were gutted that it was our last night and we had only just discovered this hidden gem in Stavanger! I must recommend it to anyone reading this. It was the best restaurant we had ever been to and the service from the owner was the cherry on top, perfect!

We headed back to the hotel after our meal to pack for our departure the next day. Stavanger was an adventure for sure and a brilliant insight into the Scandinavian culture too! I’m sure we’ll return to Stavanger, maybe in summer next time…