June 23, 2017
We left the ship and found the Information center at the first
corner. There was Internet and few
people in the building. The upload of two
days text and photos was completed in 25 minutes, although the second set of
pictures took twice as long to upload because more people were accessing the
Wi-Fi.
Stavanger is south of Bergen. It is in the county of Rogaland and is the
fourth largest city in Norway. It was
home to Vikings who raided Europe and Britain and explored the northern
Atlantic Ocean going as far as Vineland in North America including a settlement
in Newfoundland, Canada. Norway citizens
enjoy free education tuition to trade schools and universities.
Stavanger’s Gamle Stavanger, “Old
Stavanger”, and the new city center are located close together and are easy to
walk to many museums and churches. Stavanger has a history of booms and busts over
the past millennium. The first boom was
when there was an abundance of herring for over 50 years, but that industry
died. Then there was a sardine fishery
and the fish were canned and exported. The
year 1969 brought the oil boom to Norway
when the first underwater oil was discovered at Ekofisk south in the North Sea.
The Stavanger area lobbied to have the headquarters of the oil companies set up
there, with no objection from other communities along the coast. Stavanger was
transformed from a Norwegian population to a city with people from over 80
countries either working or going to school here. The down turn in the price of
oil has affected many people involved with the Norwegian oil industry, losing
jobs as in Canada and other countries.
From the Information Centre, we visited Stavanger Cathedral, which was less
than a 10 minute walk from the ship. It was
built by an English bishop Reinald between 1100 and 1150 and known as the Roman
Catholic St. Swithun's cathedral. Reinald brought with him a relic which was St.
Swithun's arm bone. It has many original
elements in its current version. It has
been in continuous use for over 700 years.
It is built with rock and timber frame and has an ornate pulpit. It was converted to a Lutheran church during
the Reformation. When St. Swithun's cathedral changed its religion, the relic
was shipped to Denmark’s Roman Catholic community. It does not have a lot of windows but the
stained glass windows near the altar were colourful even on a rainy day. There is a Roman Catholic Church located
nearby called St. Swithun's Church. St.
Swithun is the most important of the four Norwegian patron saints.
Next we wandered the streets of the newer part of the city center to
make our way to Valbergtårnet (Valberg Tower).
We passed cafés and stores including Zara, H&M, Burger King,
McDonald’s and 7-11. At Valberg Tower, there is a view of the water,
but only between trees. In 1853, the tower was the highest point in the town
and used to warn of fires. The old watchtower was built in 1658. It is now the watchmen’s museum at the top of
a hill that has a small café and can be seen soaring above the trees.
It was time to get back to the ship so we found a different way to get
to the ship returning to St. Swithun's cathedral and crossing the major street
to the Gamle Stavanger or Old Stavanger. We took photos of the white wooden
houses and their gardens and the 150 year old houses are well preserved and a
most desirable residence.
Steps 10,409
After lunch it was time to go to the World Stage Theater to get our
sticker for our four hour bus tour.
There were two buses loads of about 50 people each. We needed our rain gear as the rain would not
stop.
Our guide gave a little history of Stavanger as we were taken to the Museum
of Archaeology, where we learned about the Viking era of Norway. It officially began in early 793 when Vikings
raided a monastery in England. Some of
the monks survived and their account of the raid is the official report. The
work Viking is a verb in Norwegian, vik means “bay” and the ending “ing” is
going. If you are viking, you are going down to the bay, presumably to a ship
to go fishing, trading or raiding. There
were several different tribes of Vikings coming from different areas of
Scandavia and raiding into eastern Europe, sometime creating settlements as
happened in Greenland and Newfoundland, Canada.
Our time was limited at the museum.
As we travelled along the shore, we saw another bonfire location for the
June 24th Summer Solstice celebration that all the communities in Norway
celebrate.
Next stop was on the rain and wind swept beach at Hafrsfjord, where
there was the monument Sverd i fjell, “Swords in the Rock”. It commemorates the
saga of King Harald Fairhair and Gyda
and how he gathered the small kingdoms of Norway into one, with the final
battle about 872. The monument was unveiled by Norwegian King Olav in
1983.
The area was inhabited well before the battle. Prehistoric artifacts have been found in the
area around Hafrsfjord area from the Bronze Age - 1800-500 B.C.
At the next stop, the rain dwindled to a
windblown drizzle as the group made its way through a field of grass where
several black sheep were grazing. We had arrived at Jernaldegarden, Iron Age Farm, which is a replica of a
dwelling from the 5th century A.D. built on the foundation of an ancient long
house. The house was constructed with
timber framing, half sunk in the ground creating low mud and turf walls and
roof. The small door allowed entrance if
you crouched. It was a defense against
intruders, who could only enter one at a time bent down and was a way to lessen
the effects of a the cold wind. The women ran the farms since the men were hunting,
fishing or trading and were not always around.
There were reindeer, moose and rabbit skins for warmth and iron
implements and weapons for daily use.
The rain had just about stopped as we returned to the bus which took us
back to the city center to visit the Petroleum Museum. When seen from the
harbour it looks like a small oil platform. The 18 year old museum relates the
history of offshore petroleum activity especially in the North Sea and was very
interesting.
We filed back onto the bus for
the final stop and got off near the Stavanger Cathedral. People were given the choice whether to join
the final one kilometer walking tour or walk back to the ship. Only 13 of the original 50 chose the Old Town walk.
Old Stavanger is located on the west side of
Vågen harbour, uphill from where the ship was docked. After World War II,
the wooden houses were in terrible shape due to the poverty of the folks living
in them. There were plans to demolish
them, but a movement started to save them and 173 wooden buildings from the
turn of the 18th century were restored as residential houses. Some of the wooden houses were rebuilt after the
1860 fire that destroyed 250 homes. When the new houses were built they had a
sewer and water system installed that was supplied by an English company. There are manhole covers with the year 1866
stamped on them. One of the white wooden houses
that had pretty window boxes and a Norwegian flag flying is the house of
a famous Dutch chef, but our guide did not reveal the name. There are narrow cobblestone pathways, called
“smau” intersecting with the cobblestone streets. Today there are galleries,
cafés and boutiques interwoven with the homes.
Our tour ended in front of an old three storey cement building that
housed the community bakery almost 200 years ago, the main floor is now a
café. Across the street was the Norwegian
Canning Museum, a typical factory from the 1920s. The canning process was
developed during the Napoleonic Wars of the early
1800s. Due to French opposition,
Norwegians could not use the word sardine and called them a name beginning with
“b”. This turned out to be a good
marketing tool. The Norwegian “sardines”
were canned and sold to both sides during World War I; the labels were changed
to German when a production run was needed for the German army.
It was a five minute walk back to the ship. On the way we spotted an electric car parked
on the street and attached to a power source. We had 40 minutes to get ready
for our 5:45 dinner reservation.
This
evening was the last “Gala Attire” dining room dress code. Our usual four had a
wonderful dinner together recounting our day.
Bruce and Veronica took a boat cruise in Lysefjord
to see Pulpit Rock, Preikestolen in Norwegian. It is a cliff 604 metres above
the water. It is also a hiking destination taking more than two hours to climb
each way. They also were shown the direction of Kjerag, is the tallest peak on
the fjord at a height of 1,084 metres above the Lysefjord. Returning to Stavanger, they visited the Petroleum
Museum and found the charming Norwegian Canning Museum as they wandered the
quaint cobblestone streets of Old Stavanger.
Gala Night appetizers were papaya, melon and
strawberry salad or Jumbo Shrimp Cocktail then chicken & orzo soup. The special was surf & turf which was
filet mignon and lobster tail served with brown basmati rice, sautéed carrots
and asparagus. The desserts we chose were passion fruit cheesecake and
tiramisu.
After dinner we looked out and saw that the
clouds were thinning and the sun was breaking through the clouds. After the show, about 9:30, the sun was still
shining.
Steps 15,071
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