Kristiansand, Norway

We started out with sun. The town of Kristiansand is the fifth largest in population in Norway with 114,000 inhabitants. Like the other places we have been so far, the original city was built of wooden houses, but after many fires they now are mostly brick or stone or other hard materials.

Kristiansand is named for the first official king of Norway and he had the town built in this harbor around 1641. People have been living in this area since the Ice Age and they have found remains that are 9000 years old.

Kristiansand is one of Norway’s southern most cities. On the outskirts there are many summer cottages. There are many coves and inlets where these houses are built. The Norwegians are a very outdoor oriented people and do sports and activities all year outside. This area is called the Norwegian Riviera. Every little cove and inlet was full of boats of all kinds. It was an interesting stop.

Our tour took us to the outer area of Kristiansand, called Sogne. We walked along the old main street which was barely a car wide. All the houses were painted white which in olden times indicated wealth. They all had water views and our guide told us that they pass from one family member to another. The houses, because of the location right on a small bay, are worth about $1,000,000.

We then walked down to the waters edge and saw some interesting sculptures.

Our guide had indicated that she had lived in Boston at some time so we stopped to talk to her. We asked if she had been anywhere else in the US and she said yes, she had an aunt in Florida who she visited often. We said that we were from Florida and asked her where her aunt lived and she said…Fort Myers! Her aunt lives about 15 minutes from us on Corkscrew Road.

We stopped by to see a church from 1536. It had a rune stone in a courtyard across the road from the actual church building. We wandered through the church graveyard.

Then we went to another open air museum. At this one we were actually able to go into one of the very old buildings and see how the people lived in the 1600’s. They also had some more modern homes from the 1800’s with furniture depicting their lives.

Our day ended back in the ship watching the rain.