Our arrival time in Stavanger was scheduled for 9am. Before this you sail along the Norwegian coastline. We got to see a fair bit of this because at 6:15 our cabin phone rang and it was a member of staff who ‘allegedly’ dialled the wrong number. It was either that or the boyfriend of the waitress I got in to trouble last night. I would have been very annoyed if I hadn’t already been up for over an hour and was in the process of making Lyn a cup of tea.
We had breakfast in Horizon again as it’s just easier. A man in his 60s was wandering around in his pyjamas and dressing gown. I know it’s no dress code but come on! I suppose everyone should be grateful he wasn’t doing a full ‘Winnie The Poo’.
As soon as we could we got off the boat and headed for the tourist office. We booked the Hop On, Hop Off bus (£60 for the both is us) and then wandered down the quay. The bus wasn’t going until 10am so we thought we have a quick look around. Nothing was open. The ‘cathedral’ if you can call it that, was covered in scaffolding and the whole city just looked very dull. It was clear that we’d made a big mistake. Stavanger is Norways 4th biggest city and hasn’t got much charm about it. It does have a lot of statues of men in large coats. I’d put it on a par with… Barnstaple. In fact I’d say Barnstaple has slightly more going for it. You could probably ‘see the sights’ of both places in a similar time frame. Especially when one of the ‘top attractions’ in Stavanger is the petroleum museum. All the fun and excitement of big oil in one place!
As we’d already paid we got on the bus even though we’d probably seen the best bits just walking around the harbour. A couple of women got on and in spite of the fact both would clearly be tired out just by having a big shit they decided to go on the top deck. After a monumental struggle getting up the stairs they sat behind me. One of them then started to cough continually. Not a ‘I’m worn out from the marathon climb up the stairs’ cough. But a ‘I’ve got covid so fuck all of you’ cough. A couple of blokes 3 rows in front of me put their masks on, it was that bad.
We decided to get off the bus before it finished a circuit for health reasons and out of boredom and jumped off at the Archaeological museum. It was closed. It was supposed to open in half an hour but we couldn’t be bothered to wait so started to walk back to the harbour as it was only a few hundred meters away.
Some shops, in particular the tat shops, were starting to open and when Lyn went in to one I waited outside. I saw a dodgy bloke (who I initially thought was a passenger) looking at a pile of rain dear skins outside the shop. He then rolled one up, jumped on bike and shot off! I thought I’d better let the shop know and the owner asked me to write it down! She thought she knew who it might be but I don’t know how useful my scrawled description in English might be.
Despite being Norways 4th largest city Stavanger doesn’t have a Pandora shop. There was a jewellery shop though that sold knock offs so Lyn got a Viking with Norwegian flag. She also got some tat for the children.
Rather disappointed with the morning so far we thought we’d throw caution to the wind and roll the dice one more time and do a boat tour of the nearby Lysefjorden. It was £108 but did last over 3 hours. It was a bit of a scrum to get on the boat for some reason. It was fairly big and could probably hold 200+ people. We’d got our ticket fairly last minute and they were numbered 37 and 38. A twat just walked past people who were clearly queuing to insert himself in front of them. His family obviously a bit embarrassed followed. You could tell he was an utter C because despite it being cloudy and 9 degrees he was wearing shorts, a T-shirt and was going on the open water on an open boat. I assume he’s the sort of person who’s fingers would turn black and fall off with frost bite and he’d be claiming he was ‘sweating buckets’
Me and Lyn on the other hand were very snug in our new(ish) coats that were bought specifically for this trip. Even when the wind was so strong you could hardly stand up. The lesson here is… Im not sure so I’ll make something up. The lesson is that men who wear shorts in inappropriate weather are trying to compensate for something and really just want to wear a skirt. I say it’s 2023! Don’t be ashamed! Buy that pencil skirt you’ve always wanted.
As we pulled out of Stavanger we immediately knew we’d made the right choice. I know this is probably obvious but Northern Europe is not the same as Southern Europe. You go north for the scenery and south for the culture. And my word the scenery was impressive. The sun had decided to shine as we headed into Lysefjorden (still not shorts weather though) and the whole thing brought back memories of doing geography at school. I also get flashbacks when I see a bit of ‘longshore drift’ or an ‘Ox Bow Lake’. It’s funny how memory works.
That evening we went for dinner in an included restaurant and were served by Amit. Amit was friendly, efficient and did his job as he should, nothing special but it did restore a bit of faith. I went and found the head waiter so I could pass on a compliment. He seemed genuinely shocked that I was doing this and not complaining.
As Lyn said this was the first day we felt we were on holiday. Tomorrow is Olden.
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