Stavanger - our final port in Norway

 

Stavanger was the port that I was most excited about seeing as it is where my brother lives. It did not disappoint. We arrived to clear skies and on the hills coming into port I could spy the typical Norwegian houses with their white cladding.

 

 

It is a very pretty city. Stavanger is a university city like Bergen and it has a very lively and cosmopolitan feel, albeit on a smaller scale than Bergen. In fact Stavanger feels much more manageable by foot, although we didn’t see all of it.

 

 

Like Bergen you can find some nice open green spaces. It is a very child friendly city with plenty of statues that are meant to be climbed on by children. It was a really lovely touch and my two certainly enjoyed clambering over these. It was really handy having my brother to guide us round the city and he took on us on a small loop of the city so that we could take in the sights. We skirted the shops, walked past the cathedral, through the above park and then came to old Stavanger.

 

 

Such a beautiful part of the city, it is Europe’s best preserved wooden house settlement, consisting of more than 170 houses. We enjoyed wandering down these streets, feasting on the wonderful sights and smells.

 

 

You could smell this lovely blossom tree coming down the street. Under this tree was a little sand-pit. Children can help themselves to a bucket and spade and have fun playing. How lovely is that! Just down the road was a really lovely park with an impressive slide. My two had great fun whizzing down the slide and their uncle might have enjoyed it too!

 

 

Through every white picket gate there were views to be had. I was in Instagram heaven taking pictures of everything, including our ship!

 

 

It seemed to loom above us and what was quite the clash between the old and the new.

 

 

I wonder how the people who live in the pretty white houses feel about this monster of a boat coming into port and changing their view. In the old town you can find the sardine museum. I didn’t actually hold out much hope for this and I might have questioned my brother’s sanity on thinking that this would be appropriate for two young children. However, I need not have feared as it was very child friendly with lots of interactive exhibits. It was also in the most gorgeous building.

 

 

I loved these tall windows and Youngest enjoyed gazing out of them. It created the most wonderful light coming in. In the meantime Oldest had fun trying to pack sardines.

 

 

In the upstairs of the museum there were arts and crafts for the children and a film for the adults. After enjoying the museum we headed back out into the streets of Stavanger.

 

 

After lunch we popped to my brother’s flat. I was so impressed with the clever storage facilities of his flat. Apparently, this is standard for Norweigan flats. His flat has a proper laundry room and it was massive. Over here it would have been called a spare room. It was a really lovely big flat. However, on walking in I could smell a bit of a pong. It turns out that my brother had some very over-ripe cheese in the fridge. I am surprised that it hadn’t walked out of the fridge by itself ;-). After I’d had a good nosey of my brother’s flat we headed to another museum down on the port side. Stavanger has many museums and they are all accessible by foot from the port.

 

We really loved Stavanger and it was really nice to finally see where my brother lives. It was also a great day as it was my dad’s birthday. He had a lot of fun and I think the highlight must have been when all the waiters sang him happy birthday in the restaurant. I have never seen my dad go so red :-). It was with some sadness that we left Stavanger as it was our last port in Norway and therefore time to head home. However, we had all really enjoyed our tour round Norway and we felt that doing it on a P&O cruise was perfect as it made the price of it very reasonable.

 

Norway thank you for having us, we had a great time 🙂