Monday – Stavanger

Our first port in Norway! As a reminder, it’s pronounced “Stuh-VON-gur”.

It was an early day for us – we needed to meet for our excursion at 8:15. So we got up about 7:00 and went to Cabanas for breakfast. Lots of other people up early, also.

It was looking like an overcast and cool day. And we were doing a fjord cruise and knew it would be pretty cold up on deck. I thought about wearing my wind pants but didn’t – later I wished that I had pulled them on over my jeans. I had a long sleeve shirt, fleece pullover, jacket, scarf, and my new fleece headband.

We were able to walk off the ship to the dock were our fjord cruise boat, the “Fjordfart” was docked. The younger crowd in the group thought the name was very funny. We asked one of the crew who said it means “fjord speed” in Norwegian.

Our destination was the Lysefjord, which our guide pronounced as “Loosah-fjord”, with a short “ooh” and not a long one. The name means “light fjord”.

There was seating inside where we sat when we started out, but we knew we’d want to go out to the open observation deck when we got to the good stuff. We had a good view of some of the Stavanger port area, such as the Petroleum Museum, as we went along.

After we got away from Stavanger and started into the fjord we began to see quite a few waterfalls and we went up on deck. It was very cold in the wind and I was happy to have the headband and scarf – plus the people in front of me who were blocking some of the wind!

The boat was very maneuverable and the captain was able to get us very close to the walls – this photo is not zoomed in at all. Interesting grotto. There was something about the rock that I didn’t hear, which explains the formation.

See the heart in the rock?

We were able to get in very close to this waterfall, also. This part looked like something out of Lord of the Rings.

There were a couple of goats, too.

One of the landmarks is Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock), though we didn’t have a very clear view of it. It’s quite flat on top. One of the available excursions was a hike to the top. Later in the cruise we talked to some people who did it – it was a long day for them, but they enjoyed it.

We got a very up close and personal view of this waterfall, the Hengjane Fall.

The captain got close and then spun the boat in a full circle so that everyone got a good look at it. Those of us on top got splashed!

The boat turned around at that point. The fjord is 26 miles long, but we only went about 1/3 of the way in. We returned at a much faster speed (we know where it got the “Fjordfart” name!). We quickly went to the back of the observation deck behind the pilot house because, as much as I’d like to say the cold never bothered me anyway, the reality is that it was much too cold to stand in the front. 🙂 Eventually we went inside where it was warm.

We stopped at a cafe/souvenir shop on the way back where we tried Norwegian waffles for the first time. That’s apparently a popular thing, because they were offered on a lot of the excursions. They weren’t served hot, and they were more soft like pancakes. They gave us “roome” to put on top, which is not quite whipped cream and not quite sour cream, along with strawberry jam. They were quite tasty, and there was coffee and tea, also.

By the time we arrived back at the dock the weather there had cleared and it was a beautiful day! I had optimistically brought my sunglasses, and I needed them!

A professional beach volleyball tournament was being held that weekend in Stavanger and the waterfront area had temporary practice courts as well as a temporary stadium area. We saw lots of players practicing – but no shorts or bikinis for this one!

We had time on our own for the rest of the afternoon. I’d gotten some port info from the Internet, but our first order of business was to try to find an ATM. We found a bank building – but it was the business offices and didn’t have an ATM! Though the receptionist told us we should find one downtown. In the meantime we wandered through a neighborhood of old wooden houses. They were pretty, and I saw a lot of lilacs blooming. It seemed late to me, but everyone kept telling us that it had been the coldest May in 39 years, so everything had been delayed.

The Norsk Hermetikkmuseum – the herring cannery museum – was actually in this old neighborhood. We used our credit card to pay the entrance fee, which would get us entry into several other nearby museums at no additional charge. And we’d also get half off entrance to the Petroleum Museum we were already planning to visit.

This building was a cannery that was in operation from 1916 until 1958. We joined an English-speaking tour that was partway through the museum. I thought it was interesting. The fish were caught in the morning and had to be canned by the end of the day so they didn’t spoil! The cans were made, the fish were prepared, smoked, placed by hand in the cans, sealed, and keys and labels applied all in this one building, which was not very large. The guide turned on just one of the machines and it was very noisy – I can’t even imagine how loud it would’ve been with everything going on. These are the tables where women sat and packed the fish into cans by hand.

Upstairs they had an area showing old movie footage, which looked like it was from the 1920s. It showed scenes of the entire process from pulling the fish from the nets to someone opening a can to eat them. I thought the old footage was very effective, and more interesting than if they’d tried to do a re-enactment.

We finally found an ATM at the 7-11 – but it had just eaten the card of the previous guy, so we passed it by. We found another at a bank, but it didn’t have the symbols that would indicate it would accept our cards. (Though we went back to it later, and it turned out that it worked for us.)

This is the Stavanger domkirke – the Stavanger Cathedral of Saint Swithun. It’s the oldest cathedral in Norway.

Eventually we came to the Norsk Oljemuseum – the Petroleum Museum. The discovery of oil and gas in the North Sea has made a huge difference in Norway. The government sets aside some of the money in a fund used for health care and university education, among other things, at no cost to residents. As I mentioned before, we understand the significance of that part of the Maelstrom attraction now.

The museum had lots of information and interactive exhibits. All of the signs were in English and Norwegian, and the movies alternated showings in both languages. I think it’s worth visiting if you’re in Stavanger.

Outside is an extensive kids playground made from parts of old oil rigs, everything very brightly painted. One of our servers on the Magic actually told us about this – some of the crew had a great time there on their first visit to Stavanger on the Baltic cruise. We were not the first Disney cruise to pass this way…at least not in Stavanger, but we were the first in the other three ports.

On our way back towards the ship we finally found an ATM and got some Norwegian kroner. We stopped along the harbor and watched the seagulls fishing for herring. As you can see it had turned into an absolutely gorgeous day.

We also visited the Maritime Museum, which was one of those included in our Cannery Museum admission. Lots of stuff on the history of ships in the area, though it wasn’t quite as interesting to me. Plus we were getting short on time and I wanted to do a little souvenir shopping on the way back.

We pulled away about 5:00, and got a good look inside the beach volleyball stadium as we went by.

And we also passed a couple of oil platforms.

After dinner we watched Age of Ultron, which we hadn’t yet seen at home. Once it was over it was after 10:00 and it was still quite light outside – sunset kept getting later and sunrise kept getting earlier as we sailed further north.

When we returned to our stateroom there was a note from “Anna” telling us about the Chocolate Chase. For the next three days there would be clues in the Daily Navigator directing us to locations on the ship where some kind of Arendelle symbol would be posted. We had to write the location and the symbol on the answer sheet, then leave it on our bed on Friday to get our prize. Sounded interesting, and I’m always up for anything to do with chocolate!

Coming Next: Alesund

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