August 31, 2022 Kristiansand, Norway

Our ship docks on schedule at 7am. We have been up since 5:00am because our excursion, Lillesand By Land & Sea, begins at 7:15am and will last until almost noon. We are at a cruise pier, but docked right across from part of the container port, so it’s hard to get our bearings.

We are led off the ship, and wander through a building and find our bus. Our guide Eva, whose is pictured above, is waiting for us, and we all board. According to the tour description, we were to have taken a 10-minute walk to board a boat, the SS Christiansand, for a two-hour cruise through the bay and then motor to the town of Lillesand. She explains that the tour has been reversed, which matters not at all to us because we don’t know where we are going anyway.

We’re not more than a few minutes from the dock before we sense that we are in for a fun morning. Our guide is very, very personable with a delightful sense of humor. She begins by telling us that the city was founded in 1641 by Danish and Norwegian King Christian IV. Obviously, he named the town after himself by adding the suffix ‘sand’ to the end because it was built on a sandbank.

She explains that Norwegians have no trouble distinguishing between her city and the city of Kristiansund farther up on the west coast, but many foreigners do get confused. She tells us that one of her previous employments was as an ‘air hostess’ (her term) for an international airline, so she distinguishes it by the two airport’s three-letter code. KRS is Kristiansand and KSU is Kristiansund. The word ‘sund’ means ‘bay’ in Norwegian. Okay, now we are straight on that.

We motor through a neighborhood and she explains that there was an enormous fire in the late 1800s. Ever since that fire, no houses could be built with wood, and these very attractive houses aren’t. Most all of the houses of this construction are painted white. We turn on to a main street and she then explains that there were neighborhoods spared from the fire. Originally, the city officials insisted that these wooden houses be torn down because they were made of wood. The owners were not wealthy people, and they banded together and demanded that an exception to the law be made for them. Their tenacity prevailed, and we drive by two streets that have these now-very-expensive homes.

One thing that we both notice is how quiet the city is. Granted that it is only 7:30 in the morning, but there just don’t seem to be any people around; quite a contrast from home.

We come to a junction and turn on to an expressway entrance. We are immediately in a long, curving tunnel complex (including entrance and exit ramps) underneath a large public park, Baneheia. We come out of a tunnel on to a bridge crossing the Otra River, then back into another tunnel. These are four-lane tunnels – quite impressive. We emerge and continue another ten miles or so. At that point, we exit the expressway and take the coast road to Lillesand. Eva our guide fills us with information. Here is just some of it:

Kristiansand has a population of 110,000, and is the fifth largest city in Norway.
They have an active railway line that connects Oslo with Stavanger, a busy commercial airport, and even ferries to Denmark via the Color Line. Recently, a new company is offering service to the Netherlands.
The government gives enormous incentives to people will buy electric cars: no tolls (many of the newer expressways have tolls), no taxes (huge taxes when you purchase a new car in Norway), and you can drive your electric cars in bus-exclusive lanes where they exist. She notes that the terrain and the rocky topography make building roads here a very expensive proposition, so people understand the need for the tolls and taxes if the country is to have a modern highway system.
There are fences along all the expressways to keep wildlife, especially moose, away from the road.
As we pass a marina, she notes that there are 500,000 boats in a nation of only 5 million, a huge percentage. The Norwegian heritage, economy and geography all contribute to the love of the water that Norwegians have. School children are even taught to swim in school because water sports are so popular.
School children are not assessed grades up through the seventh grade, so there is no “staying back” in Norway.
Handball is a huge sport in Kristiansand. In fact, their female handball team has recently won a huge championship.
When the oil and gas exploration companies came, they brought the sport of ice hockey with them. “They have the Stavanger Oilers professional hockey team, but they suck,” says Eva to uproarious laughter. (Didn’t she sound American when she said that?)
Most people in Norway own their homes, and they heat them with electricity. There is no gas heat in Norway.
The electricity produced in the southern part of the country is exported, so electric power in this region is expensive, so the government pays 90% of the difference. But Norwegians have suffered huge price increases in the last couple of years.
Most of the country is Lutheran, and 80% of the marriage ceremonies take place in churches.
Housing in Kristiansand is expensive, even condos. A 100- square meter apartment (1,076 square feet) will cost 7 million Norwegian Krone ($700,000)
The Oil Fund pays for many services.

As we approach Lillesand, Eva fills us in on its history and current status. The town is only 1,260 acres (2 square miles), and has a population of 8,000. It was an active port in the 19^th century, exporting lobsters and oak. Now it basically a suburb of Kristiansand because it’s only 16 miles via expressway.

We exit the bus and she takes us on a half-hour walking tour of this very pretty town. Almost all of the buildings are painted white.

She points out that the oldest houses have siding that is vertical, while all of the new ones have horizontal siding. Early homeowners found out that when the vertical siding rotted down where it meets the ground, then all of the siding would then have to be replaced, whereas, with horizontal siding, only the few bottom panels needed to be replaced.

After our walking tour, we board the bus and head back toward Kristiansand. In about half an hour, we find ourselves at the water. At almost the same time as our arrival, the SS Christiansand docks right next to the merchant marine training vessel Lofoten. Eva explains that kids that have graduated from 10^th grade that have an interest in marine occupations train on this boat. In fact, we see a half dozen of the looking down on us with curiosity from the bow.

Now we understand the reason for the reversal, as another group from the ship taking the same tour disembark. They will now travel to Lillesand while we take the two-hour cruise. We all board, and are introduced to the first mate and another guide, whose name is Liv. A group goes up to the raised deck in the bow, and another group, including us, sits at picnic tables located in an open deck amidships.

For the next two hours, we sail around the large bay that separates Kristiansand from the Skagerrak Strait. It is deep enough for ocean-going vessels, but it is also filled with areas (and islands) where summer homes have been built, many constructed up to a hundred years ago.

Both of our guides are a riot. They trade quips, ask each other for information, and generally provide a lot of information in a very spirited way. We can all tell that they have been doing this for a long time, and really enjoy it.

Eva, Liv and the first mate of SS Christiansand

Here is some of what they tell and show us as we travel along the shoreline marveling at the beautiful scenery and summer houses.

Submarines are built in Kristiansand, and it is common to see them going through sea trials. Not so much of that activity recently.
There was an enormous naval base in Kristiansand that closed, allowing for civilian development.
People fish here for lobster and stone crab by laying traps. They do not need a license as long as they don’t sell their catch. We see buoys marking strings here and there as we motor along.

Unfortunately, because people are careless with how they attach rope to the traps, thousands of “ghost traps” need to be found by scuba divers each year. These are traps that have separated from the line attached to the buoy, so no one knows where they are. Lobsters and crabs still crawl into them, and then they starve to death trying to get out.
Houses can no longer be built closer that 100 meters from the shoreline. When the regulation went into effect, all houses closer that that were grandfathered.
There is almost no tide here.
We spot an enormous rig used to dig a trench and bury gas transmission pipelines. It’s the only one in the world, and was used to dig the pipeline from Russia to Germany.

Lobsters here are very different from the North American ones. They have two large claws but are smaller. They are also black (until they’re cooked, of course). The fishing season is around November.
We take some photos of gneiss rock formations. The pink variety is the national stone of Norway.

Cathy spots a blue heron, her very favorite bird (and the name of our house on Cliff Island), but it flies away before Steve can take a photo of it.
There are 30 species of seagulls here. During late spring and early summer, some islands are closed to boats to protect the birds during their nesting season.

The use of harbor pilots began 300 years ago and are now required on vessels o a certain size (like Sirena).
There are several people on our boat whose luggage was lost on the way to Oslo. All of them traveled from Dallas-Ft. Worth to Frankfurt on American, where they transferred to Lufthansa for the trip to Oslo. These folks are convinced that the Germans lost their luggage and mention it to our guides, to which Liv says “Well, they lost the war here too!” Everybody gives them a hand. (No surprise that there is no love lost between the two countries after the treatment Norwegians received during and at the end of WWII). Eva quips “Well, we like them now because they buy our gas!”

After two wonderful hours on this beautiful warm day cruising this gorgeous area, our excursion must end. But rather than take up back to the dock where we boarded, we are taken to the cruise dock area. This is a really good way to end our morning, and we thank Eva profusely for providing us all such a great tour.

We look about bus and notice that, as we were touring, the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Voyager of the Seas docked near us.

Voyager of the Seas reflected in the glass of the Kilden Performing Arts Centre

So the port area is jam-packed with people. Cathy and Steve head off in the wrong direction to the bustling tourist area full of restaurants, shops and fish markets. It’s a beautiful area, and we might have eaten there, but after wandering for twenty minutes trying to find our way to the ship, we are exasperated. We follow a couple of passengers we recognize who might be going back to the ship. We spot the Voyager of the Seas, are asked by a guard for our ship cards, and then our savior Rita comes up. She’s part of the Oceania crew, and sees that we are totally perplexed as to how to get to Sirena – which we can see but not navigate to. She leads us back through the building we had gone through when we left, and there it is!

We end up having lunch at the GDR. A container ship has docked across the pier from us, not more than 100 feet away. Steve and our waiter Alex are fascinated watching it be unloaded.

Back to the stateroom. The internet is cooperating, so Steve uploads photos to the blog site and also watches the container ship Spirit being unloaded. He’s never had such a close-up opportunity to see such an operation, and he’s fascinated. Cathy takes a nap.