We didn't have any major plans for Kristiansand, and none of the excursions sounded particularly interesting either. So we decided to head to the formal dining room for breakfast, in no particular hurry, and then head ashore.
The dining room was very quite today, and there seemed to be hardly anybody around as we walked the length of the ship. Maybe everyone was already trying to get ashore? Maybe everyone was in bed? Either way we had a nice breakfast, then returned to our room to get ready to head ashore.
Kristiansand is the only location on our entire cruise where we need to use the tender to head ashore. This is because the cruise ship terminal is being renovated. Hence the anchor.
There was no queue for the tender, and the staff seemed equally surprised, it seems everyone stayed in bed!
The port here isn't overly picturesque, this is very much a working port, especially for fishing. The tender dropped us in a spot where there are many upmarket seafood restaurants, and it was only a short walk into town.
We were given street maps so had some idea of a suitable walking circuit. We happened upon a McDonalds early, and although not hungry we sat in there for a while and used their WiFi to post the last two days of blogs. It was the nicest McDonalds I've ever seen, very modern and clean inside.
From there we wandered around the shops. I needed to buy shaving supplies, as I had left the power cord for my electric shaver in New Zealand and the battery had finally run out. We found a supermarket early enough. We then generally wandered around looking at the shops, again very different to what we are used to.
Some of you will know we are great fans of Sriracha Sauce. Over here we've discovered another brand, Flying Goose. It is made in Thailand, but seems very popular in Norway. We purchased a number of different varieties including Sriracha Mayo, Sriracha Hot, Sriracha Extra Garlic, Sriracha Extra Hot. Looking forward to trying them when we get home!
While in town, there were road works, laying a new footpath. They were laying heating which presumably is to stop the footpath icing up during winter.
The day had started nice enough, and as we walked through the town we were down to T-Shirt and hoped the sun might peep through the clouds. We walked through a residential old town, down toward the river, it started to rain and turned cold. The old town is mostly made of white, wooden houses. Occasionally there are some houses painted different colours but they are the exception.
Here's me with our walking map.
We continued our walk, down the river, where we could see many apartment buildings across the other side.
We made our way down to the waterfront. Here is an old fortress dating back centuries, we were able to walk around. It looks like it is a venue for weddings, conferences etc these days.
In general the waterfront area is made up of very nice public spaces, surrounded by low-rise apartments, with mostly pedestrian and cycle access and not much in the way of roads.
As the rain continued, we returned to the ship early for some rest and relaxation.
No comments:
Post a Comment