I was really excited about our stop here because there was a recreation of a Viking village that I really wanted to see.  It was a beautiful day with a cloudless sky.  The Viking village was only open to people who were on a tour.  There were no tours available to go. I had a feeling I would be thwarted in seeing this village.  We decided to take a walk around town at the very least to see what we could see. 

We had to take this very long bridge to get into the center of town, where we found….not much.  It was a Sunday.  There were very few stores open.  We went to one called Krim Kram and it was filled with all kinds of weird things.  I kind of wanted to buy an antler mug. My husband was interested in a Jesus on the crucifix, but also attached to a bungee cord.  

We walked over to the town hall because it is a vivid pink color.  The building was half under construction, which you can tell from the picture.  Besides the beautiful poppies and blue bells on the walk there, it was not a very exciting trip into town.  We could use a day to relax on the ship. We have lots of plans for the rest of our trip. 

Stavanger

We purchased an excursion for today: tickets for the hop on hop off bus.  (It was the same price if we bought it on the dock, about $45 per person.) We needed to purchase some type of excursion because our ship was docked in Sandness (which they pronounce Saddness).  It is a thirty minute walk to the the train station and the train takes 15 minutes to get into Stavanger.  It sounded like a pain.  The bus left around 8:30 and we got into Stavanger a little after 9.  We had to meet the bus again at the first stop at 1pm.  We planned on going to some museums, which didn’t open until 10 and 11, so we stayed on the bus for the whole route. 

Stavanger felt like a true city as we drove around.  There were some neat areas, such as the painted houses, wooden houses, the city park, and the city center was right on the water.  We would have loved to take a power boat excursion on the fjord, but it was cold!  I think we would have turned into popsicles on the trip (even though they give you waterproof gear your face is not covered). 

We exited the bus back and the first stop and easily walked to the oil museum (which was stop 3 and 6).  The museum is neat because it has a section that recreates what it is like to be on the oil platform.  We first watched an interesting movie about a middle aged man who was an “oil kid”.  It had English subtitles and it was not something you usually see at a museum.  It focused on the emotions behind the rise of oil in Norway.  I thought it was an interesting look into how different people perceive the oil industry, especially those who have family that work in it.

The museum was very interactive.  You could climb into the rescue capsule, put on a work suit, sit in a drilling chair, and slide down an evacuation chute (not as easy as it looks). I thought it was interesting that a section of the museum was dedicated to explaining other alternative energy sources.  I enjoyed the oil platform area.  You can go outside and climb to the top and the very bottom.  They have a rescue ship attached as well as the evacuation chute.  I’m not terribly interested in how oil is extracted, but it was neat to see the evolution of the process and the drill bits that they use. 

We walked back to the city center and around the area where the wooden houses are located.  The narrator on the bus tells you to look in the windows.  There are signs next to the houses that ask you not to (as well as not to smoke). The canning and printing museum is located in this area. We walked right by it.  They put both in connecting buildings. I was more interested in the canning museum and I was not disappointed.  The building is an old cannery.  They had all the tools and machines that were used in the process.  It was difficult to figure out the order to walk around since the numbers explaining the process were all over the place.  We found our way around and I couldn’t believe that even today, the sardines are packed by hand!  They can’t find a faster way to do it.  There are women that can pack a can every 4-6 seconds.  They have rubber sardines there for you to try and I was fumbling.  I imagine your hands permanently smell like fish when you have that job.  Ugh.  The smoking area actually smelled like smoked oak.  If I liked sardines, I would definitely try some from Stavanger.  The smell of the oak was tantalizing. 

I forgot to mention that we bought tickets at the oil museum and were told tickets at other museums would be half price.  The canning and printing museum was half price and they told us the maritime museum would be free with our receipt.  It was a good deal to see all three museums with those discounts.  The oil museum was 150 each person and the canning and printing was 70.

The last museum we checked out was the maritime museum.  The bottom floor has some exhibitions of the shipping industry including some important people throughout the ages.  It was ok.  The cool part of this museum is that it is actually an old shipping house. You can wander around an old apartment that is furnished, the offices of the shipping magnates (with their name plates on the doors), a small general store, and a sail loft.  It was fun to explore those rooms and there was no one else in that section of the museum with us. 

Stavanger was an interesting city. It began as a sardine town and turned into this international city that is famous for oil. The narrator on the bus made a comment about when oil prices dropped and the city was afraid it would lose its bankroll and end up like Detroit (all the people from the U.S. on the bus started laughing). One of the things that Norway did to ease this worry, was to create the government pension fund, which receives profits from the oil company and invests it. Right now, there is enough for each citizen to receive almost $200,000. If you are interested in finance, you will have to google more about it. I am not qualified to explain.