This city is not to be confused with Kristiansund, which is in northern Norway.  We are now in southern Norway. We disembarked from the ship around 10am. We walked by the performing arts center, which our port profile onboard likened to a building with troll hair.  I liked it.  

We walked over by a boat museum, but we just wanted to check out the wooden boats in the water.  It was a beautiful day with a cool wind off the water.  I couldn’t decide if a t-shirt was perfect or too cold. We also saw on the port profile video that Kristiansand has one of the fanciest McDonald’s in the world.  Of course it was under construction when we got there.  The inside was fairly normal for a European McDonald’s. 

We walked through the main shopping area of town and by the cathedral. We peeked inside and it smelled like fresh wood. They were getting ready to start an organ recital.  We continued our walk through the older neighborhoods with the wooden houses. One house had a plaque that said 1729! We walked by the fortress on our way to the bus stop. 

My husband thought it would be fun to check out a little town about 20-30 minutes by bus outside of Kristiansand.  It was called Lillisand.  The bus ride was nice because we got to see some of Norway that we would not typically see.  At our stop, we had to walk down into town.  It took about 15 minutes.  The houses were all these beautiful white houses with blooming gardens. I stopped to smell the lilacs quite a few times.  The town is right on the water.  We walked around taking pictures and I got a gelato.  They had some kind of soccer tournament happening on one end of the town and everyone was headed that way. We could hear the announcements, whistles, and music from our bench on the water.  It was a lovely experience. 

On the way back to the ship, we stopped at the fish market because it was not yet open when we disembarked.  We saw some of the biggest lobster I have ever seen (and I’m from Maine!) including a blue lobster.  Incredible.