Keeping It Simple in Kristiansand

It's going to be a rather random post today as we took care of some random tasks in Kristiansand.  This supposed to be the sunniest city in Norway but when we arrived it was overcast and cool. at our southernmost stop in the country,  The weather did improve pretty quickly as the day went on.

There was some breeze as we made our way off the ship

and headed over to take a selfie by this dockside moose.  No idea why he was there except for a photo op.  One of the guys from the crew offered to take a picture for us so we took him up on it.

Another of the public flower pots that we've seen all over Scandinavia.

Once we boarded the little train we weren't exactly sure where it would go, turned out there was nothing too scenic, but I did like the flower archway.

More modern housing looked like these in the city,

while older streets looked more like this.  Founded in 1641 by the oft referred to Christian IV of Denmark, the town was named for that king and the sandy headland the city was built on, it became Christianssand.  It kept that spelling until 1877 when the current more Norwegian version became the standard.  In 1734 fire damaged or destroyed many of the town’s buildings, then another major fire in 1892 devastated most of the town yet again so no old town to be found here.  

By the late 18th century it was growing again thanks to the oak trees that only grow well in this part of Norway, so Kristiansand became a major ship building center.  Hard times came along with the economic depression of the 1930’s with even tougher things to come when the Germans made three major air and naval assaults on the city before they finally captured and occupied it during WW2.  Today the city’s economy is built on industrial development, shipping and trade.

We went down multiple streets where the homes were all white like there.

This is probably one of my favorite photos of the day,

but I liked this pretty blue door with its adjacent flowerpots as well.

One of the random things we saw was this trash truck collecting trash.  You're no doubt thinking, what is so interesting about trash?  It was a version of that task we'd never seen done like this.  The trash truck had a long crane on it that would pull a huge, tall trash container out of its cubicle in the ground, then somehow open up the bottom of it so the trash all dumped into the truck's bin.

Once it was emptied the container was lowered and again placed in the ground.  We thought it was a great way to keep trash out of sight.  Pretty ingenious!

Part of the downtown area of Kristiansand.

There was also a nice park in the center of town near Market Square.

We hopped off the train here to do a little wandering before finishing the tour and taking it back to Serenade.

More nice flowers, I don't often get photos of them this color.

The Kristiansand Cathedral stands near both the park and Market Square.  It is a Lutheran church that was completed in 1885.

While we didn't go inside, the exterior was lovely to photograph.  We did a little shopping on Market Square and then went in search of some lunch.  Nothing on the square appealed to us so we walked down one of the side streets, also looking for a grocery store.

When Karl spotted Bella's Burrito at the end of the street, that was it, he wanted a burrito.  We had to wonder how good a burrito would be in Norway and it turned out that it was excellent.  I opted for a small burrito bowl with pulled pork and thoroughly enjoyed that as well.  Bonus was that there was a barber across the street so after lunch Karl was able to get a much needed haircut.  

If it's not doors or door knockers I take photos of, it's manhole covers. 🤣

A little street art across the way from where we finally found a grocery store that had the pickled herring that Karl had been in search of.   And no, I haven't eaten any of that but he's enjoying it.

Getting back on the train to the ship we passed this lovely blue building which I 

can't seem to find any information on.  Just enjoy how lovely it is.

The Kristiansand Fish Market, where I heard we missed out on some really good seafood.

Karl spotted this company near the dock with the name Seil on it and wondered if he had some long lost cousins in Kristiansand.  When he went over to the building a little later he found out that "seil" in Norwegian means "sail" so basically it was a shipping company, no relation.

The white building is the Kunstsilo, the new  Museum of Modern Art in Kristiansand that just opened three weeks ago.  It was another example of a re-purposed building in Norway.  Our guide in Oslo had said this was a "must see" but after looking at some of the works online we decided it was a "not see" for us.

There were other spots we could have wandered to today but I was just too worn out to do much more than walk the two and a half miles we did.  Ultimately we bid farewell to a nice city that we probably could have enjoyed even more, but hey, we got some excellent burritos. 🌯