Stavanger, Not So Far Away

Stavanger, Not So Far Away

When your ship calls on Stavanger, you'll arrive in the very heart of the city. Only a few steps from the gangway, and you're in the old town or at the market. Few cruise destinations deliver passengers in such close proximity to the city center.

Convenience, in fact, is the key word for Stavanger. The city in the south of Norway is not only well positioned for cruises coming from the Continent or from the British Isles but also convenient for cruise passengers who want to explore the city by foot.

With its eighteenth and nineteenth century wooden structures, Old Stavanger (Gamle Stavanger) is situated next to the city center and only a few steps away from where cruise ships dock.

Representing one of northern Europe’s best preserved wooden built neighborhoods, Gamle Stavanger features quaint, white-painted houses that are mostly residential with a few craftsmen’s workshops interspersed.

Stroll along cobblestone pedestrian streets to shop for quality Norwegian products, including replicas of Viking Age jewelry that was discovered in the region, which claims to be the "Cradle of the Vikings."

Also nearby the docks is Stavanger Domkirke (St. Svithun's Cathedral), which was built around 1125 in Anglo-Norman style.

Stavanger also has a number of museums worthy of visit:

• The Canning Museum demonstrates not only how the renowned local sardines were smoked and canned during the "brisling-boom" but also allows visitors to try their hands at the process.
• The Maritime Museum, an old wharf, shows the town’s history, including the mass emigration to America.
• The Archaeological Museum illustrates 15,000 years of cultural heritage.
• Stavanger Oil Museum shows the start and development of the oil adventure in the North Sea and what the book has meant to Stavanger – Norway's oil capital.

Venture outside the city center to admire the landscape of Norway's west coast, with its green rolling hills backed by stark majestic mountains, waterfalls, rivers and miles of sandy beaches.

An excursions by modern boat takes cruise passengers to Lysefjorden, famous for the "Preikestolen" or Pulpit Rock , which towers 1968 feet above the fjord and Kjerag.