Wanderung 30

A Bike and Boat Trip

August - September 2015


 

3 Train Ride to Copenhagen
Bergen 4
Index


 

Kristiansand, Norway : Saturday September 12, 2015

As we had never been to Kristiansand before, we elected to walk around the small city and see it that way. Our first foray was onto the island of Odderoya, where our ship was docked. Above the dock area lies a large nature preserve that is criss-crossed by a network of walking trails. That looked promising, and we walked a bit on the upper part of the trail system looking for a vantage point from which we could get a good picture of the ship, but no luck.

Although we could have had a nice forest hike on the trails of the nature preserve, we also wanted to see the city so we decided to walk around the port area and see a bit of the interior of the city to get a feel for it. So we turned around and rejoined the seaside walking trail around the harbor area that was outlined on a paper map given to us as we disembarked and also displayed on a curbside stand near the dock. That trail turned out to be a quite interesting overview of the city.

The harbor was lined with small marinas and city parks, complete with statues of famous Norwegians, fountains, and flowerbeds. One statue that really intrigued me was of an old pilot entitled "Oberst Bernt Balchen" (1899-1973) standing on what looked like an airplane wing looking out to sea. The curious part was that on closer examination, the wing was an actual piece of a real aluminum airplane wing complete with aileron and an aileron trim adjustment. Even curiouser was the fact that although he was born in Norway he had died in the USA in the 1970s and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery (next to Commander Richard E. Byrd in Section 2, grave 4969), which is usually reserved for American war heroes. Well, that really made me curious!


 


 

Checking Wikipedia later, I found that Balchen was a Norwegion/American warrior/pilot/mechanic/explorer who literally had nine lives and fought in WWI, the Russo-Finnish war, WWII, and the Cold War, as well as executing many pioneering exploration and rescue flights in the Arctic and Antarctic. So he was, in truth, a hero born in Kristiansand with over 20 medals from different countries to prove it.

But besides the statues, the harborside parks were filled with other sculptures. Some were rather whimsical modern pieces, some were beautifully-arranged waterfalls, but the ones I liked best will not, unfortunately be there if you visit because they were sand sculptures! One was clearly a collection of figures from some TV cartoon show (South Park?) and they were all extremely well-crafted, so it was kind of a shame that they were also destined to crumble back into sand.

Continuing around the harbor we were overtaken by a Segway tour group at a playground just outside a big, communal swimming hall. That looked like fun, but it was a guided group tour and we do like to take things at our own pace, which is typically dead slow! One completely unique thing I found was a public bicycle work station, complete with with a bike support , an air pump, and a complete set of work tools that were all attached to the bike stand with cables. How thoughtful !

We looped back down a channel dividing the main Central Business District from a subdivision of houses on the next peninsula and saw a lot of local boats tied up to the wharf. We both like the old fashioned clinker-built wooden ships the best, as they harked back to the days of the Viking long ships that were first built in such a fashion. That basic pattern had, however, been adapted by the Vikings' descendants into many different varieties of small craft, some with deckhouses, some with small cabins, and so forth.

Turning back into the main section of town, we wandered down the narrow streets of the oldest section of the city and photographed the old fashioned houses there. Most of the old homes were white with carefully detailed trim and window frames, but some had contrasting colors added to the mix.

The old section led over to the city cathedral that had a nice fountain out in front, so of course we went paused and went inside for a peek. In contrast to many old churches, this cathedral had central columns all made of wood. It looked very warm and pretty , but I wondered about the fire danger. I could see lots of fire detectors, but no sign of a sprinkler system and I just hope they never have a fire in there as the altar, the big pipe organ, and the interior furnishings were quite pretty.

Continuing on to the new commercial district , we walked up and down the main commercial street, which has been pedestrianized just like so many of the Danish cities we had just visited on our bicycle trip. We happened to be there on a Saturday apparently before some kind of big election, because all the political parties had people in distinctive colors giving out campaign leaflets at the main intersection.

The "Labour Party" had a red tent where they handed out red balloons and red plastic cheese slicers! I could not bring myself to take stuff when I knew I couldn't vote in their election, but Monika had no such scruples so she picked up a free red cheese cutter that came home with us. The "Reds" also had a Jazz quartet playing in an adjacent tent and they really played well, giving a festive, Dixieland aura to what would otherwise probably be a busy but relatively staid and quiet shopping street.

We also passed by the Greens (ecological focus, I think) and Blues and Oranges, who were clearly other parts of the Norwegian political spectrum but not sure where. We were both by this time getting tired and Monika's knee was starting to hurt, so we headed back to the ship although we detoured just a bit to see the fish market and some adjacent restaurants in old but colorful wooden buildings surrounding a small inlet.

That inlet was really very scenic, especially when the sun peeked through the clouds and illuminated the bright colors that each building was painted with. But when your feet or legs start to ache, a walkabout is a lot less fun, so we headed back on board for a late lunch and then retired to our cabin to rest our feet. As our ship departed the harbor later that afternoon, we noticed that huge tunnels had been drilled into the small rocky hill beside the wharf. Clearly something rather elaborate was being built inside, but I couldn't figure out exactly what. Tis a puzzlement.



Copyright 2015 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt


 

3 Train Ride to Copenhagen
Bergen 4
Index

Map of Spring Transatlantic Cruise Map of Spring Bike Trip
Map of Fall Bike Trip in Germany and Denmark Map of Fall Transatlantic Cruise

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