Things to do in Stavanger

Gamle Stavanger

More than 250 small white wooden houses on the west side of the Vågen harbour, mostly 18th and early 19th century, on cobbled lanes that go uphill. What makes it worth knowing is that it was slated for demolition after the war and survived largely because of the city architect Einar Hedén, with the council voting to conserve it in 1956 — partly because it was then the least desirable property in town. The cheapest quarter in the city is now the one everybody photographs. It is two minutes’ walk from the Strandkaien cruise berth.

Sverd i fjell

Three bronze swords, ten metres tall, driven into the rock at Hafrsfjord, made by Fritz Røed and erected in 1983. They mark the battle of Hafrsfjord in 872, when Harald Fairhair unified Norway. The tallest is Harald’s and the two smaller ones belong to the defeated kings, and they are fixed in stone so that they can never be drawn again. It is out of the centre, so it needs transport, and it takes about ten minutes to look at and rather longer to stop thinking about.

The Norwegian Petroleum Museum

Opened on 20 May 1999 on the harbour, about 5,000 square metres of stone, glass and concrete built to read as a small platform when you see it from the water. It is the most honest building in Stavanger: the city’s modern wealth came out of the North Sea and this is a museum about that, not around it. Good in rain, which is a real consideration here.

Fargegaten

Øvre Holmegate, the coloured street, about five minutes from the cruise berth. It was started in 2005 by the salon owner Tom Kjørsvik with the Scottish artist Craig Flannagan, who gave each building a harmonising scheme of four or five colours rather than a random bright each. Some owners refused, pink in particular, and at least one still does, which is the detail that makes the street likeable rather than merely painted.

Fitting Preikestolen around the city

Doing the hike independently from a ship means roughly an hour out, 4 to 5 hours walking and an hour back: six hours minimum against a typical call of eight to ten. It fits with no margin, and a missed bus is a missed ship. The arithmetic is worked through on the cruise excursion page, the ways out of the city are on the Stavanger page, and the seasonal bus is on the bus page.

What there is to book

The trail is free and there is no ticket for it. What is bookable is the Lysefjord cruise, which passes under the cliff and involves no walking at all, and the guided hikes that drive you out from Stavanger. Everything is listed on the bookings page.

Frequently asked questions