Deliverygirlnz's travelogues: Days 20, 21, 22. Stavanger - Mandal Kristiansand

Day 20 Stavanger

This morning we were off with a ship transfer that we purchased, I think it was usd $35 pp, as it is about 20 minutes from where we are coming into port in Sandes, So it made it easy otherwise you had to wait and then buy train tickets once you got off the ship. Having said that any excursions with cruise ships, have really stupidly expensive in recent years.

The bus took us to the beautiful town of Stavanger – it has the old town with the white houses and then you walk around the edge of the port and there are vibrant coloured houses everywhere. It is a really pretty place and the O’Reillys from Hamilton have a link there as Brendan‘s wife is from here. So that’s two links now with friends in different places in Norway!

We just walked and walked today looking at all the beautiful architecture and colours, It was really crispy cold and fresh– later on a wind blew up that made you know you were alive ha ha.

We took photos, stopped in at the fishing museum which was a bit corny (an old pink laptop in one case and a big seagull taxidermied, with a net around it in another case for example?!) Not worth the $45, but had a few good period pieces in there that we enjoyed. We also noticed there are a lot of natty secondhand vintage stores there, so went into one big one and was interesting to look at the different styles of clothing here.

Stopped in and bought a beautiful Incredibly soft scarf as my throat was getting so sore – I was a bit concerned I could be getting Graeme’s covid, but feeling okay.

Back to the bus and around to the port again, onto the ship for some hot lunch. Having cocktails and fish and chips for lunch feels very decadent and always makes us feel overfilled for dinner, but hey it’s a oncer!

Mooched around until dinner – then thought we would try a shared english speaking table tonight– They put you straight onto tables for two otherwise, all are the cruise lines we have been on put you onto shared tables unless you ask – can’t remember if I had mentioned this! Was not like the great table we had the other day, this was painful! We had two older dutch ladies who hardly spoke english so not sure why they were at the english-speaking table! So they were quiet, then there was a diplomat – he was from the States but lives all over the world and was quite interesting, although like to talk about himself a lot. He was next to a lady who turned out not to be with him, she was a solo traveler from British Columbia and they quickly started coming to odds about things as she had very strong opinions – that all South Africans are neo-Nazis and other thoughts on Trump! Had to calm the waters and gave myself a headache being the upbeat conversation maker. That was pretty awkward and I can usually talk to anyone. Plus kept catching the diplomat looking at my boobs which was disconcerting haha!

Off to relax in our room as we have an early start tomorrow when we get into Mandal, which is also quite a way out of town so we have an excursion and need to be ready to go at 7:30 am. It is actually just out of Kristensand which we did last week on this cruise, but the landing port got changed to Mandal as there are three ships in town – probably good as it means we aren’t repeating the same day as last week.

Day 21 - Mandal Kristiansand

We had ordered our Continental breakfast to our room early so we could be fed, watered and ready to go in the theatre at 7:30 am. Booked on a Kristiansand past and present tour – usd$134 pp – but like yesterday’s transfer, both of these have been covered on our excursion credit which is great.

Onto the bus no problems – notice people are coughing a lot again this week, at least some of them have masks on though which is good. We had to get tenders to get off the ship today so having shore excursions booked through Holland America, you get off first.They squeeze up to 150 people into these tenders – doesn’t feel that comfortable to be honest as it’s very close quarters. Would rather not do a Titanic escape on them.

Only took about 15 mins of bobbing around and we were there at the port, got our guide and onto the coach for the trip. We had a really good guide actually as she didn’t constantly talk and overwhelm you with facts, but what she did tell you was really interesting.

She talked about how Norway was all about looks in previous times and showed us at different stops things like, when people would sit outside their houses in the sunlight (because for 6weeks of the year they didn’t have any), they would actually sit with their back to the road and face the house but would have a small mirror that was attached to the house at eye-level, so they could see what was going on behind them in the neighbourhood for gossip etc!

We stopped at the small pretty town of Sogne, where we were able to pop into the little supermarket and grab some throat lozenges which is great as my throat keeps tickling. Back onto the coach and drove to the next stop– this was the open air museum. They have bought in houses from the 1700s to show how things were in both a city and in a farming house. There is also a replica miniature town, apparently people build the exact replica of their houses and bring it to the museum which shows the streets identically to real life. We didn’t have much time to look around the while museum, but was really interesting.

Back on the coach and the guide was telling us about the health system in Norway and how everything is almost free, maternity leave is 10 months at full salary, which can be extended out to 2 years at ?30% of your salary and men get10 weeks paternity leave as well. Parents get $100 per month per child until the child is 19 and a solo parent gets $200 per month.

Schooling and university are all free as children are seen as the most important investment. For that they pay fairly high taxes, but the money is put back into the people.

Drove through Kristiansand, although it was a bit tricky as there are always a lot of roadworks and the driver had to back the bus out on one street and do a u-turn on another, so they were a bit rushed to get back to the port before their next pick up, to do the same tour again.

We went back on the tender and had another hot lunch – don’t think we will be doing this tomorrow as we are both feeling it, even though we have cut back a lot on our food and drink, despite the package that allows you to drink a lot if you want– both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, our bodies are saying enough!

Had a laydown after a bit of a walk – then we go to the daily 5 pm Q&A session about the next days port, where you often pick up good tips.

There was 60s music trivia before dinner which we did ok at. The nerdy odd South African guy that runs it each night, had some real left fielders in the mix. Down to the restaurant and could hardly eat any of the dinner as so over full! We are going to miss lunch tomorrow we decided.

It is staying light now till after 10 pm now so kind of weird when you lay in bed and it looks like the middle of the afternoon but they have really good blackout curtains here:-).

Day 22– Oslo

Woke at 5 am this morning – it was so light outside, I thought it must’ve been 7 am but alas No! At the moment, the light hours are long here but the guide yesterday said that for six weeks of the year it is also dark for 24 hours – that would be so depressing.

Got our continental breakfast to the room, then ready to go out today as we docked in Oslo early. Very short queues to get off as usual – Holland America are very good at this. They use facial recognition on an iPad for when you get on and off the ship. Quite cool the way it recognises your face and then pops up with the i.d photo that was taken on embarkation day :-).

We got out and walked over to the Opera house which is very similar to Sydney’s setup – looking out over the water. It is architecturally stunning with very clean lines, lines so clean I tripped on a step you could hardly see and almost went face first. My neck did not enjoy that!

The Opera house also reminded me of Canberra at Parliament. It has a great height where you could look out over quite a bit of Oslo. We then walked over to the. train station just to have a look inside – everything here is like elsewhere in Norway, very clean. It’s so quiet here in the morning – the shops don’t open till 10 am but they were lots of people around, it’s just so quiet and calm. We went into a small supermarket inside as I needed to get a lipgloss and Graeme bought some shaving razor blades that are half the price of Australia and New Zealand. Interestingly, after you’ve scanned and paid for your items, you need to scan the receipt so that the barrier opens to let you out. Would be handy with so much theft back home.

Wandered around town and then came across the army base which has the Akershus fortress behind it – this was built in the 1200s apparently. It also holds the resistance museum and Graeme was keen to go in and visit– Admission price was $45 for two. Wandered through that for awhile but I have to say it was not particularly well done and was very dark inside, so was hard to read the information – plus much of it was not in English even though English is the 2nd language there. Made it hard to follow and I think they could make it into something a lot more interactive and easier to follow, but still worth a look.

We wandered around the outside of the fortress afterwards and saw a flagpole with the Norwegian flag on it – there was an information board explaining about how the Germans took it over and put the German flag up in 1940 when they occupied Norway – there was a photo of it. The Norwegians are fiercely proud that they took it back when Germany surrendered and the Norwegian army Guards are still standing guarding it there today.

It’s been such a beautiful sunny still day today, we have been really lucky the last few days and it makes you realise the difference with our river cruise being practically wet the whole time vs the lovely weather we’ve been having here in Norway especially in the last week.

We wandered slowly back to the ship and got changed then decided to take music and books up to the Lido deck swimming pool area. We have decided not to have any lunch today as we’ve been so overfull, but as Graeme is starting to feel a bit better, we got a mojito for me and a bahama mamma for Graeme! Well one led to two and the music got better and better – never actually got to read the book haha! I think I started to drop off at one point, but then woke up and got a coke zero and some other cocktails we can’t remember now, but they were good ha ha!

We went back to our cabin and took it easy for an hour before getting ready for dinner – it’s orange night tonight, the same as we had on the last cruise except this time it doesn’t actually start until 9:45 pm! Way too late for many, but most people were dressed in orange so I had my orange dress and beautiful bright orange earrings, and Graeme had his leather orange wristband on as well. We also went down to BB Kings lounge for the usual 5pm Q & A session for tomorrow - which is Copenhagen. They have moved our landing port again and we are now docking further away as there will be 3 big cruiser ships in port, so will work out the train line, as that takes you straight to Nyhavn. We’ve been there before so will remember once we get there!

Just about everyone was dressed and bright orange in the dining room – a lot of them are Dutch so it is well known about the Holland America orange party.

Graeme had a ribeye steak tonight and I had lobster again, enjoying it while we can with only a couple of days left – Boo, Graeme is just starting to relax!

Back up to our room and watched one of the Star Trek movies on TV and then watched the most incredible sunset over the ocean :-).