Explore The South
STAVANGER is something of a survivor. Unlike a flotilla of Norwegian coastal towns that have fallen foul of the precarious fortunes of fishing, Stavanger has diversified and is now the proud possessor of a dynamic economy, which has swelled the population to over 125,000. It was the herring fishery that first put money into the town, crowding its nineteenth-century wharves with coopers and smiths, net makers and menders. Then, when the fishing failed, the town moved into shipbuilding and now it makes its money through oil – Stavanger builds rigs for Norway’s offshore oilfields and refines it as well – backed up by a profitable sideline in tourism as witnessed by the mammoth cruise ships that regularly pull into its harbour.
Much of central Stavanger is strikingly modern, a jingle and a jangle of mini- and not-so-mini tower blocks that spreads over the hilly ground abutting the main harbour and surrounding the decorative, central lake, Breiavatnet, the most obvious downtown landmark. None of this may sound terribly enticing, but in fact Stavanger is an excellent place to start a visit to Norway: all the town’s amenities are within easy walking distance of each other; it has excellent train, bus and ferry connections; and it possesses an especially attractive harbour, a couple of enjoyable museums, a raft of excellent restaurants plus several lively bars. The town is also – and this comes as a surprise to many first-time visitors – nearer to the fjords than Bergen, the self-proclaimed “Gateway to the Fjords”: within easy reach of Stavanger are the Lysefjord and the dramatic Preikestolen rock formation.
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Gamle Stavanger
Gamle Stavanger
On the western side of the main harbour is the city’s star turn, Gamle Stavanger. Though very different in appearance from the modern structures back in the centre, the buildings here were also the product of a boom. From 1810 until around 1870, herring turned up just offshore in their millions, and Stavanger took advantage of this slice of luck. The town flourished and expanded, with the number of merchants and shipowners increasing dramatically. Huge profits were made from the exported fish, which were salted and later, as the technology improved, canned. Today, some of the wooden stores and warehouses flanking the western quayside hint at their nineteenth-century pedigree, but it’s the succession of narrow, cobbled lanes behind them – along and around Øvre Strandgate – that shows Gamle Stavanger to best advantage. Formerly home to local seafarers, craftsmen and cannery workers, the area has been maintained as a residential quarter, mercifully free of tourist tat: the long rows of white-painted, clapboard houses are immaculately maintained, complete with picket fences and tiny terraced gardens. There’s little architectural pretension, but here and there flashes of fancy wooden scrollwork must once have had the curtains twitching among the staunchly Lutheran population.
- Around Stavanger
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Antony Gormley in Stavanger
Antony Gormley in Stavanger
Stavanger has no fewer than 23 sculptures by the contemporary British sculptor Antony Gormley (best known for his Angel of the North in England) and together they constitute Broken Column, whose aim is to illustrate the many facets of the city and, for that matter, life (and death) itself. Each and every sculpture is a blank-faced human figure made of cast iron and 195cm high, the same height as – and apparently modelled on – Gormley himself, though some are partly sunk into the ground. This sinking is, as you might expect from Gormley, not at random: each location has a predetermined height quota and the last one in the series, which is stuck out on a rock in the harbour, is mostly (149cm) under water. One of the sculptures is beside the Domkirke, a second is beside Torget’s covered fish market. Work began on Broken Column in 1999 and the project was completed four years later.
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Stavanger to Bergen
Stavanger to Bergen
With great ingenuity, Norway’s road builders have cobbled together the E39 coastal road, the Kystvegen (wkystvegen.no), which traverses the west coast from Stavanger to Haugesund, Bergen and ultimately Trondheim with eight ferry trips breaking up the journey. The first part of the trek, the 180km haul up from Stavanger to Bergen, includes two ferry trips and sees the highway slipping across a string of islands, which provide a pleasant introduction to the scenic charms of western Norway – and hint at the sterner beauty of the fjords beyond. Perhaps surprisingly, this region is primarily agricultural: the intricacies of the shoreline, together with the prevailing westerlies, made the seas so treacherous that locals mostly stuck to the land, eking out a precarious existence from the thin soils that had accumulated on the leeward sides of some of the islands.
