One day in Kristiansand.

A plain city, where every road heads to the North Sea (or just water). Kristiansand wasn’t necessarily a place I had to visit, besides the fact that I knew that’s one of the cities that lies in the most south of South Norway, I didn’t know anything about it. For a small, seaside city, is it worth visiting though?

 

We arrived in the late morning, the clock was approaching noon. The city welcomed us with a small and simple train station, with only three tracks (I could be mistaken, a good memory isn’t my perk). We were extremely lucky with the weather again (as well in Stavanger and on the Preikestolen hike), the sun was fully shining, temperature around 20-ish and almost no wind. What a day for a trip!

We didn’t have any specific plans. All we knew was that the city isn’t that big. It’s actually quite simple planned, basically the whole city center is in the square shape (it’s even called Kvadraturen, which means quadrature). Our stay was in Airbnb, around 7 minutes from the train station in the Kvadraturen itself. It was such a good occasion, not only closeness was great, but the apartment was wonderful. I took only three pictures, but if you want to see more, you should check it out here. The host was lovely Karoline, I really recommend her.

After leaving our things and getting the keys, we decided to head to some park, since the weather was really outstanding that day. The closest one and apparently quite known was Ravnedalen park. It’s located in Kristiansand’s commune forest and has a lot of lakes and ponds. I have never thought I will be able to swim wildly in some park in Norway, here I go, swimming in Bånetjønn, with other fellows Norwegians in the distance. At least I wasn’t alone doing that, I would be worrying that some kind of security will come to me and ask: “Who do you think you are?”. That would be a disaster, wouldn’t it?

(translation: a wild bath in the park)

And forgot to mention: on the way to the park, there was one building with a bit of poem on it. I tried to figure out what, who and when, and here it is:

This is a fragment of Ivar Aasen’s (the fella who created Nynorsk in Norway) poem Til Lags åt alle. Those are the first two lines and of course, they are written in Nynorsk, not in Bokmål. I tried to translate it:

To make everyone’s happy

Can do no one;

It’s is surely old

And it will be.

After the park, we went again to the city center, to buy some food and then go for a walk along the coast. It was around 1 or 2pm, so we still had some time left.

This city’s marina is one of its most beautiful parts. Perfectly blue water that reflects the sun like million diamonds were sunk in it and white boats and yachts that quietly drift in their parking spots. When you walk by them on little piers you can sometimes see old fishermen catching an afternoon nap on their floating houses, caring about nothing in this world. But what’s better for a nap, than perfect weather and a sound of the sea, one of the most calming sounds.

Nearby piers and marinas, there’s a fortress called Christianholm Festning. It’s only a few minutes’ walk, and you have a perfect view of the sea and all marinas. And of course, the fortress is beauty itself, round, grey-stone building with characteristic, red roof. You can sit there on the grass and just enjoy the view (like you supposed to, forget about the phone).

We ended our sightseeing around 6 pm with visiting an aquapark called Aquarama Bad. We desperately wanted to swim more than this one lake swim, but the sea itself was way too cold (despite the hotness outside), so the aquapark was the only choice. For students, it was quite cheap, around 125 NOK (now, since it’s June it can be 175 NOK, so be careful). You buy a ticket once and you can enjoy it as long as you want to. How nice! In Poland, you have to pay for each hour separately. (by the way, I’m not sponsored by them, I recommend this place myself).

That was all from Kristiansand. I hope you liked this little reportage. Another travel post will be around the beginning of July, before that I may post something a little bit different. Stay tuned, and have a nice weekend!