Kristiansand; Sunday, 28 May, 2023

We had a relatively early breakfast and then caught a taxi over to the bus station in the centre of Olso.

In the original plan the journey down to Kristiansand and back should have been by train, following the Oslofjord and coast down to Norway’s most Southerly city. However, year long engineering works meant that buses were replacing trains for the entire journey, so it made more sense to take the bus which would give the same journey, but for quite a bit less and, it turned out, in quite a lot more comfort as the rail replacement buses were a hotchpotch of coaches whilst the Vy Buss service was on a big double decker luxury coach with massive 1 x 2 recliner seats and, in our case, the front row for stunning views down the whole journey.

The journey down to Kristiansand took just over 4 hours, but for the first time in the trip we weren’t on or following the E6, that turns East in Oslo and heads down to Swedish border taking in Gothenburg and Malmö before ending on the Baltic coast of Sweden, instead we were on the E18 which turned out to be a road of two very different characters.

Leaving from Oslo it was a wide motorway with multiple lanes running through multiple tunnels as it headed away from the capital, but the further away from Oslo we got the road got narrower and windier as it gradually reduced to a winding almost country road just one lane in each direction, often winding its way around hills, with just the occasional older tunnel where there wasn’t any other option.

That was until about 45 minutes out from Kristiansand where it reverted back to a multi-lane highway, finishing the journey in style with a combination of tunnels and bridges finishing in a wide tunnel right underneath the modern city centre popping out just by the railway station to end the journey by the harbour and station.

From the bus station it was a very short walk across the street to our hotel where we were able to checkin, drop off our bags and then head back out for an explore of the city.

We first headed up into the centre of the old town around the cathedral and town hall, where we stopped for a very late lunch of coffee and donuts whilst also staking out places to grab dinner later. From the centre of town we wandered down to the harbour, before walking round the promenade to the main sea-front of the town.

A bit of a wander further and we reached the Cristiansholm fortress, looking uncannily like the fortress in the Munkholmen off of Trondheim, though this time attached to the land rather than out on an island.

From there we headed back to the hotel to freshen up before popping out for dinner in a very pleasant restaurant by the cathedral, taking advantage of this much more southerly latitude to be able to dine outside in the late evening sun.

After a drink in the hotel bar I headed back out to take some photos of the city at sunset, though the positioning of the seafront due south, and hills directly to the west meant that it wasn’t possible to actually see a sunset, so with the temperature starting to fall quite quickly I headed back to the hotel to turn in for the night.