Travel Notes, Chapter#8, Stavanger

We left  Bergen with our rented car and arrived Stavanger in a few hours. It is estimated 210 km but due to speed limit it takes longer time.

It is , located on the Stavanger Peninsula on the southwest coast of Norway . The municipality is the fourth most populous in Norway with 120,000. After our megapol city Istanbul, everywhere looks me so quiet. The climate is maritime mild temperate, with all monthly temperature averages above freezing. Summers are pleasant however, summer temperatures are much cooler than those found further inland on the Scandinavian peninsula, even in more northerly areas. I’ve learned that, in contrast, winter temperatures are much milder than those in Oslo and Stockholm.

In 1969, when oil was first discovered in the North Sea, Stavanger was chosen to be the on-shore center for the oil industry on the  Norwegian sector of the North Sea, and the city is widely referred to as the Oil Capital of Norway. 

Domestic and international military installations are located in Stavanger, the NATO’s Joint Warfare Center is one of them. It is also an university city. 

Stavanger is a popular tourist destination, especially in summer. The hotels in the city have good occupancy year round due to a lot of commuters who travel to work and meetings in Stavanger. In recent years, Stavanger has also become one of the most popular ports of call for cruise ships, with the number of cruise ships increasing steadily, making Stavanger one of Europe's fastest growing ports of call for cruise ships north of the Mediterranean. I searched some records, in 2009, 99 ships and 146,000 passengers passed through the town, and in 2010, a total of 111 cruise ships with about 175,000 passengers visited the city. I believe that  it is much more now!

 cruise ships dock in the very city center near the oldest part of the town, Old Stavanger.  It is just a short stroll away is the nice, well protected Stavanger Cathedral, and the city center with its cobbled pedestrian streets. 

U-shape pier area have lots of restaurants, bars, souvenir shops, just a few hundred meters walking distance from the dock!

If you're sea-food lover, Stavanger is a perfect address to taste delicious seafoods. I'll share them as another topic, too.

Old Stavanger  that cruises boards it offers Europe's best preserved wooden house settlement, 

consisting of more than 170 white wooden houses.  

This  adorable cat looks so happy, living in that preserved wooden house settlement in old town, he posed us.

I shared my opinions related with cruise trip before. I just want to repeat that, we would like to have more independent tours...Maybe, one day, we do realize a cruise trip for a specific destination.

I was always wondering the daily life in a petroleum platform. I think, several movies that I’ve watched and some tragic accidents occurred at the platforms caused my  this curiosity. We passed through platforms by ferry on the way of Bergen. 

Glad that we managed to visit Norwegian Petroleum Museum, of course, I focused on the petroleum platform, drilling and its logistic support activities. Its exhibits explain how oil and gas are created, discovered and produced, and what they are used for. All museum looks informative and it covers the Norwegian oil history and its development and economical influences of oil incomes for the Norwegian people.  Original objects, models, films and interactive exhibits illustrate everything from everyday life offshore to technology and dramatic accidents. 

On 27 March 1980, due to fatigue crack, and some other weld and material disorders one of the bracing failed and afterward the platform, Alexander Lange Kielland  Platform collapsed. I still remember that tragedy!

Failed bracing part of the drilling platform is on display in the museum. Details related with accidents were so touchy, especially that steel debris of a tragic accident is an awesome evidence!!!  

As I said before,  I was wondering petroleum platforms, I learned a lot, now.

More details about Lauvvik - Oanes later!