Hey, guys! Hello from Kristiansand, Norway.

Today, my family & I ate breakfast at Cabanas — the buffet-style restaurant aboard the Magic — then disembarked the ship.

From the port, we walked into town and to the Kristiansand marina.

While at the marina, we saw this swan! My dad and I were taking photos of it, but we only snapped a few photos before the swan flapped its wings at us and jumped out of the water to honk at us. It clearly did not want to deal with the paparazzi today! Haha.

The marina is adjacent to the Christiansholm Fortress. The picture below shows the stone wall around the lookout point of the Fortress.

From the Fortress, we walked into the old town of Kristiansand, which is comprised of the white houses below. The old town is called Posebyen, and all of the houses are in the traditional Norwegian style: they are all made of wood! I loved how each house was unique, despite the uniform color, by decorating the doorways with flowers and other plants.

We followed the streets of the residential area into the town square, where I saw this sewer grate, which is easily the prettiest sewer grate I’ve ever seen!

In the town square were some shops, so we browsed through those before stopping for ice cream. I forgot to take a picture of our ice cream because it was so yummy, but I wish I had! My mom asked for chocolate sprinkles on her ice cream, and it ended up being rolled in chocolate-flavored Nestle Quik-style powder! I had never tasted anything like it, but it was honestly the best ice cream and “sprinkles” ever.

After our ice cream stop, we continued exploring Kristiansand! It  is so beautiful here; there are flowers everywhere, and I just loved the color that the flowers brought to the area.

Here is a church in Kristiansand. Again, I love the plants everywhere! The ivy climbing the brick adds a nice pop of color to the building. I also thought the church looks like a castle… anyone else?

It looks very castle-y in this shot below, don’t you think?

We decided to head back towards the port to find something for lunch. On our way there, we stumbled upon this lookout point above the marina. It offered panoramic views of the city and was the perfect picture spot!

This was the path leading up to a hostel nearby. All of the footprints on the ground are for different countries around the world.

This bridge led back into the town/towards the port.

I love the colorful buildings here! I have never seen a town like Kristiansand. Built around the waters nearby, this fishing town is a lot smaller than Oslo but is equally intriguing. I learned a lot about the fishing industry and traditions of Norway while visiting here, and I’m so glad our ship stopped here.

We decided to return to the ship after four hours of walking around the city (we had six hours ashore) to have lunch, and we felt like we saw most of the sights of Kristiansand that we wanted to visit.

The evening show was called “Villains Tonight!” and was my favorite show thus far. It was so funny and featured all of the Disney villains from the classic movies and new ones, too. The lines in the show cracked me up the most.

Dinner tonight was at Lumieres. This is the third and final restaurant in our dinner rotation. The food here was really good, and I am excited to come back in a few days! Lunch is also offered here, so maybe we will come back sooner.

The evening after dinner was fairly relaxing. My sister and I just walked around the ship, met Daisy Duck, and then watched the sun set over the Atlantic.

Today was a great day, and I am looking forward to visiting Stavanger tomorrow!

Love,

Yael