Today we arrived at Kristiansand.   This is set in a protected bay but I think that docking facilities here are too small even for the Prinsendam, since we have <TR> "Tender Required" designated for this stop.   Well, it turned out that we got a berth after all.   OK it may have been a cargo one but it did us fine, with even a little tourist train to take us in to town.

Here we were booked for the Lillesand: The Jewel of Sorlandet excursion.

A highlight of Kristiansand is a boat trip along the coastline speckled with islands. You will cruise to the neighburing town of Skottevik—a route of unusual beauty via quaint coastal communities of traditional mariners’ houses, now converted to holiday homes. At Skottevik, transfer to a waiting motor coach for the scenic drive to Lillesand—the most beautiful town in the region. Once bustling with maritime activity, Lillesand features 18th- and 19th-century white timber houses, and is endowed with a sheltered harbour and a current population of 8,200. There will be some free time for you to soak in the atmosphere of this charming town, aptly named the Jewel of Sorlandet before returning to Kristiansand along the scenic coastal road.

Since I was not too well, we decided to cancel our trip for today, we did this yesterday, but there was no wait list for this trip so it looked like we had lost our money.   The good news this morning was that they had sold our tickets, and so we got a refund.   The bad news we heard later was that it had been a fantastic trip, oh well, can't have it both ways.   Since I was a little better this morning, we took the little tourist train for the city tour.   If you kept your ticket you could use this train as a HOHO, there were two of them running every 30 minutes, so you had time to sight see an area then catch the next train to go further.   We just stayed aboard and did the circuit.   When we got to the centre of the town we pulled in behind the first train.   What we should have done was hop off here and hop on to the first train as after a few minutes and a few more passengers it set off back to the ship while we waited another 30 minutes for our train to fill up, before we went.

This was an exciting sail away as for a navigation reason the captain had alerted us earlier that a tug would be used.   It was a pretty hefty looking tug, like a large fishing boat on steroids.   We got some good shots of her (seems like it should be a him with all that muscle) tugging away.   Once the job was accomplished we had a cheery wave from the tug master and she sped off like a boy racer.

Captain Albert's Blog: Kristiansand, Norway.