The Tall Ship Races

A couple of weekends back we had visit from The Tall Ship Races. It was the first time for Kristiansand being a hosting town for this great event. If you don't know what it is, think old fashion sailing boats, young people learning to sail and great chances to see new places and big ships competing against each other. The ships are sailing to different European cities and this time it was Kristiansand's turn to arrange the big event in Norway. Other cities the ships had visited was Antwerp in Belgium, Aalborg in Denmark and Hartlepool, United Kingdom (which was the last stop-over during the race).

The container harbour was cleaned and food stalls, restaurants and market stands were placed in the area. The whole town changed, heaps of people visiting and about 80 concerts during the weekend.

The weather was as usual not supportive. It was raining quite a bit during the weekend and in the end we surrendered to the raingear to see some of the concerts on Saturday. Sure it was a funny sight, us in full raingear sitting outside on the wet benches drinking coffee and watching local bands playing. It turned out to be quite a nice day. Later the same evening we went back to see other concerts.

On Sunday we had a walk up to Odderøya (a hill with a good view of the town), brought some coffee and watched the ships leaving the town. It was like being in another century - until you saw the ferry going to Denmark passing by...

For more information, have a look here