Stavanger Audio Tours

The discovery of oil in the North Sea in 1969 changed Norway's economy entirely, and Stavanger was the city where that transformation happened. The Norwegian Petroleum Museum on Kjeringholmen tells this story honestly and engagingly, with platform sections you can walk through and equipment that conveys the scale and danger of offshore drilling. In fifty years, Stavanger went from a sardine-canning town to the energy capital of Northern Europe, and the city's affluence is visible in its restaurants, the tidiness of its streets, and the architectural ambition of its newer districts.

None of this transformation touched Gamle Stavanger, the old wooden town on the western side of the inner harbor.

Approximately 170 white-painted wooden houses from the early nineteenth century survive in near-original condition, making this one of the most complete preserved wooden town districts in Northern Europe. Walking through Øvre Strandgate and the surrounding lanes is disorienting in the best way: the scale is domestic, the streets are narrow, and the quiet is absolute even in summer. The Norwegian Canning Museum in a former sardine factory on Øvre Strandgate documents what Stavanger smelled like for a century before the oil.