Scenic flavours

There's some stunning scenery in Norway. Our boat (ship) trip to this land of the midnight sun last week allowed us to travel from the coast to around 60 miles inland into a deep fjord and to climb (via cable-car) up the 1800m high slopes alongside to look back over the waterway and across the (still snow capped) mountains toward the sea. 

The water in the fjord (Innvikfjorden in this case) was as clear as you like and the air was positively alpine in it's freshness, a wonderful place (so long as you pack a spare jumper!) One of the things about these latitudes that's difficult to absorb is that the Sun almost never sets at this time of year, we were still able to see our local star glowing pretty much all night, it's surreal, I had to take a picture for posterity (see below) the timestamp on the image is 12:51am!

Anyway after a great couple of days looking at stunning scenery we decamped to a city for some cultural enrichment. Stavanger was the name of the city and it's essentially a busy port (largely) serving the North Sea oil industry and built up around a natural harbour, surrounded by hills. It's Norway's third largest city (by population) behind Oslo and Bergen and at it's core pleasingly remains largely made up of detached wooden houses that have been protected from redevelopment over the years, here's a snapshot of downtown Stavanger (below)

From this vantage point it looks a bit like a model village, delightfully higgledy-piggledy and fun to wander around soaking up the hustle and bustle of daily life in this far Northern city. 

Of course I couldn't visit such a place without seeking out it's local brewing community, luckily Stavanger is home to Norway's most well known craft producer, Lervig, whose beers can be easily obtained in the UK; and even featured in my top 10 beers of 2017. 

Just before lunch we took a walk up to their taproom which is located in a quiet leafy suburb to the North of the harbour, it was a really friendly place, spotlessly clean (as most things are in Norway) and stocked with a choice selection of Lervig classics. Of course I had to go for their standard bearer "Tasty Juice" which is a hazy NEIPA loaded predominantly with flavour dense Citra hops, I've had this several times before but fresh from source it was just singing, a real treat. Here's a picture of the aforementioned ale, with their beer board in the background, a snapshot to remind me that, next time I sup 30 day old Tasty Juice in a London pub, that I was actually there!

We departed Stavanger in the evening and headed back to Southampton (which took a day and a half) sad to say goodbye to this scenic country but very happy to have visited, I'm sure we'll be back.