Explore Stavanger

Stavanger Cathedral is Norway's oldest cathedral, begun around 1100 and dedicated to Saint Swithun of Winchester. The Romanesque stone nave has carved capitals with scenes from Norse myth, and the Gothic choir with its two east towers was added after a fire in 1272. It stands beside the Breiavatnet lake in the city centre and is the seat of the Bishop of Stavanger.

The Norwegian Petroleum Museum documents oil and gas production in the North Sea since the first drilling in the mid-1960s. Designed by Lunde & Løvseth and opened in 1999, the building on Stavanger harbour stands partly on piles in the water and is shaped like a small platform. Exhibits include platform models, drilling equipment, diving gear and films.

The Norwegian Canning Museum occupies a former sardine cannery at Øvre Strandgate 88 in Old Stavanger and recalls the canning industry that shaped the city from 1873 to 1982. Opened in 1982, it shows the production line, the machines and the smoking ovens, and since the opening of IDDIS it shares a site and ticket with the Norwegian Printing Museum.

Old Stavanger is a preserved quarter of about 170 white wooden houses from the 18th and early 19th centuries on the west side of the Vågen harbour. Post-war plans would have replaced them with concrete buildings, but in 1956 the city council voted to keep them at the urging of city architect Einar Hedén. Most houses are private homes along cobbled lanes.

Ledaal is a manor house at Eiganesveien 45 in Stavanger, built in 1799–1803 for the merchant Gabriel Schanche Kielland, who named it after the last letters of his and his wife's names. Bought by Stavanger Museum in 1936, it is the King's residence in Stavanger and a museum with period interiors, set in a protected park laid out in French style.