AT A GLANCE

Why go?

Fiskebrygga — 'the Fish Quay' — is Kristiansand's most loved waterfront quarter, a cluster of ochre-yellow and barn-red wooden buildings crowded along a narrow canal where the town meets the harbour. Once a working fish landing, today it is a bustling mix of seafood counters, cafés, restaurants and boat-filled water, and it is easy to see why both locals and visitors treat it as the beating heart of the city's maritime life.↗↗↗

Inaugurated in 1936 on the site of an old shipyard and thoroughly rebuilt in the 1990s in an old-fashioned warehouse style, the quay is designed to be lingered in: wooden piers run along both sides of the Gravane Canal, small bridges criss-cross the water, and on a warm day the whole place hums with passing boats, gulls and people eating shrimp by the edge. It is the kind of spot you come to for a fishmonger's cone of prawns and stay for hours.↗↗↗