Erling and Astrid Monuments
May 8, 2026 Filed under Curious
The cabin was very cozy in the morning, so I delayed checkout to the last minute. That meant I started out hungry. Alas, it would be a couple of hours before I’d roll into a town with a bakery.
In the meantime I went along the coast, and was shocked to see people out in wetsuits. This is a popular surfing spot apparently?
Psst… Hey buddy… Wanna rent a surfboard?
Very brave surfers!
The Eurovelo route got strange for a while, sending me over a very bouncy footbridge. Sometimes I don’t think the people who assembled this route actually rode bicycles along it. They just saw a series of fanciful paths, bridges, and local monuments on a map and stitched them together.
Unexpected bridge!
Farther inland I paused for a while to watch a tractor digging furrows, and the masses of seagulls swirling around it, picking bugs and worms out of the turned soil.
A few miles after that I paused for a snack next to some noisy sheep. Always nice to have something to look at when you’re snacking.
The sheep are out in force today.
Along with living beasties, I had an encounter with an electronic one:
At least it’s smart enough to avoid going in the road, unlike the sheep.
Feistein Lighthouse in the distance. Cool as heck, but not for tourists.
The route returned to the coast, and for a while the uncomfortably cold air was the only thing reminding me I hadn’t been magically transported to Southern California.
Bits and pieces of costal forts, thankfully not needed. Or perhaps just obsolete.
It looks pleasant, but sand on the road is not good for bikes!
Somewhere around here was a ruined and then restored church that was worth a gander… Turns out the Eurovelo runs right next to it. Probably on purpose.
I found a kiosk with some context:
The stone church dates back into the mid-12th century. It was likely built shortly after the Medieval cathedral in Stavanger and was in use until 1842.
The church was left in ruins until 1871, when artist Johan J. Bennetter acquired the property. He built his home and studio within the stone walls. In 1907 the family moved out and the church again fell into ruin. The remaining walls were finally torn down by German occupation forces in 1940.
Reconstruction began in the 1980s and was completed in 1995. The stone building of today reflects 900 years of history and architectural heritage.
Ahead of reconstructions, archaeologists uncov-ered several phases of an Iron Age farmstead under the church. They also found 31 Christian graves. One of the graves was the high-status burial of an elderly woman. She was swept in furs or cloth and laid to rest in a pine coffin with iron fittings. The dating of the grave is inconclusive. While a 12th century date is more likely, she was possibly buried already in the late Viking Age. During the late Viking age, it is assumed that Viking Chieftain Erling Skjalgsson lived here with his wife Astrid. He was a Christian man, and it is possible that they built a church on the farm more than a thousand years ago.
Can it be Astrid herself that was buried in such a prominent location, or perhaps another woman of her lineage? On the sign by the parking lot, you can read more about the Viking Age farmstead, Astrid and Erling.
The church itself was very thoughtfully restored. Due to its weird past, it seems a lot of the material just went missing, and the architects opted to replace it with modern materials instead, including large sheets of glass.
A delightful combination of old and new construction.
Note the large chunk of glass protecting the archway.
The view through the back of the church.
Church interior.
Note how you can see the outdoors by looking into the window!
Not enough stones to complete the wall? Put a window there!
Though I was in the area to see the church, the two tall monolith-like structures next to it made me curious.
The Erling and Astrid Monuments.
A nearby kiosk had some interesting background on them:
Sign explaining the monuments next to the Sola Ruinkirke.
Hersen på Sola, Erling Skjalgsson, was a controversial figure in Norwegian history until the 1990s. In the 19th century, he was even referred to as a traitor for a period, because he had been in conflict with King Olav (Haraldsson) the Saint.
For many years, attempts were made to erect a monument to Erling på Sola without success, constantly stopped by influential people.
It was not until the early 1930s that parish priest Chr. Sole succeeded in erecting a monument in memory of Erling. The location at the church ruins was natural, as this was assumed at the time to be the remains of Erling’s church.
Over 3,000 people from all over North Jæren were present on Sunday, July 1, 1934, when King Haakon VII unveiled the monument. The king’s presence was the beginning of the restoration of Erling’s reputation and importance as a lord and ruler, in his time one of the most powerful men in the country.
Astrid Tryggvasdotter was the sister of King Olav Tryggvason and was married to Erling Skjalgsson around the year 996, as part of the alliance-building between King Olav Tryggvason and the lord of Sola, Erling Skjalgsson. Astrid was also the great-granddaughter of Harald Hårfagre on her father’s side and the granddaughter of the powerful Viking Eirik Bjodaskalle from Obrestad on her mother’s side.
Although little is known about her life after she married Erling, there is little doubt that Astrid was one of the most powerful and important women in the region’s history.
The monument to Astrid was erected in 2016 next to Erling-bautaen, and was a gift to the municipality and its inhabitants from the Sola Lions Club. The monument was unveiled by the President of the Storting, Olemic Thommessen.
Neat stuff!
I rode on. My destination was a sizable town named Stavanger, but first I had to pass through a smaller one named Tananger that had a nice bakery in it. Good place to pause for an hour and digest more food.
I bought a mocha, a croissant, and a slice of cake to feed my legs. The cashier talked to me in English, then talked to the next customer in Norwegian, then got on the phone and had a lively conversation with someone in Russian. Meanwhile, a young man at the table next to mine had a long phone conversation in English with a relative – his mother I think – about his job and future. I gathered that he was Canadian, working for an oil company, and his work hours didn’t let him leave the facility often. He didn’t have much of a social life.
“Yeah, I guess this is just like any other place,” he opined, sounding bored. “I dunno. It’s alright. I go to work, go to the grocery store, go to the gym. I can do that anywhere. I mean, I could see more of the country, but there are only two good hikes to do in Norway.”
I realized I didn’t like this kid. To myself I thought: Well is the problem that you don’t know, or that you don’t care? If you don’t know, you can fix that. But if you don’t care, you have a real problem…
“Oh yeah they have a good ferry system,” he said. “I could go all the way up the country. But I dunno, long boat rides are scary right now. Did you hear about that cruise ship with the outbreak? Yeah, they say it was rats. People breathing rat turds. I don’t want to deal with that…”
I knew I was overhearing something I shouldn’t. People don’t want their fears being judged by strangers. I finished the croissant and turned on the noise cancellation in my headphones to drown him out. The last thought I had about it was: Wow, people’s ideas of risk can have so much variation. That probably explains a lot of the way the world is…
As I was leaving town, a cluster of teenagers on motorized scooters went blazing down the road past me, then bumped onto the sidewalk, turned around, and went blazing back the other way. The kid in the lead had the fanciest scooter, with large off-road tires. The local James Dean.
On the edge of town, a different bunch of kids came running out of a restaurant and excitedly chased the bike for a dozen yards while I waved at them. Their parents emerged a bit later carrying to-go food.
I turned west and went over a large hill, then found a bike path that began to slope downward and cut through a lot of suburbs. Pretty soon I was down by the sea again, in the heart of Stavanger.
A fallow field. Reminds me of a similar scene in Kansas, actually.
Aha! I must be close.
Another bike path carving down towards the city center. I approve.
This is the most dense urban area I’ve been in since Hamburg almost 2 weeks ago.
Yes, that’s a massive Burger King right in the center of the tourist district. It’s popular too.
Stavanger city center is very touristy. It’s disorienting after cycling through the hinterlands and mostly seeing shy rugged locals.
I checked in and did some sink laundry. Then it was time to find food, and since I was in an urban setting I deployed my FANCY shirt for the first time!
Another day with access to a shower… Another round of shower laundry!
Ready for an outing in my fancy shirt!
Fish soup was very tasty but not filling.
Fish stew and bread. Late lunch, and not quite enough for a complete dinner.
As I ate, I went through the local ferry schedule on my phone and decided to skip most of the island-hopping part of the Eurovelo 1, because it was a scheduling headache. The ferries arrived late, and the campsites I needed to stay at were on the other side of large hills that would take all day to climb. Not a good combo.
When that meal was done I walked the bike another four blocks and sat down at another restaurant. Bike tour appetite! I got fish and chips but was less interested in the chip than usual, so I boxed them up.
Out the window I saw a guy walking by carrying a huge fluffy cat over one shoulder. A Norwegian Forest Cat perhaps? It was looking around very curiously.
Two old gentlemen next to me had a discussion about Ukraine in Norwegian. I couldn’t parse much of it, but at one point they drew the nearby waitress in, and asked about her accent. She confessed that she was Ukrainian, and both men went “справа Украине!” She grinned. They talked a bit more but I couldn’t decipher it.
With my fries tucked away, I walked the bike through the rest of the wharf district. Restaurants and pubs were either shutting down or cranking up the music. The architecture was lovely but I felt strangely ill-at-ease. Perhaps it was the press of tourists? The poor signage and the lack of bike accommodations wasn’t helping. Google Maps kept telling me to ride the bike down staircases. How long has that been a problem here?
The tourist section on the waterfront. Loud and a little scary, relative to the Norway vibe I’m used to.
That’s some rust-free junk! It must be good luck.
Sven Oftedal. A well-traveled character.
Manhole Gallery: Ulefos Odin-L, west of Stavanger.
I wandered for quite a while, passing a few parks, some statues, the church… After weeks of the very Norwegian countryside, I felt like I was in a place that didn’t have a real personality.
The big old church wasn’t very distinctive. I’d seen a bunch of cities in Norway already with old central churches. The park area with the fountain was not particularly grand or manicured. The cobblestone tourist district had the usual boutique shops and pubs, but I’d seen Norway’s version of that before. The tourists walking around in it had that “blatantly rich” style that’s all designer jeans, handbags, interchangeable jewelry, odd-looking hair or skin that’s had a bit too much attention lavished on it — a lift, a lot of tanning, meticulous plucking, et cetera. And they had such dour expressions, like they weren’t even having a good time. Were they wandering around for a few days between legs of a cruise, or did they actually have business here? No idea. In the rest of Norway, people look up and even smile when they see the weird guy on the bike – even young women – but here, they don’t. They watch from the corner of their eye instead.
This city doesn’t really feel like Norway. It feels more like a coastal version of Hamburg. Perhaps it’s the very active port…