On almost all cruises you end up in a destination which is smaller than the rest, or further out from the action (Piraeus for Athens or Civitavecchia for Rome for example). Haugesund was that stop on this cruise.
The town was 20 minutes from the cruise port, and while it would have been walkable, we elected to take the shuttle bus to the centre. There, we walked along the pedestrianised shopping street, looking in the windows at the expensive items. To be honest, there wasn’t a whole lot more to do there.
Norma Jeane Mortenson
Just to show how desperate some places are to have something that makes it worth visting there Haugesund has a statue to Marilyn Monroe. This is on the basis not that she was born there, no, but that her father was “said to have come from the Haugesund area”. Not born in Haugesund but was believed to have been born somewhere in the area! And this comes from the offical city map provided when leaving the port area.
It gets worse. It also turns out that Martin Edward Mortensen, her purported father, not only may not have come from the Haugesund area but almost certainly isn’t her father. This is based on a 2022 DNA test that was done, which established that her father was the boss of her mother, with whom she was having an affair.
Apart from all that the link between Monroe and Haugesund is really quite strong!
It’s a good statue though and one of many that are in the Haugesund town centre. There’s been a lot of public art in the places that we have visited over the last few days and I am all for it.
Haugesund was our last stop before heading home tomorrow.
