If Stavanger was a woman,one would pass by without giving it a second look

It used to be a canning and fishing city until last century when an oil discovery put paid to that,now it is the petroleum capital of Norway.If the world petroleum implies anything it first an foremost implies money.Lots of money.But looking around Stavanger you can't help but ask yourself - where does the money go?It is certainly not spent on this town.Several years ago, I think, four,my sister,her husband and myself took this same cruise on the QM,I remember a particular house [ clearly seen from the ship], scruffy,badly kept and in need of TLC and four years hence nothing has changed, only the house got uglier and scruffier.When in Stavanger the first time,I went on a tour to the 25 miles long Lysefjord and the Pulpit Rock.The Pulpit Rock [Preikestolen in Norwegian] is a rock formation which protrudes vertically from the mountainside and has become the only outstanding tourist attraction of the city,be it an accidental one, there is also a canning museum and a maritime museum.The almost solitary coffee shop Vaaland Dampbakeri & Conditori had dirty tables,each and every one of them,the croissant massive but of a strange shiny colour and the dough lumpy and heavy,the only almost redeeming feature was the latte,not the best,but palatable.The bakeri [bakery to you and me] had no WC,but the patrons are allowed to use the immaculately kept toilets in the Myhregaarden hotel next door,with the most delightful receptionist.There were numerous shops full of the Scandinavian exquisite furnishings one could die for,yet the architecture of the city was so disappointing.As if the Norwegians cared more for what is inside their home and not how their homes look on the outside.And maybe this is the way it should be.