6 things you only find in Sandnes

Blink Festival in Sandnes. photo: Blink Festival

6 things you only find in Sandnes

Not many places can boast of a skiing festival in the summer and a record shop that has survived since 1918 – Sandnes can.

 

Pottery, bicycles and perhaps Norway’s most depressing bus station – what is Sandnes really known for?

Since Sandnes cuckoos are frothing at being called Stavanger’s kid brother, byas has taken a sideways glance at what unique things the town (mainly the center) has to offer. With a tiny dose of self-irony, of course!

1. Ruten

Ruten, The bus and Train station in Sandnes. Photo Wikipedia

Loved and hated – You can not call yourself a true Sandnes Gauk (cuckoo) without having an ambivalent relationship with this place. Ruten may not be known to be nice to look at, but it is undoubtedly an important hub in Sandnes city. Here you will find bus, train and taxi, not to mention a cross section of Sandnes’ youth chillin’ outside the 7-11 (Narvesen) while waiting for the next bus.

2. Langgata

The city’s most famous pedestrian street was built in 1847 and became a pedestrian street in the late 1970’s. Although Langgata today has fewer visitors than it had in its heyday, it continues to be an important part of the cityscape and offers unique stores that can not find other places.

3. Ivar Skei

Sandnes’ only independent record store has sold LPs, CDs, notes and everything a music enthusiast may wish for since 1918.

At a time when more and more record stores disappear from the streets and into the shopping malls, Ivar Skei has managed to survive as a fixture in Gjesdalveien. Well worth a visit!

4. Kebaben

Yes, kebabs are found on many street corners around the country, but few have gained so much space in people’s hearts (and stomachs) as Kebaben. Sandnes’s oldest kebab shop has almost become an institution for hungry Sandnes cuckoos!

In addition to being a hotspot for night food, Kebaben is now also a chain concept “designed to offer the market a specially made kebab product for the Nordic palates” and has spread to several Norwegian cities.

5. BLINK-festival

Since its inception, The “Target” festival has evolved into the world’s largest skiing event in the summer. The festival has become the time of year when the world’s skiing elite converge in Sandnes, and with them tens of thousands of spectators and international media.

6. Kvadrat

As one of Norway’s largest shopping malls, Kvadrat is an inevitable shopping destination for tourists as well as Rogalandians themselves.

Nothing is worse than Kvadrat in the middle of the Christmas rush – but there is no somehow no way to avoid the big gray building next to the European route 39.

Like “Ruten”, Kvadrat is both loved and hated; Gray and boring on the outside – but a beloved place for schoolchildren and people on the go!

 

© Byas.no / Norway Today