Kristiansand, Norway

With 75,000 inhabitants, KRISTIANSAND, some 30km on along the E18 from Lillesand, is Norway's fifth largest town and a part-time holiday resort, a genial, energetic place which thrives on its ferry connections with Denmark, its busy marinas and its passable sandy beaches. In summer, the seafront and adjoining streets are a frenetic bustle of cocktail bars, fast-food joints and flirting holidaymakers, and even in winter Norwegians come here to live it up. Like so many other Scandinavian towns, Kristiansand was founded by and named after Christian IV, who saw an opportunity to strengthen his coastal defences here. Building started in 1641, and the town has retained the spacious quadrant plan that characterized all Christian's projects. There are few specific sights, but it's worth a quick look around, especially when everyone else has gone to the beach and left the central pedestrianized streets relatively empty. Kristiansand is also just a few kilometres from the Kristiansand Kanonmuseum, the forbidding remains of a large coastal gun battery built during the German occupation of World War II.