Arendal - family fun all year!

Tuva Malene Stenersen Peplow og Sarah Alexandra Nissen Sjøkvist i et av rommene - Fengselshotellet - Arendal .
Photo: Gjermund Glesnes

Arendal is a fantastic destination for the family even when it's not summer and sun. We took a look at the city in autumn.

Glassheisen - Arendal .
Photo: Gjermund Glesnes

- Then it's down to the scary basement, smiles Sarah Alexandra Nissen Sjøkvist and leads the way down the stairs in the Prison Hotel in Arendal.

It is a hotel completely out of the ordinary. Right up until 2020, the red brick building from 1862 was a real prison.

It gives the guests an exciting bonus. Not only does the hotel have striped prison uniforms and toy handcuffs for loan. In the transformation from cells to hotel rooms, most things have also been preserved. Only the beds have received a significant – and comfortable – upgrade.

håndjern på resepsjonsdisken på Fengselshotellet

The toilet and sink, however, have been retained. The same goes for the iron doors with window shutters, although they too have received an important improvement: Now they can both be opened and closed as you wish, also from the inside.

But one cell is exactly as before.

- Dad was in it, Tuva Malene Stenersen tells Peplow and adds that he saw her walking for the first time in the visiting room at the prison.

- Can we write it?

- Yes, it's perfectly fine for him. He wants to come back to visit here himself, Tuva replies after a quick phone call to check.

to fanger i luftegård i fengsel

An exciting experience

Full transparency about the past is also the mantra of prison director Audun Garthe. He himself has been an involuntary resident of the prison and wore real anklets when the Prison Hotel opened in 2022.

His first-hand experience makes the overnight stay even more exciting. Audun is happy to give guests a guided tour of the prison hotel's nooks, crannies and exciting stories.

- Do you see that door? Norway's biggest escape took place there. Eight prisoners. Imagine that!

As a paying prison guest, you can also try out a real smooth cell. And who in the family manages to solve the escape room's crime mystery?

to fanger som løser krimgåte

This cell has not been changed since it was a prison.

Cellen har ikke blitt forandret fra det var fengsel .
Photo: Gjermund Glesnes

bilder og babyklær på utstilling

Reminiscence for all generations

500 meters away is another surprising family favourite. Because who thinks of a museum when the family is going on fun adventures? Nevertheless, the KUBEN museum has managed to become just that: A place where families with small children meet when they want to do something exciting.

Here, all the exhibitions have been carefully designed to engage the children as well.

- Now we first travel back to the old days. We just have to press this button. Do you see behind me, that a door opens? asks museum pedagogue Kari Helene Kullerud as she presses the upside-down teacup, which is like the time machine to the exhibition "Childhood".

It takes us to childhood as it was around 1910, in the 1960s and 1990s. And everything in the exhibition is made on the children's terms.

Here, children of the 60s singing "I want a blue balloon" can play in the skipping rope, and dance along to "Barbie Girl" in a hairbrush in the 90s. They can follow the morning gymnastics on the radio - with a gymnast on a video screen as an instructor - milk a pretend cow by hand, dress in old-fashioned clothes, and "cook" on a hundred-year-old iron stove.

- The objects in our official collection have a museum number. Then we have to take good care of them. That's why we went to Finn and bought another stove that the children can play with, explains Kari Helene.

This way of thinking permeates the entire state-of-the-art museum. Even the Stone Age has become exciting there! Because what does a stone arrowhead really look like? And who can guess which animals hide within the hatches with fur, antlers, bones and tendons?

Museum educator Kari Helene Kullerud presses the button that opens the CHILDHOOD exhibition

Museumspedagog Kari Helene Kullerud trykker på knappen som åpner BARNDOM .
Photo: Gjermund Glesnes

Arendal's sweet temptations

Even prison hotel birds have to have more than water and bread, and Arendal offers good opportunities all year round, too.

The first stop is almost mandatory. Although many towns have eventually got their own chocolate factory, few or none are quite like Heimdal Chokolade. It is Norway's oldest small chocolate producer. Chocolate master Morten Arnesen has actually conjured up his delicious temptations for well over 30 years.

- I can't even smell it anymore. But I hear from the customers that it smells wonderful here. And the children's eyes light up when they come in the door, he smiles.

Phichittra Ngambanphue (nærmest) og Tanaporn Hammarstroem støper sjokoladefigurer - Heimdal Chokolade - Arendal

sjokoladesprøyte

There are many temptations at Heimdal Chokolade.

sjokoladestenger

Daglig leder Morten Arnesen på Heimdal Chockolade .
Photo: Gjermund Glesnes

The family's food eldorado

As all parents know: "Proper" food is also necessary.

If long sit-down meals wear too hard on the patience of the youngest, the "world-famous" fish cakes at Fiskebrygga are a sure winner - perhaps followed by the equally acclaimed monks at Strand Café directly opposite.

Otherwise, the restaurants are almost side by side along beautiful Pollen. And a couple of streets up in the center is the place that stops all discussions:

Falafel from the Middle East? Tortillas from Central America? Charcoal grilled burger? Pizza? At Streetfood Arendal, everyone in the family can choose their favorite dinner - before you sit together and enjoy the food at one of the tables under the blooming "cherry trees".

- I start by making a poolish, a predough. Then I add the rest of the ingredients the next day and let it rise. On the fourth day, the dough is ready to bake pizzas, says Thomas Gale.

Then he stretches out the pizza in the best Italian way, sprinkles on spicy Calabrian njuda sausage and sticks the piece of art into the flames in the wood-burning oven. Soon a wonderful aroma of soft pizza base with black scorch marks spreads from the plate.

- Bon appetit, smiles Thomas.

Thomas Gale lager pizza i Pizzeria Comunale - Arendal Street Food - Arendal

Thomas Gale lager pizza i Arendal Streetfood

Thomas Gale makes delicious pizza at Arendal Streetfood that guests can enjoy in pleasant surroundings.

gjester som sitter ved bordet i arendal street food

Pizza Comunale i Arendal Streetfood .
Photo: Gjermund Glesnes

Active fun in the city

No trip to Arendal is complete without a trip with the Glass lift up to Fløyheia. The 60 meters go by at rocket speed, and from the top you get a fantastic view of the city centre, Hisøy, Tromøy and out to Galtesund.

Also set aside time to study the graffiti in the tunnel leading to the lift itself. It must then be one of Norway's most colorful?

Tunnelen til Glassheisen

Once back down, maybe it's time to let the kids "burn off some gunpowder"? Then the possibilities are many. Right outside the tunnel, on Torvet, is a large playground full of fun. If you follow Pollen out past the Science Center - in itself a real highlight when it reopens in its redesigned livery in January 2024 - you will come to Barbu Park with everything from street basketball and a skate track to a super playground.

lekeapparat

If it's more tempting to be indoors, you can bounce and do somersaults in the trampoline center Skyland Aktivitetspark, sneak around and try to hit dad with laser tag, put on your glasses and test VR games, frolic in Bulder Lekeland, ...

Or how about making the trip to the outdoor area Hove to test the climbing park? Or push the limits from rocks and boulders - with a wetsuit - in the activity coasteering?

You don't need summer and sun to have a top family weekend in Arendal. You just need a weekend and each other. Good trip!