Mandal

Mandal is the southernmost town in Norway, built along a river mouth where timber and salmon made it prosperous in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and its old quarter is a dense grid of white-painted wooden houses on narrow streets, among the best preserved on the southern coast. Just outside the centre lies Sjosanden, an eight-hundred-metre stretch of pale sand backed by pines, unusual for Norway in being a genuine sand beach of that size and the reason the town fills in July. The painter Adolph Tidemand and the sculptor Gustav Vigeland both came from here, and the Vigeland House museum occupies his childhood home. The Furulunden pine wood beside the beach has marked walking paths.

What you actually see

• The white town - a grid of preserved timber houses in the old quarter.
• Sjosanden - eight hundred metres of sand backed by pine woods.
• Furulunden - a coastal pine forest with paths beside the beach.
• The Vigeland House - the sculptor's childhood home as a museum.

When to go

June to August for the beach and the full summer season, when the town is busiest; May and September are quiet and pleasant for walking. Winter closes most of the seasonal businesses.

Honest expectations

The town fills with Norwegian holidaymakers in July, and accommodation prices rise accordingly. The sea is around eighteen degrees at best. Outside summer the old quarter is quiet with limited eating options.

Nearby

Lindesnes lighthouse is west; Kristiansand and the Blindleia channel lie east.