Oslo

From Dublin we made our way up to Oslo on Scandinavia Airlines. This was our first time on SAS and were quite impressed with their efficient service. We arrived early evening and made our way by train to the area where our apartment that we rented through AirBnB was located. We stayed in a beautiful 1 bedroom apartment in the Aker Brygga area, which we later learned is a pretty posh area and is a popular area for professional athletes to live....not that we'd recognize any Norwegian professional athletes, but perhaps we brushed elbows and didn't even know it. The neighbourhood is a peninsula and is filled with shops, restaurants, residential apartments and some office buildings. The train station was about a 15 minute walk from the apartment and knowing that the area is closed to traffic and that taxis cost a pretty penny we decided we'd walk it. Z had purchased a sim card when we first arrived in Europe and this gave us access to GPS without running an exorbitant roaming bill. It proved to be extremely useful throughout entire trip and saved us from getting lost a few times. 

I'm not really sure what I expected for a Nordic country, but I found it cold in Oslo. After we settled into our apartment, our AirBnB host wished us a good evening and suggested we go enjoy dinner on a patio on that beautiful summer evening. Z and I walked around a little and saw all the locals sitting on the patios enjoying themselves immensely while we were both rather cold and decided sitting inside would be better for us. We enjoyed a lovely Italian dinner that first night. Yes, not exactly local cuisine, but we had just arrived and the restaurant was packed and the food looked really good. Which it was, but we got our first taste of how expensive Norway really is. We shared a margarita pizza and a risotto, each had a glass of wine and were astonished at the bill. But we were on vacation and knew that Norway would be the most expensive leg in this trip so we just blissfully ignored it....OK, I blissfully ignored, I could tell Z was going the exchange math in his head. We determined that it's around 4x more expensive there than it is back home. So we set out to find as many free or inexpensive things we could do for our 2.5 day stay there. 

We decided to buy a 24-hour Oslo Pass which gave us entry access to over 30 museums and free public transport....there are other perks but these were the two we were after. We ended up visiting the Nobel Peace Centre which celebrates Nobel Peace Prize winners. From there we walked along the waterfront, passed City Hall and to Akershus Castle and fortress; a medical castle from around 1300AD. The castle and fortress was originally built to protect Oslo, but has also been used as a prison. It is now used for official events and dinners for dignitaries and foreign heads of state. It is open to the public and you can walk around different parts. 

Just a short walk from the fortress are the ferry docks and from there we took a ferry across the Oslo Fjord to Bygdoy so we could visit the Norwegian Maritime museum and the Polar Ship fram museum. With Norway has over 25,000km of coastline making it the 8th country in the world with the longest coastline and it's no wonder that it is one of the world's leading maritime nations. Also not surprising then is that they would have several nautical museums. The Norwegian Maritime museum gave us a good look at the seafaring culture of Norway. On display are numerous different model vessels used in Norway over the years. We travelled along the Norwegian coast via a panoramic video presentation. 

The Polar Ship fram museum houses two of the world's most famous polar exploration ships, the Fram and Gjoa. You can walk onto the Fram and get a taste of what the ship was like and the confined working and living spaces. To think that these ships were used to explore the Arctic and Northwest Passage in the late 1800's and early 1900's is just amazing. A 15 minute walk from there is the Viking Ship Museum which displays the archaeological finds 3 viking ships including the completely whole Oseberg ship. 


We really wanted to see Holmenkollen ski jump, so after a wonderful lunch on the waterfront, we hopped onto a ferry to bring us back to Aker Bryggs and made our way to the train station. Holmenkollen is quite the site to see. We arrived a little late but during the summer it's set up with a zip line from the top. To get to the top you have to take an elevator, but once up there you have an amazing 360 degree panoramic view of Oslo. It's quite breathtaking. Inside you will also find the world's oldest ski museum and it was quite fascinating to see old wooden skis that were used in competitions. 

We also ended up in the latest Oslo City Hall which opened in 1950 just in time for the city's 900th anniversary. Adorned on the walls of the central hall are motifs depicting Norwegian history, culture and working life. City Hall is one of Oslo's most famous buildings because each year on December 10th the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held there. 

Oslo is a mix of old architecture and new modern architecture. A good example of new architecture is the Oslo Opera House. The angled exterior is made to look like it is rising from out of the water. Construction started in 2003 and was completed ahead of schedule and under budget in 2007. The architecture of the building is such that it allows for people and in fact invites people to walk up the roof and enjoy beautiful panoramic views of the city. 

We made a trip to a town called Drobak which lies at the narrowest point of Oslo Fjord. It's about a 1.5 hour ferry ride from the docks in Oslo. This quaint town is known for its 18th and 19th century wooden houses and for the region's all-year Christmas house. I can only imagine what this town looks like snow covered in the winter....probably a little like somewhere where Santa Claus might live. In fact he might actually live there and spend his summers providing information to tourists at the town's tourist centre while making his way through the pile of letters addressed to him. Walking around the town's main attractions didn't take too long...we had planned to stay the day there but it started to rain a little and we really did finish exploring in just over an hour and so luckily the return ferry was leaving at the same time so we caught it back to Oslo.

Like our other two stops in this adventure, we did a free walking tour in Oslo. Hats off, or perhaps better to say hats on....to our guide who took us around the city despite the cold and rainy conditions. It was a very informative walking tour that took us around to some of the well known sites like the Royal Palace, the National Gallery, and the Parliament. This tour provided enough insight to determine whether at some other point in your stay you'd like to go back to any of these places and tour them more.

Another popular attraction is located in Frogner Park. This beautiful park houses the world's largest collections of sculptures made by a single artist. The artist, Norwegian sculpture Gustav Vigeland. The sculptures all depict humans and appear to be expressing the many different emotions that we as humans feel...not sure if that was the intent, but that is what we settled on as the meaning. The sculptures are immaculate and are all made of either granite, bronze or wrought iron. It is fascinating walking along the path that leads up to the Monolith Plateau where you find the Monolith totem that is meant to represent the circle of life. This is a main attraction at the park, but the park itself also provides plenty of open space, 45 hectares, for people to enjoy. We saw families enjoying picnics, runners out for their evening run, friends and families enjoying each other's company. It looked like a serene place in the middle of the city to get away from it all.

Oslo was a great stop. The city has a lot to offer tourists with plenty of things to do rather inexpensively. The transportation system is very good with trains, trams and buses that will take you pretty much anywhere. The city is pretty walkable too and we stayed in just the right area to be able to walk around to most of the attractions we wanted to see. There is probably a lot more that we didn't get a chance to explore, but our visit gave us a good taste of what Oslo has to offer.