Norway
When you have to fly so far to get to a place like Russia, it only makes sense to find another place on your travel checklist that is nearby, or can break up that long flight home. Norway would be that checkmark for us. We had been to all the other Scandinavian countries already; Sweden, Finland and Denmark. We had also heard and seen so many great things about Norway.
6/6
We flew from St Petersburg to Oslo via Moscow. After arriving at the airport we collected our luggage and caught the Airport-City train into the heart of Oslo. Apparently it was just a short walk from the Train station to our hotel, but not having our bearings and hauling that heavy luggage, we jumped in a taxi for the 3 minute drive. The cost of the taxi should have been our first clue as to how expensive Norway was going to be.
The Scandic Grensen is a very modern hotel in a central part of the city. The rooms weren't big, but very clean and so modern they didn't even have a phone in the room yet. Even though the trams were passing right below us, you couldn't hear them if the window was closed, if the window was open though...
6/7
After our complimentary breakfast buffet, we walked up our street to the Royal Palace as the first stage of our do it yourself sightseeing tour. No tour guides for us on this next stage of our holidays.
The Royal Palace (aka Slottet or Det kongelige slott) in Oslo was built in the first half of the 19th century as the Norwegian residence of the French-born King Charles III of Norway, who reigned as king of Norway and Sweden. The palace is the official residence of the present Norwegian monarch.
Around the palace is some lovely gardens, on one side the Slottsparken, on the other side Dronningparken. The sign seen most often around the park is "No Grilling", apparently most anything is allowed, but don't you dare grill.
From the palace we walked back towards the waterfront and past the National Theater, it is one of Norway's largest and most prominent venues for dramatic arts. The theatre had its first performance in 1899
Walking back through the town, you pass many historic and odd sights, the Oslo Trading building, Tourist Trains, Dr. Jekyll's pub, and odd electric cars. We even passed an art gallery displaying Vancouver's Rock Legend Bryan Adams photographs. To keep my blog PG I won't show the full sized naked photo of P!NK that was displayed in the front window.
The Oslo harbour is the center of a huge water based transportation hub, small ships, ferries, old boats, and new boats. The harbour is home to many restaurants and bars as well as the world famous Nobel Peace Center. On the far side of the harbour is a statue of US president Franklin Roosevelt, a tribute for his help of Norway during World War II.
Akershus Festning or Akershus Fortress is a medieval castle that was built to protect Oslo. Constructed to protect Oslo after an attack in 1287, it sits on the hillside overlooking the harbour. The thing that caught us off guard was that there was no tickets booth or entry fee, the entire structure was free to wander as you wanted, part of the Oslo park type system.
It was really starting to rain now, so they probably didn't need to worry to much about people grilling at the Fortress. We stopped under a tree to watch the rehearsal for some play, but after 5 minutes of weirdness, we wandered away into other areas of the fortress.
As we left the Fortress it really started raining, so we started making a bee-line for the Opera house to get some shelter. This took us past a military academy and some more unique statues and structures.
By the time we got to the Oslo Opera House we were drenched. That's where we bought our best souvenirs ever... 2 'singing in the rain' umbrellas, one black, one white. The rain was coming down so hard, it was just best to stay inside instead of exploring the sloped roofs.
Completed in 2007 at a cost of 4 Billion NOK (over $600,000,000 CDN), the white granite and marble building is very unique with it's oak waving wall and custom lit glass interior. There was nothing playing at the Opera that we wanted to see, so after drying off a bit and enjoying a $30 dry sandwich and a cookie it was time to move on.
The rains had slowed enough that we could explore more with our new umbrellas.
The Domkirken (Oslo Cathedral) in the center of town dates from 1694-1697.
From the cathedral it's a short walk up the pedestrian shopping street called Johan's gate, you just never know what you will see.
This impressive building is the Norwegian Parliament building.
The City hall in Oslo is kind of an ugly brown brick building on the outside, built during the 30's and 40's...
but inside, it's a whole other story. Each room of the building is like an art gallery. Various contests were held to decide who would decorate City Hall. In all, eight painters and 17 sculptors were hired. Most of the work was completed by the opening of the hall in 1950.
After chillaxing in the room for a bit, we were recommended to go back to the harbour for dinner, we decided to skip the Spiseri, Pub & Dansealong as well as the many outdoor-in-the-rain restaurants.
Instead of dancing or drowning we chose Olivia's, a nice Italian restaurant with great food, good beer, and a view of the harbour. Turns out this was a chain restaurant and we would keep seeing them around Norway.
Even though we had our umbrellas, it actually stopped raining for a while, so we did the slow walk around the harbour to check out the scenery and their art installations. They really like their nudes here in Oslo, we didn't have a clue how much until the next day.
6/8
Oslo is a pretty big city, and although you can get around most of it by foot, with this being our last day we decided to do the Hop On/Hop Off Bus thing for the day. This would allow us to get to some of the sights further out of the city and cover more ground. We just had to patiently wait by a babbling fountain for the double decker red bus to arrive.
Our first Hop-Off stop would be Frogner Park, home to the Vigeland sculpture installation. The sculpture area in Frogner Park covers 80 acres and features 212 bronze and granite sculptures, all designed by Gustav Vigeland. The permanent sculptures were installed between 1924 and 1943. It's like being inside a giant bronze nudist colony. A long bridge of statues leads to a central square.
For some odd reason, 'Angry Boy' seems to be the most popular statue, just seems annoying to me. My favourite statue has a very different theme.
The centerpiece of the square is the Monolith, standing almost 18 Meters high and with 121 twisted human forms, it can be seen from anywhere in the park.
On either side of the raised square was these interesting wrought iron gates, men to the North, ladies to the South. You could just walk around them so they didn't keep anybody out.
There was truly some very odd historical art installations in this park. I have never seen an art installation like this one before, and I am pretty sure I will never see one again. It is the most popular park in Oslo for a reason.
We Hopped back on to our bus after a short wait, and headed to the historical Bygdøy Neighborhood on the West side of Oslo. Bygdøy is famous for it's collection of museums, our first stop would be the open air Norsk Folkemuseum with more than 150 buildings, relocated from towns and rural districts. It was established in 1881 and has buildings dating back to the 13th century.
One of the most impressive buildings here is the Gol Stave Church, this wooden structure has been scientifically dated back to 1212.
Each of the areas here consists of buildings from a specific part of Norway, they have been maintained to appear as they did during their active time periods, and in fact surround a fully functioning farm.
Back out to the road to Hop back on the bus for a short trip to the next Museum.
The Viking Ship museum is not a large museum but it contains 3 of the most important Viking artifacts in Norway. Three preserved ships date back to the 9th Century, and were recovered from burial mounds by archaeologists in the areas of Tune, Gokstad, and Oseberg.
Vikings have always been a fascinating subject, whether it is the Vikings TV series, or examining the mythology, and history of these warriors. Hard to believe how far they were able to travel in these ships, including Canada and most of Europe.
Oseberg Ship
Gokstad Ship
Tune Ship
A video display in one wing shows the history, and how this ship, artifacts and human remains came to be found at the Tune burial site.
Before moving on, we sat outside the museum , and I shared my shrimp sandwich with some friendly locals.
Having seen the two museums we wanted to see in Bygdøy neighborhood, we hopped back on to our Hop On Hop Off bus and rode the bus back around to the main part of the city.
Since it wasn't raining, we thought maybe we could go by the Oslo Opera House and walk the sloped roofs while it was dry, of course as soon as we get there, it starts raining again.
It was raining still, so we figured spending some time indoors at the Nasjonalgalleriet (National Gallery) would be a good way to stay dry. Turns out the museum is free today!, and this is where the famous painting 'The Scream' by Edvard Munch is located.
As it turns out, it's quite an interesting museum including artwork from antiquity to baroque, from impressionism to Romanticism, and from Modernism to the 1950's. Once again an opportunity to see artwork by Carl Sohn, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, and the 2 Auguste's; Rodin and Renoir. As in the past, I will let you sort out which is which.
I can't say I understand the impressionist paintings, but they sure are fun to laugh at. Of course no museum visit is complete without seeing a religious icon.
By the time we had done the full circuit of the museum, this picture of the exit door looked really good. Time to head back to our room, dry off and rest our feet. When we saw the Coffee shop in our hotel was open, we decided to get a large warm beverage.
While sitting in the coffee shop enjoying our tea and snack, we see a van pull up from a porter service. They transfer luggage between Oslo and Bergen. I checked it out online, and first thing it states is that it's for those doing the Norway in a Nutshell, why carry your luggage? I Contacted them with the girl from receptions cellphone (because our hotel doesn't have phones yet), and now we don't need to worry about our luggage the next day, they will meet me in the lobby before we head to the train station.
This might be one of the best photos I took all trip
For our last night in Oslo, we decided to do something special and had dinner at the oldest restaurant in Oslo. The Engebret Cafe dates back to 1857, the prices don't... our bill came to $238 Canadian. But the food was delicious, even if their beer was Aass.
We had a nice stroll back to our hotel without any rain, nice way to end our time in Oslo.
6/9
We woke up a little early, and after turning our bags over to the Porter service, we had our complimentary buffet breakfast before heading to the train station for the first part of our day long Norway in a Nutshell tour.