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Exploring Oslo

Unfortunately, the weather forecast was right and the rain didn’t let up all day.  There were no border checks so maybe we could have smuggled in more booze.  We headed to a large car park in the north of the city where motorhomes could camp free for 48 hours. It was in a nice parkland area with a lake and walking trails and was next to the Norwegian Olympic training facility buildings.  Even better it had a metro stop 5 minutes’ walk away where we could catch a metro straight into the city centre, taking just 15 minutes.  The weather was so bad we decided there was no point rushing into the city that evening, and thought we’d use the opportunity to do some internet jobs and research on where to visit. As per our usual luck with SIM cards our Swedish one wouldn’t work in our router now. Even our phone signals were poor, so we hoped it was just a poor reception spot.  We booked a city cycle tour for the morning. There was Swiss cousin of Lo11y parked near us.

We awoke to a beautiful sunny morning.   The metro ride into town was so easy and it had good views looking down on the city.  We only just got to the bike tour start point in the port area in the nick of time.  We always find these cycle tours are an excellent way of getting to know a city and learn some interesting facts. Tina, our guide, was actually Danish but has lived in Norway for over 20 years. She enjoyed telling us how Denmark had ruled Norway many times through history. It was a good three-hour tour and we visited the 13th century Akerhaus Castle and Fortress which had good views of the waterfront, the City Hall which had very intricate decorations inside, The Royal Palace (home to the Norwegian Royal family), which stood at the end of the main city street Karl Johans Gate, and our favourite spot was Vigeland Park which is the world’s largest sculpture park filled with the works of the Norwegian sculptor Gustav Vigeland. There are over 200 works depicting all stages of life. The statues were all naked, the reason being it makes them ageless, whereas the clothing would link them to a certain era.  My particular favourite was the one of an angry child which reminded me of Colin’s baby photos. An obelisk presides over the park composed of intertwined bodies representing life’s uphill struggles.  On the way back to the tour base we passed though Aker Brygge, an exclusive area of preserved industrial buildings, and home to many bars and restaurants and museums.

The weather was wonderfully warm now. After a coffee and a Norwegian pancake with brown cheese (with a surprisingly sweet taste) we continued exploring the central sights on foot. We walked up onto the roof of the Opera House which is covered in white marble and granite making it glisten like ice in the sunshine.  Next door to it is the Munch Museum housed in an interesting 16 storey glass building. The main Munch exhibits are centred on just three of the floors.  The works most visitors are there to see are three versions of The Scream.  They rotate them every half an hour, so we were lucky to see two of them. 

The streets were buzzing on the sunny Sunday late afternoon. This was Norway’s midsummer night, but it was much lower key than Sweden’s celebrations. There were some stalls with free flowers where people where making their own head dress, and we believe fires were to be lit around the waterfront later in the evening. Another popular thing to do is to go in a floating sauna and when you need to cool off you jump into the fjord.  Tina had warned us the water may not be too clean after heavy rains, so it wasn’t too appealing for us. 

We strolled back to the Aker Brygge area and had a drink in the sunshine, then were lucky to get a table in the sunshine at a popular bistro restaurant.  We’d thoroughly enjoyed our day and have to say we’re really impressed with Oslo.  There is so much to see, we’d only scratched the surface of it, but we planned to come back in the following morning to pick up a few more sites before we headed out again.

The fabulous weather continued, and we revisited the City Hall again to have a closer look at the rooms inside. It’s not the most attractive building on the outside, but the inside is decorated with stunning artwork. There are rooms that can be used for wedding ceremonies and other events.

Next we visited the Nobel Peace Centre, housed in an old train station. It was so interesting to learn more about how the Nobel Peace Prize came into existence.  We learnt that Alfred Nobel had worked in his father’s arms factory and had even invented dynamite while there. His pacifist believes were very at odds with this though, and he shocked a lot of people when he died by leaving his vast accrued wealth in a fund to be used for five Nobel prizes (peace, literature, chemistry, physics and medicine). The awards are chosen annually and are presented in the City Hall. The exhibition takes you through the history of Alfred Nobel and winners. It was interesting to see initially the peace awards were linked to World War One and Two events, then moved into areas of human rights with race and woman’s rights being quite prominent. In another area, there were screens showing the story for all the past winners. There was also a current exhibition on the 2023 winner, Narge Mohammdi, who has fought for more than 20 years for women’s rights in Iran. She is imprisoned in Iran, where she still ensures a spotlight is shone on the Iranian regime’s treatment of women. There was also an exhibition of Yoko Ono’s peace quests over the years.

After we’d finished at the exhibition we caught a tram to the Grunnerlokka district which is the cool happening place to hang out. Being a Monday, it wasn’t quite so happening, but we had a nice walk down the river back into the city. We were amused to see air conditioned dog parks on the route.

There are so many sites we didn’t have time to cover, so we’ll definitely look forward to coming back to Oslo in the future.  We headed back to Lo11y and set off out of the city towards more wild scenic areas.

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