Visiting Oslo

Oslo Day 1

We landed in Oslo around 11am. The airport is quite a distance out of town, but they have a very efficient train service to get you to Oslo centre in about 20 minutes. After checking in at our hotel, we headed out to explore the city. The weather was not great so pretty much the first thing we did was take shelter in the central library and had a coffee there. It's a wonderful library, well worth a visit in itself.

Opera House

Once the rain had stopped, we walked to the opera house on the sea front. It's an impressive piece of architecture that affords great views of the bay from its root. That's if you manage to hang on and not get blown off.

Munch museum

Next we headed to the Munch museum, just behind the opera house. It was about 5pm when we arrived, so there were no queues to buy tickets. Most famous for being the home of Munch's "Scream" painting, it is well worth a visit in its own right.

What most people don't know, me included, is that Munch created more than one version his most famous artwork, The Scream. There are versions using different mediums. The three most important ones are displayed in an octagonal room, where only one version is visible at any one time. They alternate every 30 minutes. They say this is to protect the painting from over exposure to too much light. I reckon it's to encourage you to visit the rest of the museum! These are the three pictures on show in that room.

Olivia restaurant

We finished the day with a lovely meal in the Olivia Italian restaurant. Living in Luxembourg, the idea of free water in restaurants is alien to us, so we were very happy to see that they give it away in bucket loads. The beer on the other hand costs €11 for a pint!

Oslo Day 2

The next day we were met by a Ukrainian friend and her partner, who gave us a great tour of Oslo for the next two days.

Vigeland park

First up was Vigeland park, which is a large park containing a lot of sculptures. The most famous one being this angry boy.

He reminded me a bit of mannequin piss in Brussels. In fact the sculpture has been stolen on numerous occasions, but they always managed to return it.

The centre piece of the whole park is this massive sculpture, carved from one piece of rock.

Holmenkollen

After the park, we got the metro to Holmenkollen, an olympic ski jump area. The metro ride takes you through a lovely wooded residential area.

We had a lovely picnic on Ukrainian national day with a Norwegian beer!

Frognersteren

Next we took the metro further up the hill to Frognersteren, where we had a short in the nature bordering the city.

Boat ride

We finished the day's touring with a boat ride around the bay, which because it was part of the public transport system, cost nothing extra.

Egond restautant

Finally, we sat down in the Egond restaurant near the central train station. Not as nice as the Olivia restaurant the day before, but still a good choice.

Oslo Day 3

Bygdoy

On our last full day in Oslo, our friends took us to the Bygdoy peninsuala visit the folk musem. The weather was much sunnier which made the visit even more pleasurable.

Volkmuseum

The folk museum is an outdoor museum recreating how Norwegians traditionally lived in various parts of the country. It is well worth a visit.

There was an impressive performance by the country's folk dancing group.

Huk bay

After the folk museum, we finished the day with another picnic, this time in Huk Bay.

Our friends had brought along their little gas grill, so we had some lovely grilled sausages.

Oslo Day 4

The next day our train left for Gothenburg later in the afternoon, so we still had time to discover the city a little more in the morning.

First we visited the church near our hotel, which had been shut whenever we turned up the previous days.

Finally, we managed to see the royal palace. Not as impressive as Buckingham palace, but then they don't take their royal family so serious I don't think. In the photo, the right hand side of the building is actually being renovated, so what you see is in fact a giant painting covering the ongoing works.

And so finished our visit to Oslo. Next up: Gothenburg.