Day 14-15: Oslo, Norway

Yesterday started slow. The train, for all it’s novelty, did not make for the best sleep. Between the swaying and the noise of the tracks neither Jackie nor I slept very deeply. Then starting at around 5:30 in the morning the train started stopping and picking up passengers in the stations on the outskirts of Oslo. We arrived at 6:30, drowsy and in need of our new staple… coffee.

We killed an hour and a half at the train station using free wifi to e-mail and post the last entry about Flam (check it out here, it was killer). Then we locked our stuff up in a locker and set off to explore Oslo.

We started by trekking over to the City Hall, which came highly recommended. Unfortunately, due to elections it has been closed to the public until the week after next. With heavy hearts we made towards the ferry terminal to scope out our ride to Copenhagen.

Nearby was the Oslo Opera house, which was definitely worth walking around. The building was designed to double as a public space for openair concerts, so the roof of the building is sloped towards the harbour. The glass building and clear day made for some great photos.

Atop the Opera house we planned out the rest of our day. 

Next, we decided to head over to Frogner Park. The park is a massive 75 acres and located on the outskirts of the city centre. It houses 600 sculpted figures that the city commissioned the Norwegian sculptor, Gustav Vigeland, to create. They tell the story of life from infancy to adulthood. In the centre of the park was a large pillar of sculpted people (not shown) as well as an impressive fountain.

We dined nearby at Curry and Ketchup, the Indian restaurant aforementioned. It was delicious!

Afterwards we went back to the train station for our bags and checked in to the same Hostel as our last Oslo stay. Despite it only being 18:00 we were both exhausted and, after doing a bit of Skype calling and reading, fell asleep for the remainder of the night.

Today we decided we wanted to see the Oslo ski jump, Holmenkollen. It was re-built for the 2011 World Ski Jump Championship and it is reputed to have the best overlook of Oslo. When we left the hostel, however, the whole city was entrenched in fog as thick as pea soup. Not discouraged, we made the trip on the metro system over to the jump.  We decided that we would skip the entry fee to the top since there was nothing to see anyway. Outside of the ski museum though was a simulator that looked pretty cool. Not failing any of the requirements (picture) we bought our tickets.

After 4 minutes of stimulating fun, we walked down into the seating arena surrounding the ski jump site.

 *Looking up side railing of ski jump.

Just beside the jump there was a bicycle race through the mud, which we watched for a few minutes cheering on the muddy cyclists as they whizzed past in the fog.

Since we had all day transit passes and were done with looking into the grey fog, we took the reputed most ‘scenic’ route through the city admiring Oslo’s architecture and landmarks. The route ended pretty close to that Indian restaurant and since we agreed we had liked it so much yesterday we went back for another great lunch.

By now it was time to make for the boat so we said our good-byes to Oslo and hopped aboard. We took some more photos as we cast off and left Norway.

On first impressions, it aught to make a better night sleep than the train, though that is yet to be determined. Come tomorrow morning we will set foot on mainland Europe as we continue our legendary journey to Denmark. Farvel!