Oslo Wrap-up

Oslo Wrap-up 

** I'm calling my first week in Oslo my "spa time." Why? Let's just say that Montezuma sure got around! By day 5, I called the urgent out-of-hours line for advice (and a possible hospital referral). If you click on the link, you will notice that it says it's a free call. Unfortunately, my French phone company disagrees. Immediately after hanging up, I got a text saying that I had used up my allotted minutes, and would have to pay the balance in order to use it again. When we checked, we found out the advice cost us $72! Obviously, I'm not a happy camper! The good news is that the advice helped - drink 1.5 - 2 liters per day of salted water (1-2 tsp salt per liter of boiled water). I stayed home another full day, but then was able to make short-ish trips. I spent a good part of that day paring down my To-See list 😕

** Following on from that, after 5 days of guzzling salty water, my system overloaded! I woke up with swollen legs and eyes! Full stop on salt, cool compresses, elevated legs... At least it didn't stop us from going out 😉

** The weather was absolutely *fantastic!* Generally cool, with some sun. My hives completely faded over the two weeks. We had a few short-lived thunderstorms (remembered the umbrella after my first soaking), most days were in the upper 70s F, and we experienced daylight from 4am till 11pm! All this in a time of unheard of heat in much of the rest of Europe - the UK broke an all-time heat record with 106°F!!!

** I did Norwegian modules on Duolingo for a couple of weeks before the trip, and I added Norwegian to my Translate app - that was fun, and helped a lot! It got my ears tuned to "norsk" 🙂

** Oslo and pre-Oslo burned down many times over the centuries, so there aren't very many old buildings. The vibe all over is modern - art, architecture, you name it, there's some aspect of it here that is modern!

** One in six Norwegians owns a boat. (I'm assuming that doesn't count children, but I could be wrong.)

** For most of our 2-week stay, including coming and going, I saw one other person wearing a mask. (The folk museum broke the streak; there were several mask-wearers)

** The public transportation passes are amazing! We each got a 7-day pass, which gave us unlimited rides on any city bus, tram, subway, ferry, and train. We originally were going to get two of these (covering the entire 2 weeks), but my rocky start and the rainy end turned that into one pass plus one last trip into city center on the way home. Ruter (the transportation company) has downloadable maps of the different systems - that helped figure out our options on the fly.

** These passes don't include to and from the airport. We took flybussen to the apartment (40 minutes, $20 ea), and the airport train to the airport (20 minutes, $21 each). For the train, we tried the ticketless option - swipe your credit card when you enter the platform, then swipe again to leave the train platform at the airport. Well, the first part worked, but then it didn't let us leave! An agent fiddled a bit, then said eh, just go - you may not be charged. We're still waiting to see about that 😉.

** We got $50 worth (the minimum allowed) of Norwegian krone when we arrived at the airport (ATM). We figured we'd need at least some coins for the public bathrooms, but knew that credit cards are used practically everywhere! Well, even the bathrooms ($1.50 - $2) take credit cards! So, the only cash we spent on the entire trip was (1) milk, to break the bills on our first night, and (2) our last lunch out, to get rid of our cash 😕

** Lingonberry jam (tyttebær) - my new favorite condiment! Especially on reindeer steak!

** Wine is expensive and extremely difficult to find; our grocery stores don't carry it. At. All. Beer is everywhere. We ended up drinking a lot of water and coke...

** The "food halls" aren't really like the French covered markets (Les Halles). Mathallen had a specialty butcher and a fishmonger, but no produce shop - everything else was a restaurant or bar. Think food court for adults. I did bring home a couple of yummy tapas though!

** I never really realized just how much a part of travel is eating and snacking out! I have to stop myself from thinking about a waffle, an ice cream cone, a long lunch on that terrace, drinks and a late dinner with a view... This trip, there were so many impediments to all that... Sigh.

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Missed seeing 

- Northern lights xperium (closed)

- Vippa food hall (lunch outside, fronting the fjord)

- Aker Brygge, Nobel Peace Center, and the new National Museum (opened June 11)

- Astrup Fearnley Museum

- Train day trip

- Botanical garden 

- Tourist office

- Munch museum inside 

- Ekebergparken Sculpture Park, Petroglyphs 

- Viking Planet

- Akershus fortress 

- Kon-tiki museum, Fram museum! 

- Roseslottet (end of metro 1 line)

Oslo Fjord Cruise

We spent the day on the Oslo Fjord! 

Here's our boat, an electric catamaran. It was not very full at all, with perhaps 25 passengers. We left the Oslo dock at 11am, stopped at Oscarsborg (a fortress on an island), and got to Drøbak by 1pm, just in time for a late lunch.

Oslo sites: City Hall (on left), and Akershus fortress

Fjord sights: Lighthouse 

Sailboat 

Tiny house on a tiny island (could you see living here?)

Another boat (there were many!)

Drøbak 

We aimed for a restaurant for lunch, and started chatting with a fellow there - an hour later, we were wrapping it up, and started to check our menus 🙂.

It rained off and on all afternoon, so we ducked into a few shops (including the Christmas store 🤪). We were back on the dock well before our 4:15pm departure time, a little bit soggy and chilly. It sure felt good to get back inside! By 6pm, we were hunting up our bus/tram ride home - Hot chicken soup for dinner!

Oslo Folk Museum

The Oslo Folk Museum is largely an open air museum - the paths around the grounds take you from one century to another, and from one region to another. Entire buildings have been transferred here, just to give a sense of what it was like to live there, then.

I expected to spend a couple of hours here, then go on to the Kon-tiki and Fram museums. Hah! We spent over 4 hours, and still missed a lot! And it was continually interesting!

I had a hard time picking just a few to show here - for more, see my Oslo Folk Museum 2022 album (it includes a video of a folk dance).

Beer anyone?

"1814 marks a dividing line in the history of Norway. During the Napoleonic wars Denmark had to give up Norway to Sweden. In opposition to the great powers, the Norwegians adopted the Constitution of 1814, but were forced to enter into a union with Sweden. Two interiors represent the important role of public officials in the governing of the country, in the Danish-Norwegian monarchy before 1814, and in the union with Sweden after 1814. In the years leading up to the dissolution of the union in 1905, Norwegian public officials worked to defend Norway's independence enshrined in the Constitution and to uphold an equal position in the union." - museum description 

"The decorative art of the painter Gerhard Munthe (1849-1929) combined the undulating Art Nouveau lines with inspiration from Norwegian folk art and many other sources. In this way he created a very individual expression which is quite unlike anything else. This imaginative chair - with its mixture of a "Norwegian" dragon and an Oriental peacock on the back - was originally created for Holmenkollen Tourist Hotel in 1896 (destroyed by fire in 1914)." - museum description 

Fresco ceilings

"The ceiling above [...] depicts the seven virtues of faith, love, hope, justice, fortitude, prudence and temperance. These symbolic images of the virtues reflect 17th century religious and moral thought and the values people were ideally expected to live up to." - museum description

Art Deco cabinet

Model ship, hanging from the ceiling

Sleigh with hood ornament 

Typical Bride gifts - elaborately carved laundry tools: mangler, bats, iron...

Church from 1574

"Hardanger is the area along and around the Hardanger Fjord. Here the farms were crowded together in cluster or row farmsteads, which emerged through repeated partition of the farms, where the houses of the new holdings were built on the original farmstead. Soil could be of varying quality, and each strip of land was therefore partitioned in order to create fairness. At the museum, the farmhouse (81), the guest house (82), the bakehouse (83) and the store house (84) come from the same farm, and the buildings are placed in their original positions.

The farmhouse (81) has a smoke oven and ceiling vent. Windows were installed in the early 18th century. 

The buildings are made in a notched log construction. The walls are stabilised with vertical battens and the boards are mounted horizontally. This is known as vestlandspanel. (West Coast Panel) If the panelling closest to the ground was exposed to rot, it was easy to replace the lower boards. In earlier times turf was the usual roof covering, but in the early 19th century I slate became more common." - museum description 

This wall is made from braided juniper branches - it keeps out the rain, but allows ventilation, ideal for drying hay!

Folk music and dancing - the horn is very lightweight, and the sound really carries!

Painted chest

"This exhibition shows some features of daily life in Sami communities at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries. Emphasis is on subsistence such as hunting, fishing and farming and also reindeer pastoralism, which is a Sami speciality and therefore has been given much space in the exhibition.

The exhibition also deals with some important features of earlier times, such as pre-Christian religion. A large costume collection reflects the diversity of Sami culture, with garments from North, East, Lule and South Sami areas. The exhibition does not attempt to tell the history of the Sami. However, some important historical events have been included, such as the carving up of Samiland between the states or the devastations of the Second World War." - museum description 

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Karl Johans Street and The Palace

Technically, that should be "Karl Johans Gate", but I was confused enough by that my first day; I figured I'd pass on the intel - "gate" is Norwegian for "street" 🙂

Karl Johans Gate is *the* main street of Oslo - the section I walked was built in the 1840s, and is capped at the end by the Palace. 

Here are a few street scenes...

Norwegian Parliament building 

Karl Johans Gate is lined with flowers

Hotels - wouldn't it be fun to stay here?

University 

Oh look! Rådhuset (City Hall) is right there!

The National Theater, with statues of famous performers, composers, and authors

Norwegian Foreign Affaires ministry (and a shopping center)

And! The Palace!

I watched the changing of the guard here, 1:30 - 1:40; it coincided with the heaviest part of the rain, naturally!

Note that the best place to watch is from the trees to the left of the guard shack, which is to the right of the palace. The ceremonial marching doesn't happen right in front of the palace. You can see more photos, and a few videos in my Oslo Palace Guard 2022 album.