When I found tickets for next to nothing to Oslo I though "why not?" and booked. Almost immediately I regretted the decision. I'd gotten the idea to visit Oslo on the flight back from Turin in the Ryan Air magazine. They highlighted Oslo as the most convenient weekend ski destination in Europe as you can take the tram 20 minutes outside of the city center and straight to the ski lifts...I should have known better than to trust a Ryan Air recommendation. As it turned out you could take the tram to the ski lifts, all five of them, and when they said they fly to Oslo airport they neglected to mention that the "Oslo" airport where they fly is actually a 2+ hour bus ride from Oslo. I guess you get what you pay for.
After some debate we decided to stick with the trip but bag the idea of skiing and just see a what we could of the city, but by Friday night before we left we were having serious second thoughts. I'd been working crazy hours for the past few weeks and was exhausted and Sloane was feeling a bit rundown as well. Leaving the apartment at 4am Saturday morning for the airport was pretty much the last thing we wanted to do. In the end it was worth it as Oslo far exceed both our expectations.
We woke up bleary eyed and managed to make it to the airport and catch the bus connection to Oslo without a glitch. The flight and bus ride went by in a sleepy haze. I'd booked the most inexpensive hotel I could find (Hotel Thon Astoria) and was a little nervous about it. Tired as we were, the last thing we wanted to deal with was searching in some back alley for a grimy hotel with unfriendly staff. There was no reason to worry. Not only was the hotel perfectly located in the center of the city, they let us check in a few hours early with no problem at all. We were pleasantly surprised when we got to our room which was modern and pristinely clean. We happily fell into our comfortable bed for a quick nap before hitting the town.
When we woke up we grabbed a bite to eat and headed out of the city. I'd read that you can take the trams outside of the city and rent sleds at the top of the mountain overlooking the city. Apparently you take the tram up, rent sleds, and sled down a track which ends a few kilometres later at a different tram stop. The article said that people buy a day ticket for the metro and ride it up and sled down over and over. After night sledding in Switzerland we considered ourselves experts in all things sledding so we decided to check it out. We were met with beautiful views of the city when we got off the tram and quickly found the place to rent the sleds.
It really was as easy as they mentioned in the article. We spent the next few hours sledding (or luging) down the mountain, gabbed the tram at the end of the track and made our way to the top to do it all over again.
We took a break at the end of the afternoon at a picturesque restaurant with exception views of Oslo and the Oslofjord. In spite of it's name the Oslofjord is not actually a fjord (a narrow inlet with steep sides created in a valley carved by glacial activity for which Norway's country side is famous) but it's actually a bay. We relaxed over a warm drink (see video 1 at the end of the post) before setting out for a few more rounds of sledding.
The pictures (and video's...see video's 2,3 and 4) don't do justice to the experience. As we gained speed going down certain parts of the track we'd fly over one of the many bumps and come crashing down out of control. I quickly found that I shouldn't quit my day job in pursuit of becoming the next American Olympic luger. I'd either go so slow I'd be barely moving, or if I'd gain any speed I'd spin out of control and end up crashing (once into an unsuspecting Norwegian child and another time into a Japanese tourist...oops!). Sloane showed more potential, but we both ended the day feeling bruised and battered.
We decided to go back to the restaurant where we'd stop for drinks because the menu looked pretty good and we were pretty hungry. We hadn't heard great things about Norwegian food, so our expectations weren't high. Again, we were more than happily surprised! Sloane ordered pork loin with a wine sauce and risotto, and my arctic char with seafood risotto and king crab legs was one of the best meals I've had in a while. Before heading back down to Oslo we shared the famous apple cake fore desert.
When we got back to the hotel we were met in the lobby by a heard of very blonde decked out Scandinavian cheerleaders. Apparently the was some sort of competition and they all happened to be staying in our hotel! Sloane suddenly had a second wind and wanted to go and "check out the night life." I, however, was not equally motivated to "see the sights" and once we got back to our room and fell into our oh-so-comfortable beds there was no chance we were leaving.
We woke the next morning to try to fit in all the sights of the city we could before we had to catch our bus back to the airport. We started by walking down to Oslofjord and along the water.
We made a quick stop at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo...
...and to Frogner Park
The park was probably the highlight of Oslo for me. It was created by Gustav Vigeland and created the 212 bronze and granite sculptures which are located throughout the park.
The bridge is marks the entrance to Vigeland Sculpture Park and are said to be an introduction to the "Human Condition" theme of the park.
One of my favorites was the stature named Sinnataggen or "the Little Bad Angry Boy"
The people in his sculptures are uniquely expressive, positioned in scenes that evoke many different emotions some comedic and some outright disturbing.
The fountain is in the center of the park and the children and skeletons intertwined in giant trees is mean to suggest that from death comes new life.
The most famous of the sculptures in the park is The Monolith which is a tower that sits at the highest point in the park comprised of 121 human figures and is over 45 ft. tall. Apparently The Monolith represents man's desire to become closer with the spiritual and divine.
The Monolith stands on a platform of 36 figures in arranged in a circle to signify the "circle of life".
After the park we walked around the royal palace.
Then we grabbed our bags at the hotel and headed off to our final stop, the Munch museum, which holds many of Edvard Munch's famous pieces including The Scream and Madonna. The Scream is Munch's most famous piece and has been the target of several high-profile art thefts (in 1994 a version of The Scream was stolen from the National Gallery and in 2004 both The Scream and Madonna were stolen from the Munch Museum...all have since been recovered). We both agreed that while we were happy to see the Munch collection we were more impressed with the pieces from Nikolai Astrup's collection (another Norwegian artists whose work was being showcased in the museum).
We finished with the Museum in time to catch our bus back to the airport and arrived back in London on Sunday night. Although we were both a bit tired and a little cranky from lack of sleep, we were really glad we went and would highly recommend the trip to those who are thinking about going.
