A Tale of Two Cities

What a contract; Oslo by night and Oslo by day.

Thursday 21st June:

I was very impressed with the Hostal we were staying in, but the same can't be said of our first encounter with downtown Oslo in the evening. We caught the tram into town and, on recommendation of one of the hostal staff, initially checked out the Gronland area having been assured that it attracted the more 'mature' set and was relatively inexpensive (and I mean 'relatively'!). Frankly, it's a decidedly unattractive area and looked a bit seedy, but we persevered with a beer and watched the 'wildlife' pass by whilst waiting for a connecting tram to the Vigeland Sculpture Park.

Good move visiting Gustav Vigeland's creation in the beautiful early evening sun. The light was fabulous and it brought the sculptures alive I thought. I loved the whole thing and it brought back a few memories of my previous visit. In particular, I recall being photographed standing beside the central monolith wearing an orange polo necked jumper that my mum had knitted :-) (Must root out that photo). I think he was an incredible artist. Loved his work (hark at me...).

After a couple of hours, we were back in Gronland for a burger and a beer in a courtyard bar that had attracted us because of the music. After being fleeced, we gave up on the area and made our way to the much more attractive, though no less expensive, Grunerlokka area, where we ended up an an Irish bar (yawn) and had a better Norwegian dark beer and watched a bit of football.......didn't have a choice on that, there was about 15 TV's! Then it was a walk and bus ride back to our digs in the warm late evening light.

Friday 22nd June:

The hostal served a fantastic breakfast. Would put many a B&B to shame. Then we were on the bus downtown again, to have a proper look around and get to know the place a little better.

We walked to the harbour area and noticed the Nobel Peace Centre, so decided to check that out first. This wasn't on my things to do list (the SGD doesn't have a TTDL. He has a BTDL.......Beers To Drink List), but it was quite an experience. The photographic exhibitions of the work of Tim Hetherington and Lynsey Addario in Afghanistan were incredibly moving. Also, the use of technology in the displays was impressive.

A short ferry ride later and we wherein the Viking Ship museum. Boyhood memories of seeing the preserved Viking Longboats.....

It was a short walk to the 'Kon Tiki' museum. This housed the balsa raft that Thor Heyerdahl and crew sailed across the Pacific in 1947, basically to prove a theory. It was a famous endeavour of the time and has recently been made into a feature film.

Then it was on to the Fram museum. Nansen's ship 'Fram' was an extraordinarily advanced ship of the time (late 19th century) built to withstand polar ice crush. It was later used by Amundsen during his successfully 1911 expedition to become the first to reach the south pole. The building it stands in was constructed around it and you are able to walk on and in it.

Potted history lesson over.

I reckon I could have done the exploring thing.........

Museumed out, we headed back to downtown Oslo for a coffee and bun. It was late afternoon by now, so after a walk through the city, which I was by now beginning to warm to, we ended up back at Grunerlokka for a beer and a people watch... ;-)

Top day for me (I think Steve enjoyed it, but nothing was in Ewok, so he just looked at the pictures).

Tomorrow we hit the road south again. Check out Fredrikstad for a coffee and then on to the Gothenburg and a campground. It looks like its gonna rain though....