Stimulating and Relaxing: 48 hours in Oslo

One of the challenges of this type of holiday is getting an immediate grip on what the cities you visit have to offer that tick your boxes .... on top of just finding your way around with the least hassle and expence! We managed well in Oslo.

Our hostel was about 15 minutes walk from the station but there was a tram stop outside. So we bought a city pass giving free transport on the buses, trams and ferries and access to about 30 museums and places of interest. These passes are not always worth it, but this time it was.

Oslo is a big port with many peninsulas and islands. It reminded us of Auckland when we visited family there. Many old docks areas have plush new apartment blocks with the best all having their balconies and sea views.

On our first day the forecast was indifferent: virtually our first rain of the holiday. But it turned out mostly good. We discovered more about three prominent Norwegians: Vigeland, Heyerdal and Munch.

We took the tram someway out of the to a sculpture park in complete ignorance of our first Norwegian, Gustav Vigeland 1869-1943. He achieved fame in his lifetime and devoted the last 20 years of his life to this sculpture park were there are over 200 bronze and granite statues. With the adjacent museum, it was well worth a visit.

..and in the museum:

After this we took the tram back down to the docks and a ferry out to visit the Kon-Tiki museum. Both of us remembered Heyerdal's exploits as he tried to prove that people travelled across oceans much earlier than was thought.

From there after popping in very briefly to two other museums we went back via ferry and tram for an early evening visit to the Munch Art Gallery in a really imposing waterfront building. Obviously there was a lot of his work including probably the most famous: The Scream

But I confess that generally Munch's work is not for me.

I was more absorbed by the nearby opera house. An interesting building with very large paved ramps allowing everyone to walk up outside on to the top of the building. The glass provided some interesting reflections.

I returned at sunset to try to capture some images.

Here young people are chatting and watching the sunset at the apex of the roof of the opera house.

How blessed we were to have fine weather,

and a great sunset.

That was an energetic day.

So, the next day we paid a short but interesting visit to the Resistance Museum. Norway was occupied quickly by the Natzi regime after a surprise attack. The government was in exile in London. There was extremely close cooperation with British forces. Hitler was convinced the Allies would open up a second front and had 300,000 troops in Norway.

We spent the rest of the day using the ferry to visit a couple of the islands and walked around. It was a much better way to spend the time than going on a harbour boat tour.

They have a fleet of relatively new electrically powered ferries. Some of the island landing stages are very small.