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Published: August 13th 2018
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6:30 start today as my taxi was picking me up at 7:45 for my trip to the airport. The weather is miserable - cold, windy and raining so I feel the time is right to leave Iceland. Beautiful, stunning and very dramatic and I feel I have done it justice.
The trip to the airport took about 20 minutes so I arrived just over 2 hours before my flight - to find out the flight was delayed. Reykjavik airport is very modern and very busy! Time was killed and then I headed to the gate for my flight to Oslo. I was flying with Norwegian airlines - it has a touch of the JetStars about it. The flight was over 2 hours and there was also a time change so I arrived at Oslo around 3pm. It took ages for the bags to come off but once it did, I headed to the Flytoget train station - the express train to the city. Very easy to do - I just swiped my credit card and headed to the platform. Only had to wait 5 mins and the train arrived. All very modern, clean and fast! By 4:30 I was at
Central Station and just needed to find my hotel, the Comfort Hotel Grand Central. The hotel is virtually at the station but the station was bigger than I expected and the hotel wasn't easy to find. I asked for directions and eventually found the hotel, checked in and went to my room by 5pm.
At 6pm I went downstairs to meet the tour group. Our tour leader, Erla, is from Iceland but now lives on a farm in Norway. There are only 9 people in the group - all Americans except for me and another lady, Felicia, who lives down the road in Coogee! We all had a welcome drink and Erla explained some of the plans for the next day or so. After our little 'meeting' we were free to go. I wanted to check out the Opera House as it was right out front of our hotel. Felicia asked if she could join me so off we went to check it out. It is a very stunning building, as you will see from the photos. It was been designed to look like a glacier making its way into the fjord, whoich i think it does a very
good job of doing! We walked around and up to the roof top - fantastic views over the harbour and the islands in the fjord. We then decided to take a look inside - wow! They have really done a fabulous architectural job with this building.
We then walked up the main stree, xx, looking for somewhere to eat. We eventually found a place that was serving moules and frites so we decided to sit at a table outside and enjoy. After dinner Felicia headed back amd I continued walking up xx towards the Royal Palace. To my surprise, and delight, the Oslo Philharmonic orchestra was playing free outdoor concert in front of the palace, which was also being televised. The first section was a tribute to Leonard Bernstein and then an Opera singer came on stage. There were so many people there, enjoying the event and more and more people kept coming up the boulevard. Eventually I needed to start heading back and I enjoyed my stroll in the evening light. It was a beautiful night out and I must say I have missed the twilight hours with all that midnight sun palava ?
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