Two Days in Oslo...

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Two Days in Oslo...

Sunday 20 th August... another lovely sunny day, so we decided to walk to Vigeland Sculpture Park - about 45 mins away, although we stopped on the way to look at the Houses of Parliament and the Royal Palace from the outside.The sculpture park is the life-time's work of Gustav Vigeland (1869 - 1943) with more than 200 sculptures in bronze, granite and forged iron. The sculptures are all of people, showing all the human emotions. The most well-known is the angry little boy, stamping his foot at something or someone. Being a Sunday, the park was full of families as well as tourists - 6 buses lined up outside. We walked back to the hotel to charge the camera battery and ours too, then walked to the Opera House on the waterfront - like Sydney's. The roof is sloping and people are able to walk up on it. It's made from white marble, so stands out against the rest of the grey and brown buildings near it.

We bought "heat and eat" dinners from the supermarket, as there are microwave ovens at the hotel, and eating out here is not cheap.

Monday 21st August

Today we decided to visit the Munch Museum, so headed towards the river and through the Botannical Gardens. We walked through the glasshouses - the Evolution Room where you can follow the evolution of land plants, the Mediterranean with plants from regions of the world with that climate, and the Desert Room - the hottest room full of succulents. I found 2 ferns from NZ there.

At the Munch Museum we watched 2 films about Munch, and these were very informative as I knew nothing about him or his art. On display were about 150 of his paintings and etchings - just a small number of what he produced in his lifetime. All very interesting, but subjects (usually people) were always serious looking - no smiles anywhere ! The exhibition changes 3x every year and there is no permanent exhibition. I was expecting to see "The Scream" but it was not on display here - the National Museum has it on permanent display, and the Munch Museum has 3 copies hidden away somewhere.

From there we walked down to the waterfront, stopping for a filled roll for lunch, then around to the ferry to Bygdoy, to visit the Fram Polar Museum. The Fram ship is there, also the Gjoa. The Fram was Nansen's polar ship that got closer to both poles than any other ship. The Gjoa carried Roald Amundsen on the first journey through the Northwest Passage. There was a film to start with, then many displays of all polar exploration, by the Norwegians and others - Scott included. A very interesting museum. We got the ferry back and walked back to our hotel via the supermarket for another "heat and eat" dinner... Meatballs and potatoes - very Scandinavian.

Today we are going back to Stockholm by fast train - 5.5 hours, and will have 2 nights there before flying home via Frankfurt and Hong Kong on Thursday. I may not get time to write any more blogs, as we will be spending our last day with Jonathan and his Swedish family tomorrow. I'll finish when I get home !!



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