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Published: August 17th 2007
Being in Oslo was probably Not like travelling in Norway. The West coast is absolutely beautiful and the smaller towns look gorgeous. Unfortunately we only saw a video of these places when we visited the Maritime museum.
Oslo is, however a great city to explore. It is compact, pretty, it has a well laid out city plan, a lovely harbour and many inteseting places to see. Instead of detailing everything we did which would be rather dull, instead I will list all the things we noticed about Oslo so you can get a feel of it.
* It's really expensive and we couldn't afford to eat out ( and keep in mind we live in London which is already a very expensive city) You can eat Norwegian food like pastries with vegetables, cheese and pesto or wraps with basically the same fillings, or pattie/ rissole type things made with fish or meat and a lot of flour but none of it was that tempting. Im sure it was better in the restaurants ( where you can get game, moose and reindeer dishes) but we ate very simply from shops as it was far too expensive for a family of
The Main drag of Oslo with Royal Palace
The Royal Palace with residing royals has a couple of guards marching around but actually it is very open and tourists stroll around it and the beautiful gardens behind. four. The best meal we had was fresh prawns bought from the local fisherman down by the harbour.
* The Norwegians flip between speaking Norwegian and speaking English without skipping a beat. The speak perfect English and we never met any who couldn't. Any foreigner immigrating here would probably need to learn both languages! Hello is basically the same word, as is Hi.
* There are many older people who bring a gentle, dignified joie de vivre to the city. We probably noticed this more because in London there are very few people over 40 and they are all rushed, brash and energetic. Once we went strolling along the harbour and came apon an open air balldance party filled with adult couples dancing fox trots; rock and roll and waltzes. Great to watch as some were very good.
*The sun rises and sets very late (5.30- 10.30pm) in Summer. ( up North of-course is the midnight sun)
*You cqn see the famous painting called The Scream by Edvard Munch here !!!! It is interesting because it is a dull painting over drawn with bright conte pastells to give that stark, haunting feel. I like it even
A small square off the Main street;
Buskers, locals at cafes and beer gardens ( Norwegians don't seem to drink much wine) and tired tourists. more now. You can also go see the Munch museum but the best work is in the National Gallery (free)
* There are Lots of excellent museums
*The best thing to do here is go on a boat trip. We did a two hour Oslo Fjord cruise which had commentary and it was very pleasant. (Note the Oslo fjord is fairly basic compared to the West coast but still very nice.
* Second best thing to do is take the bus (30) to Frogner Park and see the Gustav Vigeland Sculpture Park. It is full of statues of people in all stages of life in different states of emotion, activity and age. It is both humbling and inspiring to walk along. I loved it. the girls and Herve did too, there is also a great playground and nice outdoor cafe. (more in blog to come)
*The public transport is clean, on time and frequent. the express train to and from the airport is a stuning state of the art thing but the normal trains and trams and buses are easy to use and good too.
*The trams are very quiet and pass through walking areas
around the harbour. I would be surprised if no-one has been hurt in this way.
*We took a train up the hill to see the olympic ski jump (Holmenkollen) and it felt like we were reaching the clouds. The ski jump was very scarey and we even went on the ski jump simulator ride which was very exciting.
*Don't ever stay in Cochs Pensionate as it is noisy and not very nice, for the same price try P Hotels which includes breakfast. breakfast in Oslo was a ham and cheese roll, juice and a pear. The Norwegian airlines serve egg and bacon rolls and juice.
*Every one is nice and friendly. There is a lot of smiling going on.
*Norwegians are very good looking people in general. (subjective comment of course, as are all comments)
* I would not want to be homeless in Oslo. It got cold even in mid Summer and it rained quite a bit while we were here. Not sure how normal this is forSummer.
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