Day tour around Oslo

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Up bright and ealy today for a day tour of beautiful Oslo. On the subject of bright and early, sunrise is at about 4.30am, sunset at about 11pm. It is never truly dark, I am writing this at 4am (the joys of jet lag) and street lights are not required.

First stop on city tour is the new opera house. Designed to look like a glacier flowing into the sea at the top of the fjord, it is stunning but it is surrounded by literally acres of foreshore redevelopment (sort of a darling harbour style of urban renewal). Amazing what >1 billion dollars will buy.

Then we drive through their inner western suburbs. Truly beautiful with row after row of stunning apartment blocks, all from the late 1800's, quite a german influence. All in different pastel colours. Back to Bygdoy, the ex-island now peninsula we walked over yetserday for a tour of the Viking museum and Kon Tiki museum.

Confession - I don't really enjoy museums. But this one was pretty good. Shaped like a cross, with a ship in each segment. The Viking ships found in Norway were 20+ metres long, sea-faring (they made it to North America before the pilgrims). Beautifully constructed with carving and decoration. They were used to bury important people in enormous burial mounds and sort of popped out of the ground about 100 years ago. The image of the viking as a raper and pillager isn't all correct. They were primarily traders, and their region of influence was huge, from the mediterranean, through Britain, up to Iceland and across to Greenland. And it is obvious that Scandinavia is very proud of it's contribution to world history.

Next stop the Thor Heyerdahl museum. I can remember my mother talking rapturously about him decades ago. He was a zoologist turned adventure, who believed that ancient peoples crossed oceans on rafts. And he set about proving his theory by doing just that. He went across the Atlantic (amd almost made it), across from India to the Red Sea, and went from south america to the pacific. His remaining rafts are preserved in this museum, and his status as a national hero is obvious.

Then to Frogner park, to the Vigeland museum. He was a scuptor who was paid for most of his life by the Oslo city council to establish a park full of his work. The park was beautiful, The Norwegian tendancy to sunbake topless was beautiful. The scultures were plentiful (hundreds of them). The themes went over my head (I am a cultural philistine).

Further on and up into the hills to Holmenkollen...see next blog

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Comments

[Madonna BB]

Tis good Yar!
The Opera House looks very cool. Scultures sound interesting.