The first three days of my trip were spent in Oslo. The Oslo Pass Card gave us free admission to museums, free public transport (although the city isn’t that big, you can walk to most of the stuff), and if you get the 3-day version (we did), the mini-cruise around the bay is also free. So we used it. (beware: long post is long)

Technically, you’ve already seen Day 1 in the last post. So I don’t know if it was technically cost-effective, because we didn’t really go see anything on that day… but for the other two days, it was definitely worth it to not have to worry about paying for things besides food, just wave the cards at people and get let into things. We found this statue on the way to our first museum, Akershus Castle.

Proof that I wasn’t visiting alone. He grew a beard over his last sailing trip to Brest in France; looks very viking, doesn’t it?

Castle courtyard. You can clearly see the older stuff with the larger blocks, and the newer additions/modifications in brick. It’s even clearer on the inside but I didn’t take many pictures while I was looking around. The square brick structure in the second picture used to be the great tower of this castle, but I guess it got destroyed at some point.

A Dutchman taking a picture of a long dark tunnel that leads down to the dungeons… and the crypt, which is actually very light and airy, and contains sarcophagi for several of Norway’s past royalty.

The castle chapel is still in use for royal functions. There’s an upright piano in the back on the left, and modern music stands.

The old Great Hall. Martijn spent some time taking some really awesome photos of this place, but I don’t have access to them right now. It was very difficult with all the weird lighting. All the wall decoration is painted, even the part that looks like cloth.

At one point, this tiny door was the front door of the castle, if the models inside are to be believed. It is not the front door anymore, and definitely not the way we went in by.

The first of many picnic lunches. The orange package is of Norwegian ‘brown cheese’, which is basically caramelized goat cheese leftovers. It’s quite sweet; they put it on waffles and things. Also Martijn’s Swiss army knife was the most useful thing ever. I can smell the bread from here.

Weird modern statues on the lawn outside the castle

I call this one “Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”

After Akershus, we went to the nearby Norwegian Armed Forces Museum, where I took a picture of a tank for my brother. The inside was not nearly as interesting as Akerhus, partly because it was all in Norwegian and only sometimes in English. If you visit, make sure your phone has a QR reader – some of the displays had the English available through that. But many of them did not. (apparently the German word for parachute is ‘fallscreen’, though.) Also we went through the museum backwards by accident. We were good at that on this trip, second-guessing the lack of signage available and going the wrong way. It’s not the first time it happened (also happened in Akershus) and it wasn’t the last.

Going out to explore the town in the evening to take advantage of the beautiful lighting. I’m assuming this hammer sculpture near the train station has something to do with the Second World War.

The Oslo Opera House is an amazing building. Didn’t go inside or hear any opera, but just look at it. It’s open to the public, as well, so you can walk up the ramps on either side and look at the city. We arrived at the perfect time thanks to someone’s excellent sense of timing (not mine lol, I was hanging around taking more pictures of stuff) as you can see. Supposedly it’s inspired by glaciers.

View from the top back at where I took the previous picture from. Lots of construction in this part of town.

Can you say ‘perfect timing’ or what?

Supposedly that building on the hilltop is the ancient School of Navigation? But we didn’t go there so not really relevant.

It was windy up there. Also, potential fb profile picture.

The Barcode again, see?

Down on the ground again.

There were some medievalish ruins just sitting in a park. Already excavated, I suppose. No signs to tell us what we were looking at. Cool anyway.

We took a footbridge over the traintracks.

After this, we wandered around until we had the bright idea of getting alcohol. Which is horrifically expensive in Norway (along with everything else (like vegetables that are not potatoes or meat that is not tuna)), around $15 CAD for a beer (no, seriously, 80-120 NOK for a beer was normal).

We ended up at the Scotsman, which was advertised in our Oslo Pass guidebook, and Martijn had a beer, and I tried for cider but because they were under the same heading as the ginger beers, I got a ginger beer instead. It was okay. VERY different from Canada Dry, lol. But after one I was quite tipsy. Martijn said it was like watching someone get drunk in fast-forward (and that most Norwegians would be extremely jealous).

Akershus from the outside! The stepped roof wall on the left is the Great Hall. Day three in Oslo, we decided to do the mini-cruise around the bay. It was on a sailing-type ship, but it had no sails. We learned a couple of neat facts, like that the Oslo Fjord is not caused by glaciers like most of the other fjords, but by tectonic activity instead. Also that the paint colours of hytte are strictly regulated. We saw a few of them on the cruise.

The Opera House from the water.

I’m sure you noticed this neat sculpture before. I think it’s supposed to look like a sailing ship? Maybe?

Even right by the city there are islands that appear to still be in their natural uninhabited state. But they’re not. There are hytte all over them. (more about hytte in a later post.)

The Astrup Fearnley Museum (modern art gallery) on the left (paging Bob) and the two-towered brick building on the right is the City Hall, which has an impressive carillon which you can’t hear because I didn’t take a video of it.

Click for larger. You can also see Akershus, but not the Opera House, which I think is behind it somewhere.

We arrived at “Museum Island” (not actually an island) and what was the first thing we found!?!? An inukshuk of course.

Of course. Exactly what you would expect to find in Norway.

First stop: the Viking Ship Museum. This is the steering oar for the burial ship of a queen, although I think it said the bodies of two women were found on board? One of the best-preserved ship-burials in Norway, anyway. Not designed for rough weather.

And not one of the best preserved. In the background are two boats found with one of the other burials.

Steering oar of a proper sea-going warship burial ship.

You can see the sides are much higher than the first one, and maybe even that the oar-holes all have covers for rough weather.

Reconstruction of the ‘hood ornament’ of the first ship. Contrary to most museum signs, the sign on this object said ‘please touch’. So I did.

The original model.

Buried with the queen were a bunch of weird cards that the signs said were for weaving… but I didn’t understand until we went to the outdoor Cultural Heritage Museum and I saw this outside the weaver’s shop. (I also learned a lot of cool things about viking clothing… like how importing Chinese silks influenced their own styles.)

The most important thing at the Cultural Heritage Museum was to see this guy. Every hour, three young people did a short presentation of folk music and dancing – including a Hardanger fiddle. If you’re a movie nerd, you may know that Howard Shore chose a Hardanger fiddle for the Rohan theme in The Two Towers.

The guy in the back is actually playing a mouth harp.

That girl has an awesome job. Getting paid to dress up in nice traditional clothes and dance with two cute guys… yes please! XD They all had a fantastic sense of rhythm and were very fun to watch.

CLICK FOR LARGER. But what it actually is, is a traditional instrument from the Hardanger region (just southeast of Bergen, I think) which has a bit flatter bridge… and four or five resonating strings below the main strings. They just shimmer in response to the other strings and gives it a very distinct sound.

A weird crow. Apparently it’s an Alpine or mountain crow?

We saw hay drying like this elsewhere in Norway. We also saw grass-roofed houses like in the background. What it is, is that they waterproof their roofs with layers and layers of birch bark… and then to hold it down and keep it from drying out, they put sod over top. Also provides insulation in winter. Green roofs ftw! Also makes them blend in very well with the natural landscape. We saw many of them all over the place wherever we went.

And it all started here. One of the past kings of Norway was a bit of an odd guy and decided that instead of coins or stamps, he was going to collect buildings. He collected five of the coolest and most traditional Norwegian buildings he could and brought them to Oslo, including this little stave church, and then the museum kind of grew from there. The inside was very dark so I didn’t take a picture of it. (Martijn did, though.)

Ta-dah! Hooray for long exposure shots and an absence of other tourists!

The outer walkway goes all the way around.

After that, we took the bus back towards the docks, but there were still at least two more museums to see! We actually saw the Kon-Tiki museum first, a museum dedicated to one of the craziest sunsuvab Norway has to offer: Thor Heyerdahl. He was kind of an archaeologist, I guess? But his main method of discovery was floating about the oceans of the world on ancient vessels. Nuts. But in the best way possible. I think I kind of love him.

After that, my feet hurt, so I stayed outside to rest while Martijn looked at the Fram museum. Apparently the Fram is surprisingly spacious inside.

We returned by ferry to the dock by the City Hall, and then headed down this line of swanky restaurants in search of one advertised in our Oslo Pass book: Rorbua. Supposedly one could eat reindeer there, and I was curious. It was expensive as expected, but I was nice and full afterwards and the food was pretty great. I had the plate called “Taste of Norway”, which was a giant skewer with big chunks of beef, deer, reindeer, and whale, with salad and potatoes (fabulous potatoes). Turns out I don’t actually like whale, it tastes bizarre. Martijn had to finish it for me. The reindeer was quite good, though. Martijn had some kind of creamy reindeer stew which was also amazing. Then we had layered rhubarb compote/cream/cookie crumble dessert in a jar. Omg I’ve never had such good cream in my life.

A random heroic statue dude to end the day.

 

Next: Flåm/Kayaking