We’d had a lovely (and cold and snowy) weekend in Brunsberg, Sweden staying with friends but it was now time to head back to Oslo. We had passed through Oslo on the way from Poland to Sweden but we were now staying for a couple of nights and had a chance to explore the city.
Farewell Brunsberg
After a super cold night where it had hit minus 17 degrees, it had ‘warmed up’ to a balmy minus 9. We had an early start to the day, breakfast at Björn’s and then the dark and snowy drive into Arvika.
We dropped the hire car back and farewelled Björn. Hopefully we’ll catch up again soon, maybe next time it will be Australia again.
The train station is tiny so we mostly hid inside until we had to head out to the snowy platform. Unlike the train from Norway into Arvika, the train was on time today.
Back to Norway…..
Like the trip from Oslo to Arvika where we had the cabin pretty much to ourselves, the return journey was was also pretty empty so it was quite a relaxing 2 hour trip back to Oslo. The sun was finally up by the time we got on the train, so we got to see some snowy scenery while eating our cinnamon buns. After many international trains on this trip, this was our last one, so it was great it was a relaxing and fairly cruisy trip.
With only a few days left until we head back home to a hot Aussie Summer, we all enjoyed our last few days of snowy vistas!
Slipping in the city snow….
We arrived into Oslo just after 11am. We had bought 48 hour Oslo passes for our stay, which cover public transport, but we needed them still active for the train back to the airport, which is rather pricey. All public transport here is expensive so we opted for the 900m walk from Oslo Central to the hotel with the bags. We knew there was lots of snow but there was also a lot of ice and walls of icy snow, so it was our worst bag transfer yet. There were sections we needed to ice skate! We arrived at the Anker Hotel, our home for the next couple of days, and were keen to dump those bags in our room and head out to explore Oslo.
Luckily our hotel room was ready for us before 12, so bags dumped, shoe spikes out and we were off exploring. It had warmed up to about minus 3 by now, but there was still a lot of ice and snow.
Oslo does have some heated paths/sidewalks. The ones that are heated are great as they are clear of ice and snow. The others are not so good as they were very icy, from the melting and refreezing. As we had found out on our jaunt with bags to the hotel!
Lunchtime wanders….
As it was now approaching midday, our first stop was lunch. We hit up a street food place (Togata Bad) that had lots of amazing options and was warm. I had great veggie tacos and everyone else had tonkatsu and katsu rice bowls.
Then it was off for a good exploring walk in the snow. We passed many snowy statues, fountains and ponds. All were rather frozen!
Karls Johans Gate….
We walked down Karls Johans Gate, the famous main shopping street that has many cafes, bars and high-end stores.
Karls Johans Gate runs from Central station to the Royal Palace. Today we checked out a few of the stores from the outside. We had to talk Soren out of his need for a new suit! We did stop by some souvenir stores but decided we’d come back once the kids had time to consider what they wanted to spend their Norwegian Krone on.
We found ourselves at the distinctive Storting Building (Stortingsbygningen) the Parliament building of Norway, which is on Karls Johans Gate. Even the lion statues were coated in snow today.
We did have to laugh at the French (and Norwegian) coloured public toilet buildings in the park near the parliament building with the famous French motto Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité on each.
The Harbour coated in snow….
We then found ourselves down at the harbour. The Oslo Harbour Promenade is known for it’s green spaces and statues. The green spaces were most definitely white with snow today, and the statues also had a healthy covering of snow too.
The kids noted that statues like to be naked in Oslo, very few were clothed, other than in snow.
City Hall and Amazing Murals…..
The Oslo City Hall faces the harbour and is adjacent to the promenade. The very 1970s looking browny-red building was in fact constructed between 1931 and 1950. The two red brick towers can be seen from quite a distance and contain a 49 bell carillon that sounds every hour. The City Hall houses the the city council and city administration. It is however, more famous for hosting the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony every year.
It’s free to enter the City Hall building and you can have a look around without doing a tour. You do need to go through security which involves bag xrays and checks but was very fast.
Once inside you can see the main hall where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony takes place on December 10 every year. The main hall is huge. Today they were setting up for some kind of meeting or conference. The main hall has giant murals by famous Norwegian artists.
You can also visit the rooms where the the city council and parliament sit.
The second floor includes the ‘Munch Room’ and the ‘Festgalleriet’ (the Ceremonial Gallery). Most of the rooms are adorned with murals with scenes from Norwegian history. Explanation of the murals are in every room. There are also tapestries and intricate ceilings.
The murals were amazing and we enjoyed our wander around. There were also stunning views of the harbour. We were glad we’d come to check this building out and it was a bonus that it was a free acitivity!
Alkerhus Fortress…..
As we emerged out of the warmth of City Hall it was still sub-zero outside. Next on our agenda was Alkerhus Fortress, which is a short walk from the City Hall building.
The building of Alkershus Castle and Fortress was commenced in 1299 under king Håkon V. The medieval castle, which was completed in the 1300s, had a strategic location at the very end of the headland, and withstood a number of sieges throughout the ages. King Christian IV (1588-1648) had the castle modernised and converted into a Renaissance castle and royal residence.
Today the fortress is a military base and the site features several museums, historical buildings, including stables and the grounds are used for cultural events and concerts. With today’s level of snow there were were only a few people wandering around and definitely no big events.
We didn’t visit any of the museums but had a good wander around the fortress complex, admiring the old stone walls and many buildings.
The position of the fortress, on the banks of the Oslo fjord, allowed great views of approaching enemies and today provides amazing views of the city and Aker Brygge harbour district.
You could spend a few hours wandering around the fortress and visiting the museums. We did find some cannons up on the fortifications and the kids determined that today there were no enemies approaching.
Snowy Harbour Sunsets….
As we left Alkerhus fortress we head back down towards the harbour. Much to Soren’s excitement we found a fire station, complete with some fire engines.
We did loop back around to the harbour, and had a quick look at ‘Salt’ which has bars, food stalls and saunas. It was a bit early for dinner but we had fun checking out the saunas, located along the waterfront. It was hilarious watching people sauna and get in and out of the freezing water. The air temperature was sub-zero and they weren’t wearing a lot!
It was now 3.30pm and there was an amazing sunset just as we were down at the harbour. It may not have been Sydney Harbour but it was just as beautiful in a totally contrasting way.
Just like Sydney the Opera House is right on the harbour and it’s also a rather distinctive building!
The gorgeous sunset made our walk past the Opera House rather pretty. The Olso Opera House opened in 2008 and was designed to allow you to walk on the roof of the Opera House building. The Norwegians believe that their beautiful natural spaces are free for everyone to walk in and the Opera House is designed to be an extension of this.
The roof is marble embellished but today it was covered in snow and only a small section was able to be climbed as the heavy snow and ice cover predictably made scaling the roof a little dangerous. It was still a fun experience to walk up a section of the roof and look out of the Oslo Fjord.
Oslo has a lot of very modern architecture and reminds us a lot of Reykjavik, Iceland, especially around the harbour area. We couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful sunset to show off the harbour and fjord.
As we walked past the Opera House we could see inside the building and there was the costuming department hard at work!
In front of the Opera House and Munch museum is ‘She Lies’ the 12 metre by 17 metre sculpture made of stainless steel and glass. The sculpture floats in the water of the fjord and turns on its axis in line with the tide and wind, which results in changing reflections throughout the day. With the fading light it was very pretty!
The Munch…..
The Speaking of spectacular buildings, near the opera house is Munch museum, which is another amazing building.
Entrance the Munch museum is covered on the Olso passes. Given the early sunset and cold temperatures we’d planned to make a quick visit to the Munch after sunset. While the kids initially protested about going to a museum we thought they’d all enjoy seeing ‘The Scream’.
The Munch is dedicated to the life and works of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. He is of course most famous for his internationally iconic wiling figure ‘The Scream’. Munch donated his entire collection of 23,000 artworks and personal artefacts to the city of Oslo and many are housed within the museum. To be fair, we weren’t sure we would have much interest in any of the exhibits other than ‘The Scream’. We checked our bags and coats and head straight for the floor which contained ‘The Scream’.
There are actually 3 ‘Screams’ on rotation every 30 minutes as they can’t expose them to too much light. We saw the most colourful one and the black and white etching during our time on the floor. The rooms are kept dark and heavily guarded. The actual changing process of the paintings is also fun to watch.
‘The Scream’ is by far the most popular exhibit but we did wander the other 11 floors. This was to the kids absolute disgust until they discovered the interactive things for kids – peepholes which you can view things through, Munch drawing challenges and a section you can do etchings.
The Museum takes you on a tour of Munch’s paintings, prints and personal sketches and demonstrates how his work evolved over time, how he experimented with colour and form, and how he was inspired by Oslo and its surroundings.
The interactive exhibits were really well done and the kids got quite involved in a few different ones and we had to drag them out of a few rooms so we could move to the next activity.
Even if you just go the Munch to check out The Scream, the building itself is beautiful. There were stunning views over the fjord and the layout of the floors was rather impressive.
It was well and truly dark by the time we were at the top floor, but it was a fabulous view.
We spent about 1.5 hours looking around Munch in the end. After thinking we’d probably only be there half an hour it turned out to be far more fun than the kids thought. By the time we came out it was almost 5pm and very dark and cold. Everyone voted for heading to the supermarket to pick up supplies for a hotel picnic dinner. Given the price of restaurants here, we weren’t arguing!
Food in Scandinavian countries generally isn’t well priced for those converting from Aussie dollars. We managed to find enough salads, meats and cheeses in the supermarket to make ourselves a decent hotel picnic. Soren even scored some Norwegian salmon, which was cheaper than chicken it would appear.
Our first day in Oslo had been fun. We’d clocked up a lot of kilometres on foot again, and the temperature hadn’t gotten above zero, so an early night was in order. We were all looking forward to more exploring the next day. The kids also had designs on buffet breakfast which was on the agenda for the next day!
Up next….
Our second day in Oslo we head out to the rather impressive Vigelund Sculpture Park, with it’s often bizarre sculptures. It was amazing covered in snow. We also paid a visit to the Royal Palace and saw the guards marching in the snow before heading to the Fram Museum to do some Arctic exploring!
