Velkommen til Norge

I spent this past weekend in Oslo, Norway in a trip reminiscent of the 24-hour travel marathons of last summer (e.g. Bern and Interlaken). I got into Oslo at 11:30 am on Saturday and left the city at 7 pm the next day, making for a packed 31-ish hours of touring.

I got my first glimpse of Norway when my early-morning flight descended through the thick cloud cover on Saturday. In the water below the plane was a picture that had me thinking immediately of the award that Slartibartfast had on his office wall in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for his excellent artistry in making Norway's fjords. Douglas Adams knew what he was talking about when he chose to recognize Norway's fjords. Even though Torp (where my plane landed) is not particularly known for its natural beauty, the rugged terrain beneath me was reminiscent of the Alps, with rocks jutting up steeply through the water and outcroppings--the natural continuation of the ridges on land--forming one-house islands.

Torp is about 2 hours drive from Oslo, which--believe it or not--worked to my advantage. Even though the bus ride was on major routes, the autumn scenery gave me a taste for the beautiful Norwegian countryside. As a bit of an aside, I don't think I've ever gone through as many tunnels in one stretch of road as the coach did on that ride!

a view out of the coach window

After I arrived in Oslo, I headed off to Bygdøy (a peninsula to the west of the city center) to taken in a few of the museums there, namely Norsk Folkemuseum (Norwegian Museum of Cultural History--features traditional houses from all over Norway) and Vikingskipshuset (the Viking Ship Museum--featuring three well-preserved Viking ships and grave goods from the princely burial grounds where they were found). Other than the sheer awe I felt looking at the old, sea worthy vessels at Vikingskipshuset, my favorite highlights were a wonderfully painted one-room guest cottage at the Norsk Folkemuseum and bits of needlecraft (including Viking hand weaving looms and some extremely old fabric) found near a Viking princess in one of the ships now on display at Vikingskiphuset.

left: detail from the interior of a guest cottage at the Norse Folk Museum. All of the walls , the ceiling and the two built-in beds were covered with painting like this, including both decorative and Biblical themes.
right: a Viking princess's weaving cards and needles (from the Viking Ship Museum)

Dinner on Saturday was fantastic. It got dark around 4pm, and I was hungry, so after checking in at my (rather upscale) hostel, I walked around the pedestrian shopping street in search of traditional fare, which I found at Cafe du Bacchus, a cafe right off of the Market Square by the the Cathedral full of old-world atmosphere. I ordered a beer and a dinner of lamb leg, marinated in some sort of sweet red wine sauce, with mashed potatoes and green beans. It was melt-in-your-mouth delicious.

It was on-and-off drizzling on Sunday morning so, grabbing my poncho, I headed off to Vigelandsparken (Vigeland Park), another iconic Oslo site full of statues designed by Gustav Vigeland. His statues are interesting studies of human relationships, primarily investigating male-female relationships and, to some degree, the relationship between adults and children. Fair warning: almost all of the statues in the park are nudes, so I had to work to get a shot that's family-friendly (there are, however, quite a few bare behinds in this photo: Vigeland Park from the Monolith)!

After the park, it was a museum marathon, shuttling between the Oslo Museum, a museum devoted to Vigeland (helpful after seeing so many of Vigeland's sculptures), the University of Oslo's Historical Museum, the royal dress collections at the National Museum of Design and the ancient Akershus Fortress. In between, I caught the changing of the guards at the palace (quite modest compared with the hoopla London puts on!) and window shopped at a few sweater stores (with prices over 1440 Kroner ($300+), they were certainly out of my price range!).

part of Oslo harbor and Oslo City Hall from the Akershus Fortress

Even with the exhaustion of a busy weekend of travels and the crazy schedule, the trip was well worth it. I'd love to return to Norway's parks some day and see the Northern Lights and the more rural areas of the country that I got a taste of out of a bus window.