Looks like someone else in Oslo knows how to baby freeze!
He should’ve changed his plans and joined us:
After arrival into Oslo from Copenhagen, we promptly disembarked from our ship at 10am and headed out into the chaos to find taxis.
The 16 of us took 4 taxis to the bus terminal, where we met up with the 5 others who took the overnight bus.
There we stored our large luggage in the lockers (by Platform 4) and headed south to the Oslo Opera House.
The Oslo Opera House is famous for its design by Norwegian Snohetta architects constructed with Italian marble. You can walk up the slanted wall on the outside up to it’s roof, which reminded me of the architecture of the Hypar Pavilion at Lincoln Center in NYC, just 20 times bigger.
From the opera house we walked 10 minutes west to Oslo’s Akershus Festning, a fortress from 1592 rebuilt into a renaissance castle. The place is quite large, taking about an hour to appreciate everything.
We exited from the fortress in the northwest side, walking about 5 minutes northwest to Radhus, the city hall complex where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded every year on December 10th.
Opposite of Radhus are the docks for local ferries, one of which is Ferry #91, which takes you to a peninsula 15 minutes away housing 3 big museums: The Vikings Ship Museum, the National Folk Museum, and the KonTiki Museum.
From the peninsula dock, walk up 15 minutes on a slight uphill and you’ll come to the Vikings Ship museum:
After about 40 minutes at the Vikings Ship museum, we headed back to Ferry 91 where we sustained a few casualties on the treacherous walk back.
From the dock on the northwest corner sits the Nobel Peace Prize museum, where every year on the bottom floor they feature an exhibit on the previous year’s winner. This year was all about Malala Yousafzai.
Afterwards the group split up, half heading to the National Museum to see “The Scream” by Edvard Munch (no photos allowed and they got security to lock you down) and the other half getting food:
After food, we walked around some more.
We ended up at a bar with live music.
After a few hours drinking our nightcaps, we headed back to the bus terminal for an 11pm overnight bus to Stockholm, Sweden.
And now, as we wait for our bus, our group has broken into karaokesque renditions of “Let It Go”, “A Whole New World”, and “Thousand Miles” for a mildly amused Norwegian crowd who tells us this never happens.
- At time of posting in Oslo, Norway, it was 16 °C - Humidity: 82% | Wind Speed: 6km/hr | Cloud Cover: overcast