A weekend in the fog
| Recommended days | 2 |
| Budget | ££ |
| Difficulty | Easy |
Our Oslo city break was Natalya’s choice of trip for the winter. For some reason the weird child prefers cold climates to warm so our October break was the Norwegian capital. There were a couple of places that looked interesting but it promised to be a chilled break in both senses of the word!
One downside of being skint is being stopped going through security because the 4 tubs of porridge I was taking to Norway to save buying breakfast looked suspicious! I wasn’t aware that porridge smuggling was an offence but there you go. Our flight was due to arrive in Oslo at 12.15 so we could have the afternoon for sightseeing. Sadly, because Britain is so pathetic, fog meant that we had a 3 hour delay.
We flew with Norwegian Air – bargain flight and very clean plane. Once at Oslo airport everything was excellent – the train to the centre was superb, clean, quiet, on time and almost empty. From there we had a 10 minute walk in rapidly disappearing sunshine to check in at our hotel, dump our bags and walk to the harbourside just in time to miss the sunset.
Oslo Harbour at Night
The harbour area around Aker Brygge was lovely, lots of nice (expensive) restaurants and coffee shops and views across to the royal fortress through the masts of sailing ships. We had a coffee in between stopping for photos and then found a great little place for a very healthy dinner before heading back to the hotel to warm up and do some of Nat’s uni work.
Opera House
On the Saturday we had a mellow start before heading out around 10AM. The weather was ridiculously foggy and the city was also amazingly quiet – there were almost no people around and few shops open! The Opera House is a stunning modern design, the angles really confuse the eye (and camera) and you can walk on the roof as well as view it from the opposite bank. If you can see it through the fog.
After a brief stop for coffee and macaroons we headed to the ferry terminal to go across to Bygdoy peninsula. The ferry of course doesn’t run in the winter so we then had to find a bus which, thanks to Google was pretty easy and also enlightening – the buses here have heated hand rails! Very useful!
Viking Ship Museum
The Viking ship museum was quite small – 3 halls each with an excavated ship in and one with the grave goods. The ships were interesting to see and then to envisage a journey across the Atlantic in one! One was very ornate with plenty of intricate carving and the others were more functional but the grave goods were real works of art.
There were also plenty of fabrics that had been preserved including silks from the Middle East. There was an excellent AV display showing the history of one of the ships from the trees being cut down to its final end in a burial mound.
After returning on the bus we decided lunch was in order so Nat chose Joe & The Juice for our healthy rye bread sandwich and smoothie. Sadly, lulled by the joys of a good sandwich, I agreed we could go to the Edvard Munch museum.
Edvard Munch Museum
This involved a trip on the very efficient and almost empty metro and a quick walk. The museum was good in that it was well laid out and the staff were polite but the stuff was …… disturbing. Compared to the art of the Vikings a thousand years before the stuff here was quite sad really but people seemed to like it, or look at it and do strokey beard anyway.
We headed back to the Royal Palace area for a quick stroll and this part of the city was in bright sunlight but we could see the bank of fog encasing the docks. Which was where we were headed next.
The Astrup Fearnley Museum was on Nat’s list so I left her to it and wandered around the outside – excellent modern architecture including a swimming platform for those that had visited the museum and decided to end it all. After a light dinner we headed back to the hotel to thaw out and continue more joyous uni work for her.
We flew back the next morning after an enlightening time. Our Oslo city break showed us a lovely place to walk around, with a great public transport system and is clean and apparently safe. The down side is the cost of everything is extortionate compared to the UK. It’d be nice to revisit in the summer though and try a fjord cruise.
2017