Sunday 9^th July

We arrived into Oslo by the trains from Flåm & Myrdal at around 3 pm and we were able walk to our hotel, aiming for the shady side of the street so as to avoid the sun as it was a very warm and sunny 27 degrees Celsius.

Our hotel in Oslo for the two night stay was the Thon Hotel Cecil located along a grand bouleverade to rival any from Paris.  We were pleased to find it was in a great location and we had a most sumptuous, large and light filled room with a balcony, large enough for a table and chairs and Daffy Defy, that overlooked a huge green space that formed part of the procession way up to The Royal Palace. I’m also pleased to say that our room was furnished with a kettle for tea and coffee, a mini fridge and it had a well appointed bathroom and, all this at a much cheaper rate than the Kviknes hotel in Balestrand. I actually just went back and checked the hotel ratings: our Thon Hotel Cecil is apparently only 3 star whereas the Kviknes was supposedly 4 star but the current hotel is complete luxury compared to the Kviknes! Chalk and cheese! Just goes to show you need to be wary of those hotel star ratings!

I would have been quite happy to simply flop in our room and enjoy the luxury of our new room but we ventured back out and spent the late afternoon wandering the city and harbour front area down in the museum precinct. This area reminded us a bit of the Barrangaroo and Walsh Bay areas of Sydney except there were loads of people jumping off the harbour walls and swimming and it seemed you could just rock up in your speed boat or dinghy, tie up and then go for a wander. It was  weird and lovely all rolled into one.

We were pretty tired after our early start and long day so found a restaurant near our hotel for dinner and, of course, it just happened to be a craft beer place as well; Amundsen Bryggeri & Spiseri. The food was fine and Mark greatly enjoyed the beer. After that, it was back to the hotel for some time relaxing on the balcony before an early night.

 

 

Monday 10^th July

I was absolutely thrilled to be able to enjoy a morning cup of tea, which has been part of my daily routine for decades, as I had sorely missed this seemingly small pleasure. This experience was greatly enhanced by the beautiful view from both the bedroom and lounge room and I really wished we had a bit more time here to enjoy this tranquil space. It was going to be hectic for the next week as we head on to Iceland and an extra day or two here, in the comfort of this hotel, to relax recharge our batteries would have been nice. When planning this trip I had added on a few days at the end of the 5 month block for us to relax and recharge but I now realize I probably should have placed this period in the middle of our journey, or probably just about now, as we are both feeling a bit weary and even Mark is having some issues (sore knees).

It was a slightly cloudy morning but I was pleased the forecast was for a cooler day as we had a 90 minute walking tour  at 10 am and the lower temperature would be most welcome. The tour was great and is something that I would highly recommend and our guide, Irene, was originally from Latvia but is now a native of Oslo. As per our general experience with these ‘free tours’ she took us on a route we would not have likely walked and covered off all the major sites that were worth seeing. One thing I can say about Oslo is that it is one big beautiful city and it has been developed with prime objective being the enjoyment and pleasure of the broader population and the city officials are to be commended for this foresight and planning.

Irene gave us lots of great information and some bits that are worthy of mention are noted below:

• There have been around 15 devastating fires throughout Oslo history with one in 1624 lasting 4 days.
• Christian IV of Denmark invaded after the 1624 fire and it remained in Danish hands for 400 years
• This Danish period saw the city rebuilt in predominantly red bricks that were brought over from Denmark
• The Oslo Opera House was built in 2009 and designed to look like an iceberg and the people climbing the roof then look like penguins
• House color in Norway is historically significant and three main colors & to this day people with white houses will generally paint regularly to maintain the image:

  • Red poorest: Fisherman

  • Yellow : middle class

  • White: aristocrats

• The Royal Palace is yellow though as this was built when Norway came under Swedish rule and they wanted to appear to be of the people
• The Norwegian king, of the most recent period of monarchy, was democratically elected and this is the only example of this democratically elected monarchy in the world
• Oil was only discovered in 1969 and an Iraqi, married to a Norwegian, came up with the concept of the sovereign wealth fund to ensure oil wealth was preserved for the benefit of Norwegians. It was used during Covid to help out struggling people / business.
• The Norwegian territory that is rich with oil was once Danish property but, without knowledge of its potential, they ceded this to Norway after WW2.

Out tour ended up at around 11:30 and right out the front of our hotel which was great as it meant we could drop back to our room for a break before our next outing. Once back outside we headed for City Hall as, despite looking very plain from the outside, Irene had assured us it was splendid inside and worth a visit and she wasn’t wrong. It’s free to enter City Hall and it’s well worth doing if you’re ever in Oslo as you get to see the stark contrast from inside and out and also get to see where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held.

It was just a 5 minute walk from City Hall over to the 13th century Akershus Fortress and that was our next stop. We had hoped to take a guided tour but their website had the incorrect times for the English tour and so we settled on just visiting the Palace where you received an audio guide with your entry ticket. The Danish King Christian IV was credited for turning the fortress into a Palace but many buildings within the fortress complex are in current use by the military. We didn’t spend much more time at the fortress after that as we were on a time budget so we ventured back down to the Opera area so that we could take a walk up on the roof; this is a very typical tourist activity for anyone who visits Oslo. After that we drifted back to the hotel by walking along the shopping pedestrian mall of Karl Johans Gate and we were amazed by how many people were milling around this area. It seemed the whole population of Oslo was out in the streets! We got back to our hotel by around 5 pm for a quick re-fresh as we planned to have an early dinner, no surprises there. 

We headed back out at around 6 pm to walk 4 minutes to Kaffistova for dinner and encountered two points of interest on our way. The first was a youth protest against the war in Ukraine held out the front of the parliament building. Our guide this morning, Irene, had told us that young Norwegians were especially politically motivated and we were seeing that in action tonight. The second interesting thing was a Chinese electric car showroom, brand NIO, where the cars ranged from $1.5 million USD to $45,000 USD. Apparently China is trying to break into the Norwegian car market.

Dinner was quite pleasant but poor Mark is counting down the days until we are out of this alcohol Monopoly system but he’s going to have to wait a bit longer as they have the same approach in Iceland. We had heard about the brown cheese Norwegian delicacy but hadn’t managed to fit a sampling of this into our tight schedule. The next best thing was trying a brown cheese ice cream dessert dish after dinner tonight and I think Mark was a greater fan of this that I was. It was not too sweet and quite salty which is what I think appealed to him. We then headed back to the hotel for an early night because we had a 5 am start the next morning to get to the airport. Our next stop is Iceland!

We’d enjoyed our very short visit to Oslo and consider that you could easily spend another two or three days here exploring other neighborhoods and many of the museums. I would highly recommend our hotel, or at least to try and stay near the Parliament, as it is most central to all of the major sites.