Arctic Circle Tour - Lillehammer to Oslo, Norway

Today was the last full day of our tour. We have travelled nearly 4,000 km up to to the top of Europe and back, through 2 countries with extremely remote, harsh and spectacular countryside - an absolutely wonderful experience.

We got into Oslo fairly early in the day. Oslo, the capital of Norway, with a population of 1.7 million has been frequently highly voted as

most liveable with the best quality of life, the greenest environmentally and is up there with most expensive city in the world.

Oslo city is situated at the end of Oslofjord, round the waterline like a horseshoe; two small rivers run through the city and 40 islands sit within the city boundaries. There are many parks, gardens and hills throughout and surrounding the city.

Many old buildings remain however Oslo is moving quickly to redevelop itself as a modern city, as evidenced by the difficulty of getting a photo without a crane in view. The old dock redevelopment is known as the Barcode project as that is what the skyscrapers look like from the water.

We drove into the city and picked up a local guide. From the bus we viewed Akerhus Castle a 14th century fortress on the waterfront, the city hall, the national theatre, parliament and the royal palace.

Then we headed to Frogner Park, slightly north and west of the city. The weather was ominous but managed to hold out for the visit. The highlight of this beautiful park is the collection of over 212 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland.

One of the statues is Angry Boy (Sinnataggen) – a baby boy stamping his foot. Most of the statues depict people engaging in various typically human pursuits, such as running, wrestling, dancing, hugging, holding hands however some are more abstract, including one where an adult male is fighting off a horde of babies.

Vigeland sculpted 121 human figures out of one piece of granite, known as the Monolith. The resulting sculpture is 14.1 meters high and is absolutely amazing. Another significant work is the Wheel of Life.

Later in the day we checked out the Vikingskiphuset Museum where there are Viking ships that have been excavated. The excavation discovered items that showed how people lived at the time. John was

deeply shocked to find out that Vikings didn’t wear horns on their helmets. What an emotional time John has had in Norway.

The hotel we stayed in, Comfort Borspaken was in a great location and a bit like a hostel at 4-star prices – but that’s Norway. In the evening we had a group dinner in a restaurant that overlooked some of the city and the fjord.

We had decided to stay a second night to see more of Oslo as had our New Zealand friends Ric and Dawn. This was great and we got in some quality independent “touristing”. I was very happy to have the additional support as I knew, in Oslo, John would be on high alert with expensive beer and images and statues of Trolls throughout the capital.

The next day the tour was over and everyone dispersed – a real

difference to our tour earlier in the year where everyone was swapping email details. Along with our Kiwi friends we planned to use the hop-on-hop-off bus.

We visited the Kon-Tiki Museum which highlighted the great adventurer, explorer and navigator Thor Heyerdahl and his vessels Kon-Tiki and Ra2. I would recommend this museum to everyone visiting Oslo. We also spent a little bit too much time checking out the high-tech coffee machine in the foyer.

After Ric and Dawn showed us how to get half price senior tickets (what a bargain - something positive to look forward to in the future) we checked out the National Art Gallery where one of Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream is displayed. This is also highly recommendable and we found a secret entrance to a private

exhibition through the souvenir shop.

The following day we checked out the spectacular Oslo Opera House situated on the waterfront. It is a spectacular building and the first opera house in the work to let people walk on the roof of the building. We didn’t do that as the weather was too wet. The foyer and roof are used for concerts as well as the three stages within. I think Ric the architect was pretty impressed with the building.

Later in the day we took the airport train from central station, senior's price, thanks to Dawn and Ric, to an airport hotel at Gardemoen so we could catch our flight home early the next day.

Back to Limoux.

Next: September 2017