Today was a very full day of Oslo exploration. In the morning we headed off as a group for a walking tour of Oslo where we saw the Government Buildings, the Harbour and the main shopping street. It was a good tour, except many beggars kept approaching and weaving amongst the group which I found difficult because as much as I feel sorry them, I also felt very uncomfortable and didn’t want to pull out my wallet.

After the walking tour ended down at the port we grabbed a coffee and headed across the bay to Bygdøy peninsula. On the Island a group of us visited the Fran museum which details the Arctic and Antarctic explorations by Norwegians and the countries Norway collaborated with. There were two of the explorer boats in the museum including the Fran which housed the crew that first passed through the North West passage. You could explore the ship and it was amazing to see how big the whole thing was but how small the living quarters were at the same time. I find it amazing that these explorers went out into these remote Arctic conditions for up to 5 years!

When we left the museum we headed back on the ferry to the mainland and went and had lunch before we met up with the group for Viking Biking (some of the helmets were made to look like Viking helmets!). The bike ride was fabulous. We followed the coast around and then headed through the Royal Farm to Bygdøy which was a beautiful beach. Despite not having swimmers, 10 of us decided to swim in the bay which leads out to the North Sea and out to a pontoon with a diving board. It actually wasn’t that cold (until hours later when I was still wearing wet clothes!). It was fantastic fun even though one of the guys did have to be rescued off the pontoon by the surf lifesaver’s when it was discovered he couldn’t swim which was making it challenging to swim in rough water against a reasonably strong current.

Back in the city Clare and I went and bought a few souvenirs and then walked along the waterfront for a while before we decided to head up to a food market which we thought would be similar to the one we went to in Copenhagen. After a 2.5km walk we got there and it was closed despite having two sources saying it was open. What we were really looking for was Seafood though so luckily we decided to treat ourselves and go to a seafood restaurant. I have never eaten so many mussels- it was delicious! We then walked back to the city in the rain and when we got there we headed for the Oslo Opera House.

The Oslo Opera House was one of the most architecturally interesting buildings I’ve ever seen and at ‘sunset’ (it was 9:45pm and then sun had just started setting), it was stunning being down by the water. The Opera House is designed to look like an iceberg so it is made of white marble that quite literally slopes into the water around the edges like an iceberg. You can also walk up and around the whole building which was fun and gave a great view out onto the water.
After we left the Opera House we bought a hot chocolate (I was freezing as it wasn’t very warm and my clothes were still damp from my swim-so worth it though!) we headed back to the hostel and went to bed.