Norway 2015 – Day 8 / Oslo

Well – that’s it!!  Vacation over and it’s pretty safe to assume that I won’t be back - not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because I can’t imagine the circumstances that would ever bring me back to Norway. Places like France, Italy, Switzerland are guaranteed for return visits – but Scandinavia…. who knows.

I really enjoyed the tour – it was very comprehensive and very complete.  I feel like I saw the best that Norway has to offer.

The people on the tour were also great – we met a lot of nice people and had lots of interesting conversations.  Ironically, we also felt that this tour also included more slow people than ever before, people who could not keep times straight, could not follow simple instructions, were easily confused and for whom getting on a bus was so strenuous that it exhausted them.

Today we had an included city tour that included Frogner Park (a.k.a. Vigeland Park) and it was  amazing.  Having a local guide showing us around was invaluable!!!!  She explained the story behind the art, the meaning of the sculptures, the theme of the statues… SO WORTH IT! I’d recommend a guide for a visit through this park to anyone. It was a highlight for me.

   

 

We stayed with the tour to visit the inside of City Hall and then dumped them to go off on our own and hit the places that were left on our list.

First on our agenda was to visit the Norwegian Resistance Museum which was very interesting.  It’s SO PACKED full of information that you could easily spend 2-3 hour there; all day long if you can read Norwegian!  Not all the exhibits were translated into English, but nevertheless we enjoyed it and felt like we learned something. 

I loved the setting too - it looked like a quaint villa in the woods. Best of all: it was FREE!

We were done around 12:30 and had to decide if we’d have lunch first and then go to the second museum on our list (Viking Ship Museum), or do it the other way around.  My guidebook recommended a nice place to eat near the museum so we decide to take the ferry over, eat, then hit the museum…  but we never found the restaurant so we just grabbed a hot-dog to stop our stomachs from grumbling, visited the museum, took the ferry back and THEN had lunch…  it was after 3PM by then!

The Viking Ship Museum was just OK as far as I was concerned.  Nice, but not worth the detour. 

We could have visited this museum and two others (The Kon-Tiki and Fram museums) with the group, but we didn’t want to spend all day indoors.  We also saved money doing just one museum on our own this way, because the price of the ferry and the museum entrance combined was less than 150 NOK and the group excursion was over 500!

What we saved on the museums we quickly “invested” in lunch. It was a GREAT meal in the Aker Brygge area which is the old shipyard turned trendy area with shops and restaurants along the waterfront. We had a wonderful full-service outdoor meal, but it cost a FORTUNE!! I know I’ve been complaining a lot about sandwich stops and buffer dinners, but Norway is SOOOOOO EXPENSIVE that I have to be honest and admit that it’s really the way to go because having “nice” meals everyday would mean mortgaging the house.  The prices are really prohibitive. 

My guidebook warns: “Think in kroner and avoid converting the Norwegian price into your home currency, otherwise you really might wind up emaciated”

After lunch, my husband needed a rest so I set off on my own to soak up as much of Oslo as I could! I did manage to twist his arm to go out for one final nightcap after dinner.  No pictures to show you of that because I took them all with my Iphone so you’ll have to wait for Picasa to see them.

And so, that’s it, vacation over.  I’m really to go home now – I feel satisfied with everything we did.

I leave you with a picture of the Parliament building to tie you over….

Norway 2015 – Day 7 / Vemork & Oslo

Slow start / great finish! As I type this, I am enjoying a night-cappy-glow after (now that we are back in Oslo) my husband caved and agreed that we should go out for a drink after dinner.

Have you seen the 1965 movie “Heroes of Telemark” starring Kirk Douglas? If so, you’ll appreciate where we went for our first start today: The old power station in Vemork that is now the Norwegian Industrial Workers’ Museum.

I enjoyed the scenery, the optional walk from the car park across a 84m high suspension bridge over a gorge (also the location of the highest land-based bungee jump in Norway) and the trail up to the Museum more than the museum itself.  I felt like they rushed us through the entire thing, showed us a movie and kicked us out – but I suppose this is the kind of thing you have to endure when you are on a bus tour.

 

The next stop was lunch next to the Heddal Stave Church which is one of the top sights in Norway. 

For lunch, we had elk burgers – I found the meat very tasty, but there was a raspberry-yoghurt-like sauce in it that I didn’t anticipate. My husband said the taste of the sauce negated the taste of the burger; I didn’t dislike it but I agree it was weird. (you can see pics of the burger on Facebook or Instagram)

After lunch, we headed off back to Oslo. We arrived later than I would have liked (just after 3PM) but it still gave us enough free time to knock one of the things I wanted to do off my list before meeting up with the group again for the next excursion: The Fortress.

When finished with that scenic stroll,  we stopped for drinks and some people-watching.

The optional excursion tonight was dinner with a panoramic drive.  The restaurant was up in the Holmenkollen area which gave us great views over Oslo, including a visit to the Olympic Ski Jump.

  

I was very very very very hesitant about buying into this dinner excursion because:

• Tour dinners are not that great
• They feel rushed
• It was expensive!!
• The marketing of these things tend to oversell the positive

In the end – no regrets! It was a great night out!

We picked fish for dinner (the other option being pork) and it was trout.  EVERYONE at our table agreed it was not trout, but rather salmon.  Perhaps Norwegian Trout is salmony??? In any case, whatever it was, I thought it was delicious! It exceeded all my expectations. 

After dinner, we had drinks on the terrace overlooking Oslo and a full moon!!  Fantastic!

Back at the hotel, just before 9PM, I think my husband read my mind before I even had to ask and he agreed that we should go out for a night cap. YEAHHH!!!!  We found a place with a heated terrace and a view of the Opera House in the distance…  the BEST way to end the day!

(for more pictures, again see Facebook or Instragram / or wait for Picasa).

Tomorrow is our last full day and the weather forecast is perfect!

Norway 2015 – Day 1 / Oslo

Made it to Oslo in one piece, but unfortunately I didn’t sleep much on the leg from Montreal to Frankfurt so I am running on fumes now!

Very nice city, quite small…  in the 4 hours we had on our own to explore this afternoon, we saw a lot of the main sights. The weather was nice, skies were blue, we stopped for a small yet great outdoor lunch with a view of the Royal Palace (HOLY SHIT NORWAY IS EXPENSIVE!!!) and wandered around town soaking in the sights.

 

 

Our tour director seems very nice, although we had a bit of a weird moment at the airport:  We arrived at noon, and our transfer to the hotel is included.  Our instructions were to go to the meeting point where pre-arranged transfers are scheduled at certain times… ours being at 1:30. We stood around for a while, but then decided that was dumb since we had over an hour to wait so instead we walked around the terminal and then sat down to have a coffee.  At 1:15 (the document said to be at the meeting point at least 15 minutes in advance) we met up with the guide…  who said it was too bad that we had not been there earlier because we could have left earlier – she had been waiting around for us with another couple. 

This felt awkward to me…  it was almost like an accusation for making people wait, but we were following instructions to the letter!  Ah well.

Our fellow travellers on the tour are walking American clichés. I know I sound mean when I say that, but I always feel like stifling a laugh when people ask us: “So where are you from?”.  I’m also astounded every time by the typical and predictable chit chat when meeting an American for the first time – they always give you a bio of their lives. “I was born here, my sister moved there, my parents live here, my wife is from there”….  I DON’T CARE!!!!  Ok, I know I am being harsh, it’s a perfectly acceptable ice-breaker and everyone is quite nice so far; I’m a bitch.

Dinner tonight was a buffet and that sort of disappointed me. I am happy that a large meal was not pushed on me tonight because I am tired, but buffets seem cheap to me and it seems we will have a few on this trip.

So, tomorrow the tour begins!  I’m looking forward to it!