A day in Oslo

The train trip from Stockholm went pretty well yesterday. We got in around 8 and successfully navigated the T subway system to the hostel. The hostel is very nice. The boys have a room for two and Madeline, Cheryl and I have a room for three with our own shower. We had a gourmet meal at the hostel of Ichi ban noodles which we had stocked up on in Sweden. We had been munching the whole train trip so we didn't need a big supper. It has supposedly been quite warm in Oslo this summer with temps of 29 degrees Celsius the last few weeks.Fortunately it cooled off over night and we all had wonderful sleeps. We didn't get to bed until 10:30. It was still pretty light out when we went to bed. There were people playing frisbee golf in a park beside the hostel. It really is the place of the midnight sun as it is so far north. Breakfast was included and was a wonderful spread not like the youth hostel meals I remember from my youth.

We headed downtown on the T and visited the car rental place to make sure all was in order for our car rental tomorrow. We then took Rick Steves tour of downtown Oslo. My favorite part of the tour was the City Hall. A large Art Deco building build in the 30s. The front was covered in wood carvings of Norse mythology. Inside the central hall was covered in Art Deco murals. We wandered around a little and saw the room where they present the Noble prize which has a spectacular view of the harbour. We then proceeded to walk around downtown Oslo taking in the National theatre, the parliament building which was less impressive then the city hall, the cathedral and downtown train station which were all spread out principally along one street with a lot of high end shopping stores. We bought some groceries for lunch before heading off to Vigeland park on trolley 12. In 1921 an artist by the name of Gustav Vigeland made a deal with the city of Oslo that they would support him and provide a studio if he produced bronze and stone statues for the park.He produced 600 nude statues of men and women which were all gracefully arranged throughout the park. Some of the statues dealt with the phases of life others dealt with the interaction of men and women. They were very beautiful. We spent a long time wandering around. It was a little sunny and by the time we were done viewing the sculptures we headed to a nearby outdoor swimming pool to cool off. It had a 50 metre pool and 1,3,5 and 7 metre pools. The kids were in heaven. I had hoped to make it to the National gallery to see the Scream but we just ran out of time.Read more