Norway - Part 8: Oslo

We took the train overnight back to Oslo from Mimi and Mormor's house and spent two nights there seeing the sights before we flew home. Our first stop was Akershus Fortress. This castle/fortress was built around 1300 and I had a lot of fun walking around it - unfortunately, they were undergoing renovations and so we couldn't go inside it. There were thousands of people just outside of the fortress watching the championship match of the soccer World Cup. It was fun to be there, since we had been watching the World Cup for most of our vacation. It was also cool to walk by the watch party outside the fortress since it served as the backdrop for Norway's studio coverage on TV and we had been looking at that backdrop during many games during the halftime and post game coverage.

Here's Karina peeking through one of the guard windows - the angles allowed the guards to shoot arrows through a narrow slit and cover a wide angle in case of intruders storming the gates.

Derek was pretty worn out and fell asleep in the stroller as it bumped along the cobblestone paths. Pushing the stroller was made more difficult since it had a flat tire and we didn't bring a pump with us to pump it up.

I really liked all the different shades of stone colors. That, combined with the arches gave the fortress a lot of charm.

We also took a trip to the Holmenkollen ski jump and ski museum.  Here we are looking out from the observation deck rising 197 feet above the Oslo foothills.

They had a zip line set up to slide down the ski jump from the top - it looked thrilling to me, but we obviously didn't go on it. I can't imagine people going down this steep jump on skis; being there gave me new respect for ski jumpers that I watch during the Olympics.

The open air platform offered nice views of Oslo.

To get up and down, we had to ride up this elevator/train that goes up a steep incline. Here's Karina as we were going back down.

This throne is a recreation of the Game of Thrones throne made with black skis and was a prop used in a portrait of Marit Bjørgen, a Norwegian skier who is the most decorated Olympian in Winter Olympics history. People could put on replica medals and sit on the throne for their own portraits, and the kids enjoyed putting on their medals.

We went through the large Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. My favorite part of the museum was the Gol stave church. The church dates to somewhere between 1157 and 1256 and was moved to its current location in Oslo in 1885.

There were various sections of the open air museum depicting different sections of Norway as well as different time periods. We were disappointed in some of the sections since you weren't allowed to go inside many of the structures and touch things the same way that we were able to do in Saltdal (see our previous post). That didn't mean that there weren't picturesque areas in this Oslo museum, like this cobblestone street with exposed timber buildings.

Vigeland Park is a large park in Oslo famous for its massive sculpture garden. There is a long bridge with nude sculptures of people of various ages and in various moods leading to fountains adorned with more sculptures. The most famous sculpture on the walkway is of a toddler-aged boy throwing a meltdown tantrum titled The Angry Boy. The kids had fun acting out the tantrum with the angry toddler.

Of course, Tanja and I were very familiar with the tantrum look and we thought that Derek might have been in the running to serve as the model for this particular work of art had he lived back when it was made. I think Derek throwing a tantrum over his marshmallow at Mimi and Mormor's house looks just like The Angry Boy throwing a tantrum over whatever upset him.

This is one of the fountains that the bridge led us toward.

I have no idea what to make of some of these sculptures with everyone naked squishing together, but I guess it's art and it evoked some kind of reaction. This statue was Lydia's favorite because she though the babies were cute.

Before leaving the park, we had to stop at the large playground, and the kids spent a lot of time there being kids. Here is Karina escorting Derek down one of the slides (that honestly seemed really fast).

We went to the Royal Palace where the king and queen of Norway live - we were anticipating only walking around the grounds, but found out that they had tours of the interior. We waited around and managed to join in on the first tour of the morning that was being conducted in Norwegian. Unfortunately, Derek was not in the mood to cooperate, be quiet, and not touch anything, so we were asked to leave after a few rooms. Most of the tour from what we took in seemed to center on talking about the different paintings hung around, so perhaps we really didn't miss much.

We walked back along the main walking street in Oslo, Karl Johans gate, that was full of restaurants, shops, theaters, and other pedestrian-friendly things. These fountains were a big draw for lots of kids looking to get relief from the heat. We rolled up our kids' pants and let them go splash around before we made our way back to our hotel and then jumped on the train to head back to the airport.

Our trip to Norway was fantastic. It is one of the most geographically beautiful places I have ever seen. We are very grateful to Mimi and Mormor as well as Anne and Bjorn for hosting us during portions of our fantastic vacation, and we are glad we could take our family to such a beautiful country for such an extended vacation.