*I know this post is much overdue, but I’m finally getting around to writing about the last few days of my Scandinavia trip- enjoy!*
I got to Oslo in the late morning, and went to my Airbnb to check in. Then, the first thing on my list was a walking tour. This was one of the less exciting ones that I’ve been on, but we hit the major sites in the center of town and I find that the walking tours are always the best ways to get oriented to a new city. We did see the opera house, though, which is supposed to look like an iceberg. I thought this was one of the cooler(!) buildings I’d seen on my trip so far.
The next place I went to was the City Hall. They do 15 minute tours that you can get on whenever you show up, so I was able to go inside to see the main room and learn about the artwork that is displayed and how it shows different parts of Norwegian history.
Next, I wanted to try to go to a couple of the top rated (by Rick Steves) museums before they closed for the day. The first was the Viking Ship Museum, which I found a little underwhelming, especially since I’m not particularly interested in archaeology or Viking history. The exhibits were not very interactive and there were just a lot of really old artifacts that were “probably” this or that. It was cool to think about how old the ships and artifacts were, but I didn’t end up spending that much time there.
The next museum I visited was the Fram Museum. This focused around yet another ship (the third ship museum in a week!) that was used on explorations to the Arctic. This was a cool museum because you could actually walk on the ship and go through the underneath areas to see the living and sleeping spaces. It was much more interactive and had videos and recordings throughout that talked about what life was like on the ship during the expeditions. It seemed like they had everything on board, even a Christmas tree and piano!
After the museums closed for the day, I headed over to Vigeland Park, which has a lot of sculptures by the famous Norwegian artist, Gustav Vigeland. I actually didn’t know too much about him or his work, but the park was recommended by Rick Steves, so I decided to check it out.
After a long day of exploring Oslo, I was pretty satisfied with everything I was able to check off. Compared to the other cities I had just been in, I felt like Oslo was the least exciting for me, and I felt like I had actually been able to see almost everything I had wanted to. So, I was glad that I had planned the shortest amount of time there and was excited to travel across the country to Bergen, the last stop of my trip!
Hammond Adventures 