On to Oslo

By Pete
The Swedens ‘Route 66’ drifts casually across the lower Scandinavian peninsular from Stockholm toward the Norwegian border. The rolling hills, quiet lakes and peaceful rivers you pass make it a rather ‘pleasant’ road trip. This was originally a ‘stunning’ road trip, that was, until we drove further through Norway and had to completely recalibrate ‘Stunning’.

It was along this route that, ironically, we noticed Scandinavian’s passion for ‘50s ‘60s and ‘70s Yank tanks- Chevi Bel-airs, Lincoln Continentals, El Dorados and the like, there were so many cruising 66 that we assumed that it was a car club, however when we spoke to one owner he said it was just a typical weekend, people out for a drive. Since then we have seen them throughout Sweden and Norway, they are still pretty impressive cars.

We arrived in Oslo early evening and, this time, we choose to head directly to the campsite on a hill overlooking the city.

Oslo is a relatively young city for European standards, having only been the Norwegian capital since 1814 as Christiania. It therefore doesn’t have a plethora of historic buildings rather it is an exemplar of modern urban regeneration. In fact Oslo is considered a ‘Global City’ and was ranked "Beta World City" in recent studies carried by the Globalization and World Cities Study Group. It was also ranked number one in terms of quality of life among European large cities.

There are ambitious plans to develop swathes of the older dock areas into lifestyle precincts of mixed use developments that include apartments, retail and offices around quality urban public spaces, including docks and even swimming beaches. The centre piece of the first stage is the impressive opera house whose design hints at the iconic Norwegian glaciers.

Winging out either side of the opera house are the first of the mixed use developments which, to me, are very good examples of urban regeneration, if this quality of design continues for the future stages Oslo will be more even impressive city.

On the way to visit the Opera house we met a South African lady who used to be a Ballerina at the Opera who suggested that, after our visit we should check out Salt and then take the Fjord Harbour cruise.

Salt is a semi permanent street art and culture space that occupies part of the docks opposite the Opera house, with gallery space, stage and food vans, even in the cold with leaden sky’s it had a nice vibe.
After lunch at Salt we took the advice and went for the cruise which was a great way to get a feel for this waterside city and see the Renzo Piano designed Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art.

I was keen to see the Fram Polar Ship museum and the Viking ship museum so the next morning we hopped back on the harbour cruise (it was a 24hr ticket) and headed to the museums.
I had only heard about the Fram once we were in Oslo but it turned out to be one of the most interesting exhibitions I’ve been to. The Fram was a wooden ship built near Oslo at the turn of the century to explore the arctic and was specifically designed be ‘trapped’ in the winter ice with a hull shape that was pushed upwards rather than crushed by the advancing ice. It was involved in several expeditions including Amundsen’s successful South Pole expedition. All these expeditions along with the actual boat are exhibited in fascinating detail. https://frammuseum.no

A short bus ride from the polar museum is the Viking ship museum which is also interesting as it exhibits, funnily enough, Viking ships, but all three exhibited were real ocean going viking ships before they were hauled onto land to be used in burial rituals for their wealthy owners. In the burial mounds, archeologists unearthed skeletons, beautiful wood carvings and a diverse range of artefacts from the viking age.

That evening we strolled from the campsite into the adjoining Ekebergparken sculpture national heritage park. This is a lovely park that with a strong international sculpture collection scattered within a beautiful natural setting with many spectacular lookout points and an appropriate end to our visit to Oslo.
The next morning headed up the coast toward Bergen.