2 Days in Oslo
Hi sweethearts
I'm back from Oslo. I went there In january, but took a break from blogging. In this blog I'll tell you what I did these two fun days. I can already tell you this; Oslo is a super fun, tranquil city!
Day 1: visiting all the musea first, and then going to the opera!
We first started with the Bygdoy area. This is a penisula next to the city centre. Here are a couple of museam to find.
We started with the Fram museum. The Fram museum is all about the Fram boat, where they explored the arctic area in the 19th century. Tt's been used between 1893 and 1912. It's very cool that you're still able to discover the boat and it's history nowadays. You can even walk on and inside the boat!
After the Fram museum, we went to the Kon Tiki museum. The Kon Tiki museum is museum about aman called Thor Heyerdahl. He was a traveler from Norway and one of history’s most famous explorers. In 1947 he crossed the Pacific Ocean on the balsawood raft called Kon-Tiki. He discovered Eastern Island with this boat.
The third museum we did was my bucketlist item: the Vikingship museum, or the Vikingskipshuset.
Here you can find some original Vikingboats and other findings from the Vikingpast of Norway. All the objects found there are from tombs around Oslo. Here you learn more about the fascinating Vikings and their habits. I was sooo amazed to actually see real Viking object. The Vikings always had a special place in my heart, because there were such misterious people.
After the Vikings, we went further in time, to discover other Norwegian traditions at the Norwegian Folk museum. This is an open air museum. You find houses and object from the 11th century untill the 20th century. This open air museum was pretty large. Since we had a super tight schedule, we ran through it pretty quickly, but on a lovely summer afternoon, you can easily get lost in the streets of the outsied museum for over 4 hours I think. In the museum was my other bucketlist item: a real ancient Norwegian stavechurch, built in the 13th century, right after the Vikings decided to become Christians. They deciced to collaborate with the Christians to become richer, instead of continuing to plunder the Christian people.
After these 4 museums, we went back to the city centre, to discover the rest of the city. We quickly went throught the streets and discovered the Dom of Oslo. On the outside, this church seems like any other regular church, but it's stunning on the inside. You really need to enter the church to discover it yourself!
Just a quick disclaimer: all musea were about 12 euros per person. We went there by bus, since the ferry doesn't go there in the winter season :(.
We ended our day with the stunning sunset at the Opera house. I have NEVER seen any sunsets like the Oslo sunset. The Norwegian sunsets are just something else. The colors are more dramatic, the scenery is more relaxed and the views are just more open wide than any other city.
You can on top of the opera for free...and the view is priceless!
After this gorgeous sunset, we wen back to the hotel for a quick outfit change and then we went to the opera. We watched the opera of Madame Butterfly. This was my first opera ever. I always wanted to go to a real opera, but never did... And now that I know that I love it, I'm going to do this more often!
Day 2: Urban Oslo and the Holmenkolle ski museum.
We started the morning with a gorgeous sunrise. Normally I'm more of a sunset kind of girl but this sunrise was so amazing. We just had to start our day by going to the water... and when I discovered that the water was a bit frozen, my heart was melting haha! I really love the winter for it's snow and the frosty mornings.
After that we went on to the SKi museum of Holmenkollen. You can learn more about skiing, our climate and Norway there. The museum was rather small but the view there was mindblowing. Yout take a lift up to the top of the ski jump, where you have a 360 view over Oslo. Also, standing there was quite impressing too. Can you imagine that people actually jump off this?
Below the view over the entire Oslo fjord....
And here's the countryside-view... with frozen lakes, cute Norwegian colored houses, skiing slopes and the mountains in the back. I'm in love! The snow in the back looked like the North pole. That moment, I realised that I reeeeally need to go to the Northern part of Norway, to watch the Northern lights above the snowy mountains.
After the ski museum, we went back to the city center but tram. I've never experienced such tramride ever before. Also here: stunning views everywhere!
In the city we visited the Vigelands park or Vigelandsanlegget. A lovely park in the middle of the city with large statues of Mr Vigeland. The statues were lovely but maybe in my opinion athe entire park was a bit overrated. I'm sorry but it was just not really my thing.
Then we went back to the water, to the Aker Brygge. This is the more urban side of the city. With modern buildings, lovely restaurants, and gorgeous fjord views, this is a lovely area to take a walk.
At 4 p.m. we had another stunning sunset and then our trip also ended. We went back to the hotel, picked up our bags and went off to the airport by train. The airport express takes about 20 minutes to get you from the city center to Oslo Gardemoen airport. It's 50 km's and tickets are about 40 euros back and forth.
Byee Oslo, you are lovely. Can't wait to discover the rest of gorgeous, friendly, relaxed Norway!
