The capital of Norway, Oslo has a bit more than 500,000 residents. We arrived in Oslo in early July, 2002 to wet, warm and very humid weather. Oslo is located at the the same latitude as St. Petersburg, the northern part of Kamchatka, Anchorage, Alaska and Kap Farvel, Greenland. Even though it is situated far to the north, Oslo has temperate autumns and is warm in the spring and summer. Statistically, Oslo is Scandanavia’s sunniest capital. Hmmm - we like that one. Above is a picture of the Oslo harbor, as viewed from the fortress walls of Akershus.

Oslo is probably most famous for The Nobel Foundation established by in the will of Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Bernhard Nobel in 1895 which created a fund to provide annual prizes for outstanding achievements in physics, chemistry, physiology and medicine, peace and literature.

We found Oslo to be modern, while retaining much of history. The original castle (left), built around 1300, was besieged several times, but was never conquered. A short audiovisual presentation explains how Oslo was moved near the location of the castle after it was burned in 1624 and renamed Christiana (because it was built by Christian IV). The medieval castle was turned into the royal residence, the fortress was added, and Christiana grew from there. In 1925 the city returned to the original name Oslo.

A new castle was built from 1825 to 1848 on the other side of the city and today remains the royal residence. Tours are available during the summer, but are so popular, we couldn’t get tickets on the day we were there. Oh well.

In the center of town, between the parliament and the national theater, is a large open park (right) that seems to be a favorite with the locals and visitors alike. The trees and fountains lend an inviting touch and provide a quiet area to relax.

There are lots of museums and exhibits to visit, including a folk museum and Viking museum, and boat excursions. We limited ourselves to a brief visit to the national gallery where, along with other Norwegian and European painters, there are two rooms dedicated to Edvard Munch who was generally considered to be initiator of the Expressionist movement. However, he is probably most well known for his painting “The Scream.”

Outside the city center is a huge park, Frogner Park in which are displayed a plethora of sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. The highlight is a huge obelisk depicting the cycle of life as Vigeland saw it: a vision of humanity teaching, playing fighting, loving, eating and sleeping, as well as clambering on and over each other to reach the top. A whole section of the park is dedicated to his sculptures and there is quite a variety in stone as well as bronze. Several iron gates surround the obelisk, each with a different theme. the ones at right are the “men’s” gate (as we named it), and others featured only women, or men and women.

In the town center, near the port, was a large outdoor exhibition of huge aerial photos taken all over the world (below). It was a great way to display the exhibition and some of the photos were quite impressive. The photo below shows just a small portion of the exhibit. There was also a huge world map, showing where the pictures were taken.  As long as you took your shoes off, you could walk onto the world map, which was a favorite among the kids. We liked visiting Oslo and had a great time here. We found enough activities to fill several days, but unfortunately, we didn’t have the time to spare this time around. We also didn’t have the cash to spare, as all of this (including meals) is quite expensive! 

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