Sunday, August 11, 2019

OSLO

We arrived in Oslo with no preconceived ideas of what this city was like.....
in fact no idea what this city was like !!


and almost immediately fell in love with it!
Lots of interesting, modern buildings clustered around its own fjord.



This beautiful new Opera House is their jewel in the crown and they are very proud of its futuristic design
    

where concerts can he held in the open air with the audience sitting on the roof !



Unlike Copenhagen the streets were decorated with flowers in large planters


or planted out in colourful garden beds



and blossom trees were heavy with flowers.


Large trees sported their bright green new foliage and lined the streets


and lovely parks.


The Royal Palace is lovely …..

and the public seem to have free access to  wander the pretty gardens


where the friendly guards are happy to interact  and pose for photos .

Dork on Holiday photo number one !!

But that's not all. 
There is this interesting sculpture park where every sculpture is of the human form.




Not too far out of town is the wonderful Viking Museum


where ancient Viking ships have been recovered from their burial sites 
and carefully and lovingly brought back to life




so we can wonder at the size and construction of these ancient ships.



Can you imagine crossing oceans in one of these ??

Almost next door is a fantastic Folk Museum where ancient buildings have been gathered together and rebuilt in a village setting.


I imagine they are built on these platforms for drainage and to allow for heavy snowfalls.

You can imagine how dangerous it would be heating these wooden buildings with a fireplace inside during the freezing Winter when everything inside is so flammable.


To cap it all off there is a huge Stave Church.


If you are lucky ( and we were ) you can still spot a few of these scattered through the countryside though they are few in number.
They are  stained black, have few windows and are quite bare and very dark inside.

So there you have it.
Just a small snapshot of Oslo, a really wonderful place to visit.

Number two on my list of Favourite Cities of the World second only to Paris !!

Cheers.

6 comments:

  1. G'day, Helsie...These posts with their beautiful photos are a wonderfully interesting insight to an area of our world so totally different to our own. Thanks for sharing, Helsie. Enjoy your trip...take care. :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow, what a wonderful selection of photos Helen ... they make me want to rush up to Oslo next year after my (two-week) planned stay in Sweden. My middle son and his wife and wee baby live in Gothenburg now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Any excuse Kate ! We missed Sweden which was a shame, it sounds nice. Nice to hear from you again.

      Delete
  3. I don't think it is nice for a wife to call her husband a "dork". Tony is your master and you should obey his commands. Glad you had a lovely time in Oslo. I found it a very quiet place - not really like a national capital. Did you see The Kon Tiki raft? Also, it is well known that the world's best cities are all in Yorkshire, England. Forget Paris, Oslo and Sydney - try Hull, Sheffield and York instead. Much better.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree it is a quiet city, I think that might be why we liked it.... that and the fact it was so open and pretty with all the Spring flowers.
    And you don't get any arguments from me about Yorkshire though I'm fonder of the countryside than the cities.

    ReplyDelete