Statues Galore

I had no idea Oslo had so many statues, but it surely does, just one park even has over 220 of them 212 all by the same sculptor, the most famous of which is this young fellow:

But more of that later, first let's get to our morning routine.

Breakfast

I woke at 5.15am local time (4.25 at home) feeling refrshed and ready to go. I spend the next 45 minutes editing photos from yesterday.

At 5.45am I made us both a cup of coffee using the nespresso machine in the room

At 6am I had my shower and did the other ablutive activities and Drew followed me and did the same.

We arrived down to breakfast two minutes after it had opened at 7am, late for us, we are normally at least two minutes early!

Breakfast was very busy, a large party of people due to catch a cruise ship in the harbour at 11am to start their costal voyage were staying at the hotel and the majority of them had been there at 7am, but we found a quiet corner and navigated the breakfast buffet, even though we didn't take the usual photos of the buffet as there were always people in the way. 

I started the breakfast with natural yogurt with linseed, chia seeds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds. I'm not always a fan of natural yogurt, especially when it in thin and milky, however this version was gelatinous and sour, horrible I expect for a sweet lover, but perfect for me. 

I followed this up with the local delicacies; Mustard herring, tomato mackerel, pickled pumpkin, pickled fennel, pickled onions, beetroot salad and rugbrod (rye bread, Scandinavian style). I love tangy pickled food and each of these was highly tangy, different from each other in texture and flavour, but all giving a tingle to my tongue.

The healthy food over in course 1 and 2 it was time to move to the heart disease foods of sausage, bacon, egg, sauteed cherry tomatoes and sauteed potatoes, stop your nagging, I'm on holiday. I'm going to have some less than healthy food - but balance it out with the good stuff 🤣

Drew went straight for the cooked stuff and had two plates very similar to this first one with the addition of white buttered bread.

We left the breakfast room at 7.45 and went back to our room. I spent the next while finishing naming and then uploading the 219 photos from yesterday evening to Flickr.

Our Route

Our route for today followed this path:

The Storting - The Norwegian Parliament

We left the hotel at 8.55am and walked along the street called Karl Johans Gate, note Gate in Norwegian means street, I was glad to find out, as I have been puzzling where all these gates are! The street runs from our hotel all the way to the Royal Palace.

We arrive at The Storting, which, as expected is closed at this time of year, but we were able to learn about the various statues and explore the grounds around the building.

Nationaltheatret midt i Oslo - National Theatre of Norway

From the parliament we moved on to National Theatre, again I've captured some of the images in a google photos video, as they don't present well as an animation. It is year since I've last used this technology, so it is fun seeing what has changed. 

 

The key person identified in the statutory and quotations on the pavement is Henrik Ibsen the Norwegian playwright and poet. My recollection of Ibsen is that his plays are somewhat dark and depressing, which is a very different approach to the friendly and happy people of today's Norway.

Universitetet i Oslo - University of Oslo

Opposite the National Theatre is the University of Oslo, which in addition to its traditional buildings, also has a lovely garden with statues of various people who have worked there. 

One of those I'd not heard of before was Peter Andreas Munch, the granduncle of the painter, who was a history lecturer, with a specialism in Norwegian history here.

Oslo Rådhus - Oslo City Hall - Day 2

As we stood in front of the National Theatre we looked left to see a view of the Rådhus that we had not seen yesterday. It was the very impressive main entrance:

It turns out that yesterday evening we had taken photos of the back and the two sides, but hadn't completed the rectangle - clearly we had missed a lot.

Along with a Griffin and a Chrysaor, mythical beasts,

the Rådhus has a lovely display of Norse traditional stories from the Edda depicted in murals on the walls. 

Det kongelige slott – The Royal Palace

The Norwegian Royal Palace, so similar to many other Northern European palaces, was was proposed for King Karl III Johan of Norway (who was also King Carl XIV Johan of Sweden and had previously been Napoleon's general Jean Baptiste Bernadotte) in 1821, but was not complete until 1849 when his son Oscar the first was king. 

The castle is set in some lovely gardens and while it is possible to visit in doors during the summer months, we preferred the garden. Around the trees, grass and flowers were statues of various royals including Queen Maud, Queen Sonja, the current queen and Crown Princess Martha, who died before her husband became king.

Another fun area of the gardens was the Princess Ingrid Alexandra Sculpture Park, the sculpture park was established between 2016 and 2019 as the result of a nationwide competition among schools. King Harald and the Princess formally opened the park, made up of sculptures based on the children's designs:

As we left the Castle Grounds it began to rain, at first lightly, but then enough for us to get our Macs-in-a-sac out and put them on.

We went to a Espresso House, a brand we first encountered in Sweden and while we have enjoyed in Finland, Germany and Sweden, its home country. So, it was good to have a Norwegian version of the coffee. As the photo shows as well as the two coffees, Americano for me, Latte for Drew, Drew took the opportunity to wrap his mac back in his sac.

The Vigeland Sculpture Park

The rain remained with us intermittently for most of the afternoon, but thankfully it wasn't to hard to continue our wander. We walked from the Espresso House to the Vigeland Sculpture Park in about half an hour, as mentioned at the top of the post the Vigeland has over 220 statues in it, 212 designed by Gustav Vigeland himself, including a self-sculpture! I'm afraid some of them are a bit disturbed or disturbing, but I guess art call always move us from our comfort zones!

Gamle Aker Kirke - Old Aker Church

We left the park at 12.45pm and we walked through a very residential area and begun to climb further up into the older part of Oslo arriving at Gamle Aker Kirke - Old Aker Church at 1.40pm.

The church, founded as a Catholic church in 1100 AD not long after the main conversion of Norway to Catholic Christianity in Saint Olaf's rule (1015 to 1028) is a simple well laid out church which has been redeveloped and changed both due to religious changes - the whole of Norway followed the then Danish rulers into becoming Lutheran in 1536–1537 - and the passing of time, but the old lay it is clearly evident both without and within.

Surrounding the church is the old cemetery and the more modern cemetery which is now run by the state and climbs about half a mile down the hill.

The church was, and is, part of the Pilegrimsleden, the Pilgrim's Way, which sees modern Christians follow in the footsteps of their Medieval ancestors. 

Telthusbakken

The route we had planned for ourseleves today saw us complete our explorations in the old streets of Oslo. As it happened Telthusbakken is just alongside the Old Aker Church, so we were delighted to be able to walk down the charming and historic street known for its well-preserved wooden houses.

Back to the Hotel

At the bottom of Telthusbakken we were on a main road which led back to our hotel, we both felt ready to have a rest before the evening begins. Strangely, for the second day in a row the walk back meant we passed the restaurant we are eating in today, and the subject of my next blog post - Kontrast - more about that later tonight, or early tomorrow.

We arrived back at 2.30pm, five and a half hours after we left having walked 25,000 steps or 8.3 miles. A busy but fulfilling day.

I got on to posting the two blog posts: Heathrow to Oslo and Walking on top of the opera house ready to get ready for dinner at 6pm. Watch out for the next post which is all about that meal, the first of what Drew calls: Our poncy dinners.