soaking in oslo

Summer time is a time for most Scandinavians to take a vacation. Most... but not all. Construction workers kick into overdrive over summer, building new roads, tram tracks, and unfortunately for us, performing train track maintenance on the route from Göteborg to Oslo. After an increasingly confused 10 to 15 minutes at Göteborg Central. Wondering where in the hell train platform 54 is? We was decided that perhaps "buss" actually did mean a bus, despite our train tickets definitely saying "tåg" (train).

No problem, replacement coaches were taking us to somewhere in the country where the train would meet us. Belle and I were off to Oslo for the weekend!

We arrived in Oslo around lunch time. After checking in, we went to the restaurant next door which advertised traditional Norwegian cuisine. Whale was on the menu... and I ate it. A tough meat, I think it's kind of like kangaroo (if kangaroo was tough, which it's not), but doesn't taste as good.

After lunch we headed out to explore Oslo. It's a compact city, which makes it perfect for tourism on foot. The main street, Karl Johans gate was packed full of people and street performers. I was reminded again how much Scandinavians celebrate summer compared to Australians. Then again, Australians never have to suffer through Scandinavian winters. It does make the cities have a great vibe in summer.

We were able to check out Central Oslo's main sights in one afternoon. The old castle / fortress, Akershus Festning, provided a good vantage point to look over the city and the harbour. We also were able to get a crash course in Norwegian history.

Wandering back down the hill we visited the Nobel Peace Prize museum. It currently has a thought provoking exhibition about slums. It was a multimedia display where you could "walk into" various slum houses. These houses were projected onto blank walls. Audio recordings would play and the inhabitants would tell their stories.

It was quite interesting; some who were interviewed had always lived in the slum area, and enjoyed life there. These people were usually disappointed that their slums were always slated for demolition. Others were educated people who couldn't get jobs. They were justifiably annoyed at the prejudice against them just for where they live; it makes it harder to get a job.

In Jakarta, entire families live under bridges and have to be careful not to fall into the rivers below. These families tell their cousins in the country: don't visit me, my house is small and very far away. I'll visit you.

It was also interesting because these people don't have any property rights. While the slum areas aren't a good way for people to live, at the same time, when governments are encouraged to do something about it, it usually means ignoring the people inside the slum areas. The lack of property rights, leads to a lack of any opportunity to claim compensation for the dislocation they will endure.

The slums outside Mumbai have a gross economic output at around $1 billion a year - including an impressive plastic recycling industry. Yes, of course, it has significant water supply and public health issues too, but it will be interesting to see how the Indian government handles improving the area, as well as maintaining the industry.

Also at the Nobel Prize museum, there was a display on global warming, with an inventive way to visualise it: a model of Oslo with a melting ice block suspended above it, slowly drowning the city. It seemed only appropriate that after that, we visit Oslo's newly redeveloped docklands area, right on the water, and have a coffee - and to marvel at the price of steak in the steak houses. About $60 for the cheapest. Well over $100 for the most expensive! We finished off the day with a walk up to the Royal Palace (very nice) and cocktails and dinner down town (also... very nice).

What did the next day have in store for us? In one word: rain.

What the hell? It's summer damn it!

The rain was here to stay. Like in Copenhagen - there's no such thing as a passing shower in Scandinavia. It just kept getting heavier and heavier. Should we have brought wet weather gear? Maybe. Should we have at least bought an umbrella that morning? Definitely.

It didn't stop us though. First thing on the "Oslo Plan" for Sunday - our handwritten scrap of paper with sights to see - was a trip to Frognerseteren. Almost 500-metres above Oslo, at the end of the #1 metro line. The plan was to hike to the TV tower, and get the view from there. As you can see from the photo above, there was no good view to be seen on this day.

We abandoned that plan, and took the metro down a few stations to Holmenkollen. This is home to Oslo's most famous sight: the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. Again, it would have been a lot better with some visibility of the city below. We climbed to the top, and it's quite horrid inside. Graffitied. Rusty. Leaking.

The current jump is slated for demolition, and a newer, bigger, and hopefully nicer, one will be built in time for the world championships in a few years.

After stopping for coffee - with the wishful thought that maybe if we give it 20 minutes, it'll stop raining - we pressed on. All the way back down the mountain to Vigeland sculpture park. The brain child of Gustav Vigeland and the Oslo city council, the park is full of Vigeland's naked statues. There are people in all sorts of poses, of all sorts of ages, and of both sexes. Kind of like an older version of the Bodies exhibition. You might realise by now that the weather was oppressive, so we made a quick decision to head for cover in the near by museum dedicated to Vigeland.

The decision was a good one. I thought it was a lot more interesting to know a bit of history about the statues than to be oblivious of the stories behind them if we'd simply wandered in the park. For instance, he was well known before 1905, but when Norway gained its independence, he was in a fortunate position to be able to accept a number of grants from the newly independent government looking to establish Norwegian identity. The park itself was guaranteed after the Oslo city council wanted to demolish his house to make way for a library. He argued to have the city give him a brand new studio, and a section of Frogner park. In return, the city owns all his works, sketches, models, etc.

The sculptures are quite evocative - showing all emotions and stages of life. His most famous sculpture is one of a toddler throwing a tantrum. I'd recommend a visit if in Oslo.

We couldn't stay at the museum all day, nor could we stay in Oslo forever, so it was back into the rain for us. Jealous of umbrella carrying sensible people. Annoyed at wet feet, soaking jeans, but all in all... having a great time.

sunny bergen

Bergen is Norway's second biggest city. Which actually means, it's Norway's biggest country town! It's located on the Western side of the country, deep in fjord territory. The city is surrounded by seven mountains. This is good for tourists as it's very easy to get a good view of the town.

This photo was taken from Fløyen, the easiest of the seven mountains to access. It has a funicular, a kind of tram on a cable, that takes you up the mountain at a 45° angle. Of course... it is Swiss built.

Three hundred meters above a city, on a beautiful mountain, you'd expect it to be nice and peaceful. Not so actually. Bergen has a big reputation for it's music scene, and sure enough I could hear plenty of noise from the city. There were two marching bands battling for attention; one somewhere beyond the left hand side of the photo, one somewhere near the right hand side. Smack bang in the middle of the photo, in the harbour, a jazz band were playing on a boat. Combined with the noise of boats coming and going in the harbour it was quite a cacophony.

The Norwegians have a few sly jokes at the Swedes expensive, as discovered when buying lunch that day. As I rummaged through my wallet for Norwegian krona, I muttered something about having Swedish krona mixed in there too. "That's too bad" said the barmen, "they're worthless these days". The Swedish krona used to be stronger than both the Danish and Norwegian krona, but it's not the case any more. It's annoying though, as Norway is expensive! This local brew cost around $12 Aussie! Damn!

Again, you can see I was pretty lucky with the weather I had on this trip. Bergen is even further north than Oslo. The sun set around 11pm, and it was dusk until well after midnight.

Since it was a Saturday night, and Bergen had a reputation for music, I decided to have a look at whatever bands were playing at Garage. Equivalent in Bergen to the Corner Hotel in Melbourne. That's what I had decided. What actually happened though, was I walked out of my hostel and headed down a cobble stoned street. Just around the corner there's bar that looks like it's someone's living room. Turns out it is.

Cafe Sanaa is a small bar, in a living room of a house. Hungry at the time, the owner told me I could simply look at the menu from next door - a Vietnamese restaurant - and order it to the bar! Nice. We then started to chat, how long had the bar been open? Only 9 months. What band is playing tonight? My husband and his jazz band. It was time to change my plans.

I stayed for a few pints, and then a few more.

pining for the fjords

What better to do on Sweden Day long weekend, than to bugger off to Norway. Land of fjords, and the lovely Norwegian Blue parrot. My plan was to hitch a ride to Oslo, catch the train to Flåm, then a ferry to Gudvangen, a bus to Voss, and a train to Bergen. Stay a couple of nights in Bergen, fly back to Oslo, and then hitch a ride home again. Nice plan, but I had to make a few alterations along the way.

A friend from Swedish language classes, Marcos, works as an engineer for Volvo. He was visiting some friends near Oslo, and offered to drive me up there. Either half of Oslo commutes to Göteborg, or there quite a few others had the same idea. The traffic was quite heavy crossing the border.

We got to Oslo about an hour later than predicted by the Portuguese speaking GPS receiver. The awesome thing about Scandinavian summer is, however, it was only just dusk; at 11pm! I checked into my hostel and hit the sack, I was getting the early train to Bergen.

The next morning I had breakfast with some Norwegian troops who were also staying at the hostel. Breakfast was very Nordic: boiled eggs, cheese, ham and bread.

As I settled in on the train, I realised that I should travel this way more often. The train station was in the centre of town, only a short walk away from the hostel. There was no stringent security, the seat was large and comfortable, and of course the window is massive compared to an aeroplane!

Soon we were scooting through scenery that later, when showing Carmen the photos, she exclaimed that it must be fake, as if I'd made the photo up! I assure you it's real :-)

Unfortunately my pleasant train journey was interrupted by an announcement: The train is cancelled between Gol and Bergen due to fires in the mountains. This threw a spanner in the works!

The train company organised bus replacements, and gladly it was quite well organised. The buses were at the station waiting for us. Sadly I didn't get to the descend from Myrdal to Flåm, which is reported to have wonderful views, and for an interested engineer like me, also some interesting engineering to get the train down the steep decent. However, the bus ride did have it's highlights with some impressive hairpin bends in the road, and similarly steep descents. There were also a very long road tunnel. Twenty-four kilometres long. Until I just looked it up on Wikipedia then, I didn't realise that it is the worlds longest road tunnel! It's called Lærdalstunnelen.

Flåm was tourist central. Lunch was very expensive (but then, so was the rest of Norway). Surrounded by a number of snow capped mountains, and positioned on the edge of the water, it was very pretty.

I would have liked to spend more time there to climb a mountain or two. Instead I had to make a detour to a tourist office overrun by people from the cancelled train. The train wasn't running from Myrdal, or Voss, so no one could go to Oslo or Bergen from Flåm without catching a ferry or a bus. I opted to catch the "express" ferry to Bergen.

While it was labelled "express", the ferry still stopped at a few villages along the way, and took five hours to reach Bergen. When the countryside is as beautiful as World Heritage Aurlandsfjorden and Sognefjorden, there's no need to rush. Below is one of the villages we stopped at:

As you can see I fluked a sunny day. Western Norway is a bit like Tasmania: expect around 280 days of rain a year, and many more cloudy days on top of that. While it was a bit chilly in the wind outside on the boat, the days were warm and calm, with great visibility.

After a while I went inside and had a nap. At this time of year in Bergen, the sun sets at 11pm, and dusk lasts well past midnight, so I needed a daytime nap! Here's the view we were leaving behind:

No matter, Bergen was equally as good... but more on that later.