Good Morning Campers:
Yesterday was a fairly uneventful loooong travel day. We were slightly delayed getting out of London Heathrow. Arriving in Oslo, we cleared passport control and customs and met up with fellow travelers. Our Driver, Thom, was there to greet us and drive us into our hotel. Our other visits to Oslo we usually just take the train into the Central Train Station.
We will be staying at the Grand Hotel Oslo which is a Grand Old Lady of Oslo. She has been the host to many Norwegian Polar Explorers upon their return to their Motherland. I can only imagine the throngs of people greeting the likes of Nansen, Sverdrup, Amundsen, and the Polar Chef Lindstrom. We organized our gear for the next couple days and did a laundry load of our travel clothes and crashed. We were up at 0400, cleaned up and got ready for the day. Breakfast is not till 0700 so a hotel walkabout is in order. The plan for today is to walk over to the Visitor Center and purchase an Oslo Card for each of us. Many cities have such cards, these cards allow entrance to various attractions, museums etc. as well as public transport. If you hit the ground running it can be a money saver.
We will also be doing some pre trip scouting for our November trip.
At 0600 we did a walkabout of the area near the hotel. We strolled through a local park getting some pictures of fountains and statues. Just across from the hotel is a statue of Sverdrup.
Returning to the hotel, we had a nice conversation with the gentleman at the front desk and obtained a locator map.
0700 breakfast time, and a nice breakfast it was.
After breakfast, we walked to the Oslo Central Station (train station) where the visitor information center is located. Here we picked up 48 hour Oslo City Passes, this is good for public transportation and entry to many museums. While walking to the train station we located the hotel at which we have a November reservation. Scouted out coffee shops etc and other things we may need in November.
From the train station we walked to the Munch Museum. Edvard Munch willed all of his works still in his possession to the municipality of Oslo. In 2008, Oslo's city council decided to build a new museum for this incredible gift.
The permanent gallery displays his more prominent works by his themes. He is probably best know for his Scream painting. Actually there were three Scream works by Munch. One Pastel Crayon, Paint and Brush and and then a B&W litho. This museum is well worth a visit to see his moods and interpretation of various aspects of life.
Next we took the public tram to Vigeland Sculpture Park. The sculpture park is Gustav Vigeland's life work, comprising over 200 sculptures in granite, bronze and wrought iron. It was installed mainly in the period 1940-1949, but is nevertheless a result of over 40 years of work. It is a beautiful park and is open year round. It is said to be the most visited site in Norway.
KEWL Little Library
Now it is well past lunch time and we are off to find Syverkiosken. We decided to take a bus as we had originally planed to walk there, we were very glad as we had underestimated the distance and the route was up hill.
Syverkiosken is one of the last hotdog kiosks in Oslo. Here, you can get sausages prepared the traditional way, in lompe, a flatbread made from potatoes, or with new, innovative flavor pairings.
The toppings are always homemade, and the sausages are boiled in a rich stock, made according to Syverkiosken’s secret, traditional recipe.
I must say they serve an excellent polse (hot dog). As it was not that busy we had a nice chat with the person attending to the stand. Soon others started to arrive and a line was forming as we left.
The jet lag was catching up to us as rain started to fall so we decided to get back to the hotel to chill and prep for tomorrow. We arrived back at the hotel at about 4:00 later than we thought. We had a good day and will go out for a simple meal tonight. We want to eat light as we will be on a cruise in a couple days. Oh look, hot dogs across from the hotel in the park.
