Franchu’s lair

We went to Oslo for New Year and had a great time!

• Hotel: Norlandia Karl Johans. Although we had read some reviews online about it being a noisy place, we were staying in the third floor with the window overlooking an internal court and it was not noisy. You could barely distinguish the bass from nearby clubs during the night and just because we knew it was supposed to be there. If not, we could have easy mistaken it for an air conditioning system. The breakfast was ok. Best of all is the location, right in the centre of the city and within walking distance of most touristic attractions and major transportation hub.
• Visits:
  • Oslo City Hall: it is worth a visit. Impressive central hall and nice frescoes.
  • Nobel Peace Centre: when we visited it, there were two exhibitions. One on freedom of speech and another one on “Global Warming” showing the views of Al Gore and the IPCC that earned them the Nobel Peace Price 2007. For my views on that particular price you can read my previous post on the topic. Apart from the topic of the second exhibition there were two things that really surprised me and that were worth the time we spent there. First, the photography they used to represent the concepts was fantastic, which helped convey the meaning of the exhibition. Second, the user interfaces in some parts of the exhibition were really innovative and usable. A post will follow on that later
  • Akershus Castle: it was closed when we were there, but the walks in the walls and the inner streets is really nice.
  • Kon-Tiki Museum: about the trips done by Thor Heyerdahl in very primitive boats in his efforts to show that transatlantic contacts were technically possible well before 1492. The results of his trips Ra and Ra II can be seen on the image below, and only due to bad luck Ra II got short of reaching the shore.
    

    via kwout

  • Polar Ship Fram: There it is! The famous FRAM that played a crucial role in Roald Amundsen’s South Pole expedition. You can walk inside and get a feeling of what this piece of history looked like back then.
  • Viking Ship Museum: it is one of the places I liked the most. It makes an odd impression to see so well preserved boats that had been used by the Vikings. Those 32 meters long vessels shaped the history of the northern European Atlantic.
  • Norwegian Museum of Science & Technology: Interesting display of a train, an airplane and several cars to represent the evolution of transportation during the last century.
  • Ski museum and Holmenkollen ski jump: Worth the detour to see the amazing slope of the ski jump

  The main problem is that in winter most of the museums close at 16:00 or 17:00 which leaves you with a lot of time free to visit the city or enjoy a quiet dinner somewhere.

• Entertainment: We went for skying to Tryvann which is 20 minutes in subway from the city center, and ice-skated just in front of the hotel
• Food: It was quite difficult to find traditional Norwegian food, so we stuck to Pizza at Dolly Dimple’s Pizza next to the ice-skating ring, and a quiet restaurant also next to ice-skating ring called Egon.

Trackback This Post | Subscribe to the comments through RSS Feed