Europe

We got down to breakfast at about 9:30 am this morning, after sleeping pretty well.

After breakfast, we walked to the Oslo Opera House, one of the city’s most iconic landmarks, where we met Peter and Joy.

From the Opera House, we boarded the hop-on, hop-off bus, to head to our next stop, Vigeland Park. Vigeland Park is the world’s largest sculpture park created by a single artist, Gustav Vigeland, and is renowned for its dramatic and expressive sculptures depicting the cycle of human life. The sculptures were created over a period of 40 years, with most of the installation taking place between 1940 and 1949.

The largest sculpture in the park is the Monolith, carved from a single massive block of granite. It stands 14 metres high and is entwined with 121 human figures striving upwards, representing the unity and complexity of humanity.

The park also contains Norway’s largest rose collection, with over 14,000 rose bushes, and 150 varieties.

After walking around the park, we grabbed a quick drink and snack in the park’s cafe, before re-boarding the bus to take us to our next stop, The Fram Museum.

The Fram is a Norwegian polar exploration ship, built in 1892 by Colin Archer, and considered the strongest wooden ship ever constructed for icy waters. Designed with a rounded hull so it would be pushed upward rather than crushed by pack ice, it was built to endure the most extreme Arctic and Antarctic conditions. The ship was used on three major expeditions: by Fridtjof Nansen (1893–1896) to explore the Arctic and test the theory of polar drift, by Otto Sverdrup (1898–1902) to chart large areas of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, and by Roald Amundsen (1910–1912) on his historic expedition to the South Pole, where in 1911, he became the first to reach it. Boarding the Fram and exploring the living quarters and working conditions of the polar explorers was very interesting. It’s hard to imagine how difficult it would have been to sail for years in the ice in the cramped quarters.

In addition to the Fram, the Fram Museum also houses the Gjøa. The Gjøa was the small wooden sloop used by Roald Amundsen and his crew during 1903–1906, when they became the first expedition to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage.

As well as the two ships, the museum also houses a Dornier Do J “Wal” (Whale) seaplane, used by Roald Amundsen during his 1925 North Pole expedition.

We exited the museum just before 4:00 pm. With no bus in sight, we tried to call an Uber, but after waiting about half-an-hour for the Uber, we gave up on that idea when the hop-on, hop-off bus pulled up. Our relief was short-lived, as we were greeted by the same (possibly insane!) driver we had yesterday. Still, with no other plausible option, we made our way to some seats, and buckled up for the ride. True to yesterday’s form, our driver once again took us on a high-speed trip through Oslo! We decided to get off at the same point we alighted yesterday, and walk along the foreshore to Pascal to get some ice-cream.

We then said goodbye to Peter and Joy, who headed back to their hotel, while we walked to our hotel to evaluate what luggage we could send home. We identified 36kg of luggage that we could go without (including a few purchases we’ve made along the way), so we carried that to the nearest post office (about 20 minutes away on foot), bought some sturdy boxes, and spent about an hour packing it all for its journey back to Melbourne. But, somehow, we’ve still got four big suitcases!

After the trip to the post office, we met Peter and Joy for dinner, at a fantastic dinner at a new Japanese restaurant just near our hotel.

At about 10:30 pm, we said goodbye to Peter and Joy. They are flying to Berlin tomorrow, and we are flying to Warsaw (although we’ll all meet up again in a few days in Budapest).

We packed our suitcases (now an easier task since we’ve got less to pack) before heading to bed. We’ll need to be up reasonable early in the morning to depart the hotel at 8:00 am and head to the airport for our flight to Warsaw.