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Only an one-and-a-half-hour flight from Frankfurt and you are in Oslo. As soon as you arrive at Oslo Airport you would feel being in Scandinavia...
The best way from the airport to downtown is to take the SAS-shuttle buss service. They offer the best price-performance-ratio. It will take you to the city centre in 45-60 minutes, as the new Gardermoen airport is about 50 km away from the city. Infos at http://www.flybussen.com
Once in downtown most of the sites are in walking distance. Oslo has about 500.000 inhabitants but is the largest capital of the world measured by area - most of it being forest.
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What to do in Oslo |
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Basics |
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You can see it from the harbour view: Olso is a city at the sea. With the edge of the fiord just 50 m from the town hall, the whole city is living with, on and around the sea. The atmosphere is very open and relaxed (this was of course strongly influenced by the fantastic weather we had throughout our stay, with lots of sunshine). It was just great!
We started with a walk around the city: National Theater, King’s Palace, Parliament (called ‘Storting’), Station, Town Hall, and the old castle of Akershus are the highlights that can easily be covered by three or four hours of walk. It is a good thing to start with, in order to get an overview over the city.
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Before you go on to the museums, one tip: from our experience the ‘Oslo Card’ makes sence. It is offered by the Tourist Information next to the town hall at the harbour or in most of the hotels, and offers free rides on public transportation (including public ferryboats), free entrance to a variety of museums as well as a discount on many other activities. We did not buy it, because it seemed to be
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very expensive, but after the three days of full activities we realized it would have been worth it. Anyway, of course it depends on what and how much you are planning to do...
To prepare for your visit to Oslo the website http://www.visitoslo.com will be of good help. At http://www.virtualoslo.com, your personal guidebook to the Norwegian capital will be automatically compiled, just by simply entering your preferences and interests!
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It might sound strange to visit museums when the weather is so good, but one of the three we saw was open-air and we were happy to enter the other two to escape the burning sun...
Probably the most attractive museum, and the one most of the people from the ship to Bygdoy Museum Island actually chose to visit first, is the Viking Ship Museum (klick for link to museum’s homepage). You will see three more or less well preserved viking ships built around 900 A.D. We were totally amazed, because of two readons: firstly, these wooden ships were built in an uncomplecated method but were
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The last museum on Bygdoy island we visited was the Fram-Museum. The “Fram” actually is a ship made of oak in 1892. It has seen the North and South Pole and actually took Roald Amundsen to the Antarctica to reach the South Pole as the first human in 1911.
The stories explained, the instruments on display once again proved how tough people have been during these days. They would sail to the North Pole to deriberately get stuck in the ice and drift with the ice for about five (!!!) years before they would get free again to sail back to Norway. In this museum, where the huge “Fram” itself is on display, you can enter the ship and walk around on the deck or inside the cabin. Unique experience!
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What else we did... |
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No visit to Oslo without a boat ride. Well, the 30,000-Island-Tour in Canada was definitely more impressive (-> see ‘Parry Sound’ on our Canada 08/2001 page), but it was fun to do the 2h-boat tour in the Oslo Fiord. Unfortunately, it was just a small boat where you had to remain seated all the time. Information on the tour is offered on the Internet-Site of Batservice Sightseeing
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One day was reserved for the beautiful nature around Oslo. A short hike lead us to the TV-tower (15 min. walk from Voksenkollen underground station). It offers a great view over the fiord, but from behind a glas screen.
Up there you can find plenty of opportunities for hiking, which we did for two hours.
Afterwards we went to Holmenkollen ski jump tower (see the photo on the left). It offers a ski museum and, another highlight, you can go up the tower and feel like a ski jumper. Brave guys!
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These are the main things we did during our two and a half days stay. The rest of the time we went for strolling around in the city and along the seaside. Plenty of cafes and restaurants are situated in the “Aker Brygge” area, a big new shopping and business district, right next to the water.
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Where we stayed |
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We stayed at the ‘Rainbow Hotel Europa’.
Positive about it: It is in the central area and in walking distance from the main sights (5 min. walk to King’s palace) and the SAS-Bus to the airport stops nearby.
Negative about it: Well, it was a typical tourist hotel, the breakfast ok, but the people were not really friendly, which was a kind of pity, because everywhere else the service was very good and friendly.
All in all, from our view it is not recommendable. However, if you want to take it, we booked it via a German travel operator which was cheaper than the rates from internet booking - strange!
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