It’s April 2011 outside and today we are going to see Norway’s capital!
Oslo is really very expensive city to visit. I clearly remember, that we booked our flight for 20 euro per person from Riga to Oslo and back to Riga 🙂 Nice? Is’n it? and here you go…Surprise! The bus ticket from airport to the city center was 15 euro per person.
Overpriced food, super expensive alcohol, crazy price for one night in a hotel 🙂 I still remember it all very clearly 🙂 Seriously, Oslo is expensive, but here are plenty things to see/do that are absolutely for free! Ohh, it was be a bit tricky to stay on a budget here 🙂 but we managed 🙂
So, let me share with you our 24 hours in Oslo 🙂
We arrived at the central station and met “The Tiger” here! By the way, do you know that “The Tiger City”- Tigerstaden is Oslo’s nickname? 🙂 Why? Cause this name was first used by Norwegian poet Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in the poem “Sidste Sang”(1870) and even nowadays almost every Norwegian will tell you that Tigerstaden = Oslo 🙂
Here is the Oslo Opera House. You can find it very close to the station. Not to be missed even if you have no plans to go inside 🙂
Stunning building, that’s built right on the harbor and you can even walk on the roof! It’s officially allowed 🙂 There are not so many places in the world, where you can officially walk on the roof of important buildings 🙂 So catch the chance! Visit it, walk here and you’ll get romantic water views over the Oslofjord.
City center isn’t so big, so we are going to discover it on foot and then will take bus and metro to visit some places on our list.
Let’s walk through the center via it’s main artery – Karl Johans gate. It’s the main street that starts right outside the train station and ends with the Royal Palace.
Plenty of shops, cafes and restaurants … and 100% you won’t miss huge Freia clock at Karl Johans gate 3 😉
Freia is Norway’s most famous chocolate producer, it’s famous for the Freia milk chocolate bar and Kvikk Lunsj. So if you like sweets just visit it, cause here you can buy chocolate a bit cheaper than in other supermarkets.
Here are a lot of important historic and lovely industrial buildings along this street. Oslo is green and clean, people here are friendly and smiling, so you have very happy and relaxed feeling just strolling around a city.
The Norwegian Royal Palace is the current official residence of today’s Norwegian monarch. It’s really so nice, that you can get so close to the palace, almost ring on the door to see if the king is home:)
It’s even possible to explore the palace inside, but only during the summer, when there are official guided tours.
So, we just walked around, enjoyed the views from the palace down the Karl Johans gate and cought some sun 🙂 Plus if you have more time, you have an opportunity to look at daily changing of the guard at 13:30.
We advise you to look at one more fabulous building that is very close to The Royal Palace – it’s The Nobel Peace Center, here you’ll find a museum, very nice way to explore the history about Nobel and Nobel Prize laureates.
Off cause don’t miss to explore the harbor area. We always like to wander around boats:)
You can find the imposing square building near the harbor, that has two towers with a huge clock on the one of them. It’s The City Hall!
The harbor’s area is very lovely, but has very expensive cafes, so let’s just sit in lovely park near it and look at how boats are swinging on the calm water. 🙂
We are going to see our next point of interest:) and occasionally found this nice fountain, called Christian IV’s Glove. The legend says, that after the big town fire in 1624, the Danish-Norwegian King Christian IV decided to rebuild the town and pointed to this spot and said: “The new town will lie here!”
We reached our next location, it’s Frogner Park. It’s very famous tourist attraction, cause here is the iconic Vigeland Sculpture Park. It’s unique, because it’s the world’s largest sculpture park created by a single artist.
This marvelous park is the most visited park in Norway! Entrance is free of charge, it’s open all year long 24/7.
There are over 200 sculptures and many awesome picnic spots to consume your nutritious sandwich.
Vigeland’s major themes are human life and emotions.
Very spectacular artwork is in the middle, it’s 16 meter-high Monolith, consists of 121 human figures rising towards the sky. Very impressive!!!
Then we decided to escape the city, to catch the sunset and admire panoramic views of Oslo and the Oslofjord, we took a short metro ride from Oslo city to the Frognerseteren station.
So nice and forested region, so relaxed atmosphere, so spectacular views….
Less tourism, more relaxation….
Plus here is a nice cafe with traditional Norwegian cuisine and superb views… Great place to spend some hours.
So wild nature, a lot of hidden lakes, all around is advising you to take a backpack, Nordic walking poles and start your hike adventure 🙂
One more thing you shouldn’t miss in Oslo is to see stunning views of the Oslofjord from a water! This is what Norway is famous for:)
We spend two hours on a wooden boat before our flight back to Riga and it was really amazing boat trip!
Taste of Norwegian life… beautiful nature, calm water, green shoreline, small fisherman’s shelters…
It was a guided boat trip, so we had a chance to learn more about locals’s lifestyle, nature and the countryside.
Oslo is not so big, so even during our 24 hours visit it is more than enough to feel the taste of this small city. But now it’s time to fly back home 🙂
That’s all for today.
Tomorrow will be new day and new emotions:)
See you tomorrow 🙂
Don’t sit at home. Travel! Travel with me! 🙂 Meaww!
go and travel with me 