Oslo, the city

Today has been a high calorie day, lunch was a large pizza, followed by a large ice cream.  And a very creamy latte.  All delicious of course.  

Excuse the hairdo. I washed it this morning and then went outside to do a few jobs, and hey presto, I achieved a windswept look, which I then could do nothing about.  A bad hair day, indeed. 

Oslo was full of restaurants, of all nationalities.  An amazing foodie place.  Quite pricey, but much of it was very imaginative, although I noticed they love their hamburgers, pizzas and English pubs.  One pub was called The Winston Pub, complete with a picture of Winston Churchill.

Of course eating outside was the norm with rugs and heaters to keep people warm.

And some restaurants had fluffy chair covers, but this restaurant topped them all, with its lambs wool covers.  I would have liked to check to see if they were fake, but thought better of it.  Very comfy.

Fag ends.  I am sure everyone will want to see them.  I found them fascinating, as they were spread thickly along the fence line.   It makes a change from all the padlocks or shoes clipped onto fences or bridges.   Fag end mementoes!

Sculptures abound in Oslo.  This piece of sculpture, floating in front of the Opera House, was by Monica Bonvicini, and was called 'She Lies'.  It was based on David Fredrich's painting Das Eismeer (The Sea of Ice).  It spins and twists, as the tides rush in and out of the harbour.  We thought it looked like a sailing ship.  Obviously got that one wrong.

A huge pot with white frosted branches left in it.  Left over from winter?

A statue in front of a fountain.

A bird enjoying its high perch.  Walter commented that he never wants a statue made of him, because you end up with bird poo all over you.  So true.

The lead up to the palace. A man on a bicycle.  We did not visit the palace, due to it being difficult to get on a tour.  Not that we were that interested really, as it was not as appealing as the palaces in Copenhagen and Stockholm.

Some of the architecture here was quite spectacular.  The massive redevelopment going on in this area was pretty impressive, and will be finished in 2016/2017.

But the most impressive of all the buildings, was the Opera House, designed by an Oslo firm, Snohetta, and cost about €500 million to build.  It was opened in 2008.

Of course, going to an opera here would have been amazing, but sadly we did not think ahead, so had to admire the building, as did most tourists I think.  The windows were 15m high and flooded the foyer with light.   But the most impressive feature inside was the wave wall, made out of strips of golden oak.  The toilets were also pretty flash too, lined with plastic that looked like beaten copper.  The outside of the toilets were made of glass bricks that were lit up.

The opera house was designed to represent a glacier floating in the waters.  The roof was designed to walk on, and this itself was impressive, not just for the views it gave of Oslo, but for the sheer whiteness and curves of the roof.  I managed to take this photograph, during the few minutes when people disappeared from my view.

I took a photo of this building from the roof of the Opera House.

Now onto the main shopping street, a bit drab looking at first, and full of Roma (Romanians, Bulgarians, Slovakians) people begging, or trying to sell magazines.  It has been a long since since I had seen so many, perhaps because they were thrown out of France and have come north.  France got into major trouble with the EU over that.  I realise now it was these people that were begging outside the supermarkets in Bredang, by the camping ground in Stockholm.  The problem is the people are usually not begging for themselves but are working for large criminal gangs.  In Oslo they were everywhere, on the shopping streets, outside churches, the railway station, the bus stops and the tube stations.

The painted ceiling of the Oslo Catherdral, an evangelical Lutheran church, was beautiful, although it was a fairly recent addition to the church (1936/1950).  However the church was built in 1697.

The parliament building.  There was a grand avenue from this building all the way to the palace.

The Radhus (town hall), completed in 1950.  It was built of redbrick, fundamentalist in appearance, and quite stark.  It is here that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded on the 10th December each year.

The Nobel Peace Centre.

Akershus Castle, which we hope to visit tomorrow.

We saved our feet a bit and went on a trip on the little train, which gave us a relaxed view of the city, together with the perfume of diesel fumes which always accompany these trains. We were the only customers too.

Our views of Oslo, after visiting Copenhagen and Stockholm.  We found Oslo had a charm all of its own.  It also had less traffic, plenty of space and wider streets with plenty of vistas.

And to finish, a photograph of the beautiful sunset last night.