Thursday, 20 February 2025
We were up early this morning so that we could shower, dress and clean our teeth and leave our room before the 8.00am deadline. We lugged our coats and carry-on bags to the dining room to eat our last breakfast on board the Hurtigruten. How boring breakfast will be back at home!
We finished our breakfast then continued to sit in the dining room waiting for an announcement that we could leave the boat. Meredith had come through the atrium and reported that passengers were queueing on the stairs waiting anxiously to be able to access the gangplank. Why? The buses to transfer passengers to their hotels were not due until 9.00am why not relax in the dining room or the bar until then. There didn’t seem much point to us to race out to collect our bags from the tent to then stand around in sub-zero temperatures waiting for a bus!
We waited or a few minutes after the ‘door open’ announcement to let the traffic jam clear and then made our way to the quay to be reunited with all our worldly possessions. All the Trip a Dealers (there have been about 16 of us on board) found the coach that would be transferring us to the Thon Europa.
After a short drive through the city we were deposited at the Thon where we all queued up to be processed by the ONE attendant on reception. Fortunately he was very efficient and was allocating our rooms very quickly and even sorting out a breakfast-to-go voucher for those of us leaving before the dining room opens in the morning. Yes, allocating our rooms. Woo hoo, we were able to take our suitcases straight to our room rather than leave them in the luggage room for the day. Even better, we could clean our teeth again AFTER breakfast which was very welcome. It’s just not the same cleaning your teeth before eating.
We headed off into the city. Just a short walk from the Thon we found the Royal Palace. With the royal family in residence the palace is temporarily closed so we took photographs of the exterior façade and continued on our way. Our hotel is also close to the National Theatre so we walked down there to buy a travel card and to suss out catching the train to the airport in the morning. Our travel card cost 133 Kroner (approximately AUS$19.00) each for the day. We weren’t entirely sure if we would get our money’s worth out of it but decided it would give us freedom to choose between walking or riding if we were tired and cold later in the day. It was cheaper then the fare on the Hop On, Hop Off Bus so seemed a reasonable option.
The attendant who sold us the travel card told us we needed to go to the station entrance next door to find the Skytrain and explained that we would need to buy our tickets at the platform in the morning. We popped in to the station and found the platform we will need in the morning and (eventually) found the ticket machines. Walked straight past them the first time because they are not actually ON the platform but at the top of the escalators that go down to the platform. Good to have sorted that our this morning rather than make that mistake in the morning when there is a plane to be caught.
Confident that we had learnt all we needed to know for a smooth journey to the airport tomorrow we headed back up to street level to take some photos of the National Theatre and University Square opposite with its ionic-columned façade. We made our way to the National Theatre tram stop to catch the No.13 tram out to MUNCH. We alighted at Bjørvika and wandered along to the museum of Edvard Munch’s life & works.
There has been a Munch Museum in Oslo since the 1950s to house the vast collection of works that Munch bequeathed to the city. This new museum opened in 2021 to provide a new modern permanent home for his artworks. The exhibitions commenced on the 3rd floor with ‘Feet First’ featuring the works of Georg Baselitz best known for his upside down images. The pieces were … interesting. Being as OCD as I am I really, really would have preferred the pieces right way up!
The remaining floors were dedicated to Munch’s many, many works, an exhibition about his home and possessions and another featuring some of his monumental works. The final floor featured works by Munch and a number of his contemporaries (Nordic and European artists) who were active during the period between the 1880s and the 1950s.
The museum holds many versions of Munch’s most famous work ‘The Scream’. Three of the versions are displayed on rotation in a room designed to protect the fragile works. The pieces shown are a painting, a drawing and a print of Munch’s most iconic motif. The pieces were rotated while we were there so we were lucky enough to see the painting and the print.
Before we left the museum we bought our lunch in the café on the ground floor. Although we have really been enjoying multi-course lunches from the buffet on the ship it was kind of nice to find a nice and basic toasted ham and cheese sandwich for our lunch today.
From the museum we walked along the newly developed Inger Munch’s pier. Inger Munch was Edvard’s sister and featured in many of his artworks. The pier features a nine-metre-high bronze sculpture ‘The Mother’ by Tracey Emin one of the UK’s most celebrated and controversial artists.
Next on our itinerary was the Oslo Opera House the home of the Norwegian Opera and Ballet. The Opera House is a striking, contemporary building that was completed in 2008 after our last visit to Oslo. Known for its roof top walk we were lucky that sufficient snow and ice has melted for the walk to be open. During winter the conditions are often too dangerous and the roof is closed to sightseers. Today we were able to walk up and over the roof admiring the buildings handsome marble construction from many angles.
We walked around the top of the fjord past the pink Havnelageret corporate offices. Far too pretty to be an office block?! We continued around to the Akershus Festning (Fortress) a mediaeval castle that was built to protect and provide a royal residence for the city. The fortress is made up of a picturesque collection of buildings and is free to visit unless you want to go into the Armed Forces Museum or the Resistance Museum. We were happy to just meander around the site without paying for either of the museums.
We made our way to the Honnørbrygga (harbour) and the Rådhusplassen (City Hall Square). The Radhus (Oslo City Hall) consists of two very ugly brown brick towers. They do however have an impressive clock on one of the towers and it struck 3.00pm while we nearby. The bell tower sounds the hour with a very lyrical set of bells.
It was very cold in Oslo today. I don’t think it even made it above zero and there was a significant wind chill factor. We probably could have fitted in a bit more sightseeing but the call of our hotel room was too tempting. Even bailing out at 4.00pm we have amassed a step count approaching that of yesterday. Definitely a couple of big walking days in a row to end our holiday.
Bernie’s Googling identified a highly rated restaurant – Den Glade Gris – very close by. We rugged up again and walked along the street. Hmmn, looking very crowded as we approached. Sure enough, no seats for walk-ins. Oh well back to the hotel restaurant it was. When we sat down one of the other Trip a Deal ladies was already there so we asked her how her day had been. We’d barely started looking at the menu when Mark and Claudia arrived and we invited them to join us. Spaghetti all round. Three carbonaras and one bolognese.
A final bit of rearranging the suitcase and the hand luggage ready for the morning, a cup of tea and then bed. It’s going to be an early start in the morning.
Steps: 17, 879 (11.80km)
