Oslo, Norway: (14 pictures) – Day 27


Norwegian Countryside - This is a picture taken from the train of a small town and a pretty lake in Norway on the way up to Oslo.  Norway was very pretty for the most part.



Akershus Castle - This castle and fortress were initially constructed over 700 years ago.  It was located right by the waterfront in Oslo.  I was able to walk all around the castle grounds, but all of the buildings were closed.


Radhus - This rather ugly building is the City Hall of Oslo.  It's actually where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony takes place every year.


Oslo from the Castle - I arrived in Oslo at about 5:30 p.m.  I was planning on taking a train to Stockholm, Sweden the next morning at 6:00 a.m., so I did the most logical thing and decided to just walk around the city all night.  I didn't get really tired until about 3:30 in the morning after I had seen pretty much everything there was to see in the middle of the night.  This picture is just part of the harbor in Oslo as seen from the castle.


Akershus Castle - Here is a different view of the castle in Oslo.


Karl Johans Gate - This is the main pedestrian street in Oslo with the train station in the background.  Oslo was the most expensive city on my trip, even worse than Geneva, Switzerland.  McDonalds "value" meals were over ten dollars each.  For dinner I went to a grocery store and bought bread, chips, cheese, and some pepperoni sauce you squeeze out of a tube.


Royal Palace - This palace was at the end of the main pedestrian street.  It was just one more palace I saw after seeing what already seemed like a hundred earlier in my trip.


Vigeland Park - This was actually one of my favorite parks that I saw during my time in Europe.  What made it so great was that there were hundreds of these cool statues all over the place.  They were all done by a Norwegian man named Gustav Vigeland and showed different stages of the human life cycle, such as holding a baby, fighting with siblings, or falling in love.


Statues in Vigeland Park - This bridge in the middle of the park was lined with some of Gustav Vigeland's sculptures.


Monument in Vigeland Park - In the center of the park is this huge monument of people made out of one single piece of granite also made by Gustav Vigeland.  It was actually quite impressive.  It was also surrounded my many other statues.


Holmenkollen Ski Jump - I rode a tram about half an hour away from the city to the top of this mountain because I wanted to see what the famous ski jump from the Lillehammer Olympics looked like.  I was very impressed with how big and steep it actually was and how far the ski jumpers actually go while they're in the air.  It seems insane when you're there looking at it.


Holmenkollen Ski Jump -  This is just another view that better shows how great of a distance the ski jumpers cover.  They leave the ramp where the white area stops and they land below where you can see in this picture.  The hill goes down much further and ends in an arena, but I couldn't fit it all in this picture.  It is all incredibly impressive.


View from Holmenkollen - This isn't that great of a picture, but all of the lights on the left side of the picture are the center of Oslo.  It was about 10:30 at night at this time, and still it seemed almost like daytime.  This picture came out even darker than it actually was outside also.


Statue in Vigeland Park - Later on in the night, I returned to Vigeland Park and saw this statue and thought it was really funny, so I took a picture of it.  Maybe I was getting delirious from staying up all night long.

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