Scandinavia Trip - Oslo revisited.

I had visited Oslo earlier in the year on the Norwegian Independence Day. It was only a day trip and my take away from that trip was the sheer beauty of the countryside. Oslo as such seemed to be like any other city in this part of the world, though I may be wrong in judging that way basis only a few hours spent there. But whatever little I had seen of the hinterland was captivating and after the view of the Halden fjord from atop the hill I made a mental note to return to Norway soon and for a longer duration.

Along came September and with it a chance to visit Norway again. Well it was not that a chance presented itself, but we had a few days left in the leave balance and the idea was to use them fully. Since my co travelers – Kamal and Shubhada – had not seen any part of Sweden, we decided to spend 1 day in Stockholm followed by 3 days in Norway. Apart from Oslo, we were going to cover Bergen, considered to be the capital of the Fjord country.

We kicked off the trip a Tuesday morning catching one of the early trains to Stockholm. The weather played spoilsport and it was gloomy and rainy the entire day in the Swedish capital. Hence we could not cover as many places as we wanted, but compensated for that by means of an extended shopping trip around the old city of Gamla Stan buying things ranging from paintings to photographs to antique knives to ancient Viking board games. We returned to Gothenburg the same night, hoping for sunshine over the coming days.

We reached Oslo next day afternoon. The weather gods were kind towards us and the sun was shining bright in Oslo. Our hostel was just a few minutes walk from the station. Neat and comfortable, it was also the first hostel that I had seen which had a DVD player in the room. They had free DVDs to rent out, and would you believe it some Indian movies as well to choose from in their collection. More about that later. After keeping our bags there, we set out to explore the city. After walking around the Fort and the hill (explained in my previous post about Norway) we passed through the city hall, the Nobel peace museum and reached the seafront. We took a ferry to one of the nearby islands and visited the Viking ship museum. A smallish looking building from the outside, the façade did not really impress, perhaps maybe because we expected a grander building. However the displays inside ensures you do not worry about the building anymore. Housing almost fully restored ships from the Viking era and along with it a host of other articles and artifacts from that age, the museum if full of information. It was amazing to see that the Vikings conquered so many countries and explored far and wide using these small ships; actually they are just small catamarans compared to today’s ships. Add the fact that the technology then (700 -1100 CE) was primitive, knowledge of maps , currents, compasses and other navigational facilities were perhaps non existent, then the Viking conquests are nothing short a miracle. What was more interesting is that these ships were recovered not from any wreck in the sea, but from land, or more specifically buried underground. We learnt that it was ancient Viking custom to bury the kings or people of high importance along with one such ship and with a host of other things needed for the person to lead a comfortable life in his afterlife. Similar to how the Pharaohs of Egypt were buried in the pyramids with all riches, here too the Vikings were buried with every basic necessity and sometimes not so basic necessities. How else do you explain the fact that live horses , carriages and sometimes servants also were also buried along with the dead person? It must have been one hell of a graveyard, starting with a ship all the way to utensils, shoes and clothes.

After this eye opening trip to the Viking museum, we got back to Oslo and decided to check out the Vigeland sculpture park. Located not too far from the city centre, the sprawling park consists of hundreds of bronze and granite sculptures created by Gustav Vigeland – whom we decided to refer to as the Norwegian Gaudi, what with our Barcelona visit still fresh in the mind. As you walk towards the centre of the park, you cross a bridge and there are statues on either side, with the statue of a Little Angry boy being the most striking. Most of the statues showed humans in various activities. One weird statue had a man fighting off a few kids who it seemed were attacking him. The less violent ones had people embracing or just being happy with life. The centre of attraction in the park was the giant monolith. Situated atop an elevation with scores of complicated sculptures lining the steps that surround it, the monolith was an awesome piece of art. It depicts humans – hundreds of them, embracing one another and moving upwards towards the top of the monolith. A visit to this park should be on the list for anyone visiting Oslo.

Afterwards we walked towards the Royal palace and down to the hostel via Karl johans gate, the main tourist thoroughfare in Oslo.

After a quick dinner, we decided to make use of the DVD player in the room. We browsed through the available titles and selected a Hindi movie -NO ENTRY. It was one of those odd things, that of all places, we happened to watch this blockbuster movie in Oslo while we were well and truly in India when this movie was playing. Except for Anil Kapoor’s almost blonde hair and moustache and some totally unfathomable illogical scenes, the movie was fun. We dedicated the movie watching to Sid, a proclaimed No entry fan,and a constant companion on our trips ,whose wise insights into life and ideas to have fun on a trip was being sorely missed this time.