Akershus Castle, seen from our cabin

Oslo Opera House

Electric cars being 'refuelled' in a city street

Oslo, Norway.  4 June 2014, Wednesday

First impressions of Oslo (well, the only impression of Oslo, since we leave this evening!)...

We woke up to the ship gliding up the Oslo fjord and although it is not a dramatic landscape, it was picturesque,= to see the small wooden houses clustered on the islands, before arriving in Oslo itself, to berth just across the road from Akershus Castle.

We spent a few hours swanning around on a hop-on/hop-off bus, finding Oslo to be pleasant small city, with the countryside slipping easily into the suburbs.  Parks and gardens give it a peaceful charm, and the only negative is of course, the climate.   If it's like this in early summer, I wouldn't want to be here in winter.  We were fortunate today that after the overnight rain, the showers stopped long enough for us, rugged up in our winter woolies, to get out and see the place.   Looking at my suitcase this morning, as we prepared to leave for the day, I realised there are clothes there that I'm not going to wear until I get home.  No way would shorts and short sleeves be suitable, even though many locals seem to think that it's OK.

BTW, the internet connection on board is very slow - good for emails, and that's about all.  I'm struggling to upload this diary, so it's going to be very intermittent publishing, I fear.

Places of note today - our "drive-bys" included the building where the Nobel Peace Prize is presented and the Norwegian Parliament, we caught a glimpse of the Royal Palace (home to King Harald and Queen Sonia), and spent a fair bit of time at the Kon-Tiki Museum (really interesting). 

Plus there was the Holmenskollen Ski Jump (Oslo hosted the 1952 Winter Olympics), and a street where electric cars could plug into power charging units on the kerb.

On the arts front, there was the new Oslo Opera House, a work of very distinctive architecture (heaps better than that of Copenhagen), a sculpture park that was only slightly weird, and of course, we couldn't come to Oslo without seeing Edvard Munch's The Scream (right).  And a security guard there very charmingly corrected my pronunciation of Munch's name - it ends with a hard "K" sound.  The Scream is to Oslo what the Mona Lisa is to the Louvre - and incidentally, DB doesn't like either!

top row, from left: The Norwegian Parliament, and the Kon Tiki raft

second row: Vigeland Sculpture Park  and the Holmollen ski jump (seen from a distance- we didn't get up close)

left: the local birdlife doesn't find the water too cold for a dip!

Next: we head back south to Gothenburg