Sue and Jo's Norway Adventure

Just got back from a fabulous long weekend in Oslo with Jo. It's been an absolute blast and we've had a great time, and I'd definitely recommend it to anyone looking to do a city break with a bit of a difference.

Things went fairly smoothly on the way out, which was a relief as I had worried that the whole thing would be one mad rush. We actually arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare and had a leisurely trip through check in and security, before settling down with a couple of large glasses of rose wine and the guidebooks to do some belated trip planning.

We arrive at Oslo Torp airport on time, but since it's in the middle of nowhere (over 100km from Oslo itself) we had a long coach trip ahead of us to get us to the end of our journey. Luckily, there's a dedicated coach servce called Torpexpressen that meets every Ryanair flight into Torp and carts into (and back from) the city centre for a reasonable 300kr (£30) return ticket.

We arrived at the central bus-station at just after 10pm, and then unerringly proved why women should not be allowed to read the map, by setting off in completely the wrong direction from the terminal! Genius, I tell you! After looking very confused at the first crossroads we got to, we finally figured out where we'd gone wrong and set off on a now slight circuitous route to take us to our hostel. Our first impressions of Oslo were therefore all a bit confused as we headed down deserted streets in a less-than-salubrious neighbourhood, then passed lots of street-side bars and witnessed some rather lively arguments on our way to our bed for the nights to come.

We found the Anker hostel without too much more trouble, and then hit the next flaw in the plan. They'd somehow lost our booking in the system, and didn't have any double / twin rooms available. Our hearts pretty much hit our boots at this point, but the lovely lady at reception (who spoke the most flawless English I've ever heard, as indeed most Norwegians seem to - very handy when you don't speak a word of the local language other than being able to say Thank You!), found us an empty 5 bed dorm, and promised that we could have it to ourselves for the duration of our stay and for the price already agreed. This actually worked out really well, because the room was huge and came complete with its own little mini-kitchen and fridge and a dining table and chairs. I'd definitely recommend the Anker Hostel to any other travellers - the staff were helpful, the location was central and everything was clean. We've both said that we would use it again. And at just under £150 each for 5 nights, you can't argue with the price!

Jo and I were up fairly early on Friday morning, courtesy of two things. 1) Oslo in early June, doesn't ever really get dark, and it's very confusing when "dawn" arrives at about 2am. 2) They're currently building a new hotel just behind the Anker complex, and apparently 7am is a perfectly acceptable hour to start heavy building work in Norway!

Jo shot off to her wedding that she was attending on Friday, so after spending an hour or so orientating ourselves in the city centre, and working out how the tram system worked, I was on my own. Eeeeeek - I've never been on my own abroad before! I actually spent a very pleasent afternoon exploring the National Gallery, which is both free, and home to a very impressive collection of art. I thought it was going to be pretty small when I walked in, but 32 rooms later, I revised that opinion as my feet were killing me!!! I saw - deep breath! - Manet & Monet, Degas & Rembrandt, Picasso and Van Gogh and a whole exhibition on Edvard Munch including one his 4 versions of the The Scream. There were also a whole heap of other famous painters I can't even think of at the moment, as well as some truly breath-taking Scandinavian landscape painters.

After the National Gallery, I braved one of the supermarkets on the way home to pick up some essentials for the trip. Unbelievably, one basket with some basic breakfast and lunch stuff (just milk, bread, cereal, ham, cheese) for both of us and dinner for one person came to a whopping 410kr - which is about £40!!! Ouch. I then spent a quiet night in at the hostel watching films on the portable DVD player we had. Atonement - possibly the most depressing film in the world. Don't get me wrong, it was good, but good lord it's traumatic watching it!

Saturday saw me catching the T-bane to the wooded hills outside Oslo to meet Jo and get back to nature. It's amazing how quickly Oslo becomes first expensive, lush, green suburbs, and then rural countryside - with half an hour of boarding the train in the city centre I was deposited atop a hillside, surrounded my fir trees and singing birds. Jo was already there to meet me with a route map, so we set off down the hill on our epic walk.

And got about 10 mins before we passed the beatiful and expensive Frognerseterin resaturant / hotel and decided to stop for decadent early morning cake! The biggest, freshly baked muffins you've ever seen and a view to die for from their balcony, under blue, blue sky.

Following the impromptu refuelling session we set off down the hill in high spirits .... and made about 50 metres before we had to refer to the map to work out where the heck we were meant to be going! After tramping across what looked like part of a building site, and climbing over a pile of rubble, we found something that looked remarkably like a trail and started off on the Grand Yomp Into The Wilderness again. Somehow we lost the trail in the next 10 mins - I think we dived off down an impromptu mountainbike trail by accident - and the next thing we knew we'd arrived at a massive mud road bisecting our path. The only problem being that the road was about 8 foot down a loose face of rocks, which we had to slide down in undignified fashion on our arses. A good start to the day!

We did a bit better after this. We were originally going to head first for the Olympic ski jump at Holmenkollen, which is the guidebook told us was a renowned view point across the greater Oslo area. However we found out the day before that the ski jump had been dismantled at the beginning of the year as they're rebuilding the surrounding resort at the moment. So we followed the walk in that general direction, but then continued straight on down to Midstuen which is the next T-bane station down the hill.

We actually reached that a lot quicker than we'd anticipated, so we decided that further exploration was in order, and after a quick glance at a handy trail-side map, we headed off up and round to nearby Songsvann lake. I would like to point out at this point, that our original map didn't cover any of this area, so from this point on we were winging it! It was a stunning day out, and I soon migrated from fleece and full length jeans to vest top and shorts, and still the path unfolded endlessly in front of us. The signposts we passes stopped pointing to the place we wanted to go, and we started to get a big confused. We sussed out that the sign-posts we were following must be the ski-run signs from the winter season, as I can think of no other reason why one finger post would have 3 separate signs for the same place, all pointing different directions with different distances on them. Oh yes, and they were all either red, green or blue. We eventually picked up signs for Songsvann again, and opted to take the red route which also happened to be the shortest.

It also happened to head straight into the boggiest excuse for a path I've ever come across!!! Committed as we were, we indulged in a spot of bog-hopping in an attempt to navigate round it (it seriously took us about 15 mins to get round a section of path about 20 metres long!), and of course, I completely missed my footing on jump from rock to log - got my foot on the log fine, and then put the other foot down straight in the muddy quagmire on the other side of the log, which turned out to be roughly ankle-deep before I could start getting my foot out again.

Jo was in absolute fits of laughter, and I wasn't quite sure whether to laugh or cry. In the end, I had a temporary sense of humour failure for about 10 mins (cue comedy "dejected" photos of me), before being able to see the funny side. The rest of the path was marginally less adventurous, but still featured further stream / river / bog crossings of a precarious nature. Luckily, I was also wearing walking sandals, rather than heavy boots, so was able to stick my foot in a stream a bit later and wash off the worst of the mud.

Our lovely walk ended at Songsvann lake about mid-afternoon, where we had a belated picnic in the sun and watched the ludicrously fit Norwegian folks running effortless laps of the lake (highly depressing!). There was also live entertainment in the form of the sudden appearance of a whooping man sprinting down the dock just down the shore from us, tearing off his clothes as he went, and bombing into the lake butt naked. Pretty brave if you ask me as the lake water was damn near glacial - I know because we went paddling in it!

Saturday night we ate out in the up-and-coming warehouse district of Gronelokke (I really need to check some of these spellings so bear with me!) - we found a nice bar / restaurant from the guide book that didn't look like it would be toooooo pocket-wrenchingly expensive, however in Norway that still means that a bottle of house white is over £30 - ouch!!! It was a nice meal however, and we'd actually taken the time to "girly-up" after the earlier walking, so it was a pretty good evening all round. Also, thanks to my new light-weight tendencies where the consumption of alcohol is concerned, half a bottle of wine, and a couple of cheeky vodkas back at the hostel was enough to have me crying helplessly with laughter over something not particularly funny - I think it might have been Jo's discussion of "cabbage allowance" on our upcoming holiday to Croatia when she got mixed up between cabin and baggage .... oh dear.

Sunday dawned as another nice day out, and we tootled off to the harbour to pick up one of the circular ferries and explore the small islands out in Oslo Fjord. The ferries are great as they're free to use with the Oslo pass, so it's a great way to get around. The islands are really pretty and easy to explore in the space of an hour (or two) between scheduled ferry drops. They're chock full or pretty rocky / grassy beaches, cute little holiday huts painted in bright colours, monastry ruins, marinas full of yachts, occasional cafes and stunning isolated houses.

Back on the mainland, we had a little wander around the Akke Brygge shopping area (warning - apparently Norwegian shops do NOT open on a Sunday) before catching the tram out to the suburbs to go and visit the Vigesland scuplture park. It's only about a 10 min tram ride from the centre, and well worth the trip. The park's landscaping has been specifically designed to display the works of art it is home to and it is a beautiful setting to while away a couple of hours. We stopped at a random museum somewhere in the park grounds (I didn't actually notice what it was a museum for!) and had a well-earned coke and cake. Imagine my horror when the total bill for two glasses of diet coke and two little individual ginger cakes came to about £16 - EEEEEEEEEK!!!

Back in the park we took silly photos of us imitating the sculptures and were wowed by the centrepiece on the hill - a giant phallic pillar that stands atop a series of steps - as you get closer you can see that it's formed of bodies writhing together, all butt-naked, but it's not until you get right up close that you appreciate the detail and attention that has gone into it. All around the approaching steps are rings of statues of groups of people, representing different stages of life - all still naked! It's a like a whole lot of naked-ness, but well worth a look :o)

Wandering out down another statue-lined avenue in the park, what I really appreciated was how much the Norwegians actually make use of these gorgeous open spaces and really seem to enjoy them.

Monday, we went out on a boat cruise around the harbour and fjord (again courtesy of the Oslo Pass) on a tall ship. One of the highlights of the cruise was meant to be a shrimp buffet, but honestly Jo and I took one look and decided against it. Lunch isn't meant to have beady little black eyes that look at you from your plate!! Yuck. All the other passengers went at it hammer and tongs though, consuming plate after plate of the little critters. Some of the passengers also decided to feed the birds, as this is obviously a good idea when you have a whole harbour-ful of seagulls in your vicinity, and we were soon trailing a squawking, whooping, dive-bombing trail of the buggers behind, above, around, and on the ship. You may well have picked up from my tone, that I wasn't overly amused by this development, and you'd be right. For one thing, they're huge and pretty aggressive, and having one land about foot away from your face, on the balustrade, is not funny. For another thing, lots of flying gulls = lots of flying shit, and I was very tempted to retreat into my waterproof, hood and all, for the duration of the tour.

We hopped off the boat on the Bygdoy peninsula, home to a very wealthy neighbourhood and also the Viking Ship Museum and also a kind of living history museum. We spent a couple of hours in these (the charm of museums is starting to wear off a little bit by this point, as both Jo and I have fairly low tolerance for all things cultural - cretins that we are!), before mooching back down to the quay to get a final ferry home. As it turned out, we got a bit lost amongst the streets of gigantic houses and ended up on a completely different quay to the one we landed at, but luckily the ferry stopped at both - phew! And that ended another long day on our feet as we staggered back to the hostel!

By this point my ankle, which had been complaining for some of the previous day as well, was really starting to become pretty painful. I'm not entirely sure what I did to it, whether I've sprained the ankle somehow, or if I've managed to bruise the underside of my foot and the shockwave was making my ankle hurt, but either way putting my heel down and putting any weight on it was pretty painful. Luckily, Jo is my saviour. She still had some excess energy to burn so she decided to go out on a run, and then swung by McDonalds on the way back to bring us back some dinner - what an angel!

Since we were flying back on Tuesday there wasn't really a huge amount of time left to do stuff. We packed and headed out from the hostel by 10am, and we were going to head to the Natural History Museum and the Botanical Gardens. We found the gardens without a problem, but then literally couldn'y find the museum. We then hit upon the alternative of going round the Zoological Museum instead which was in the gardens as well. Foiled!! It didn't open til 11 and we knew we needed to be heading back to the hostel by 12. So we thought that since it was a nice day, we'd just sit out on the grass and enjoy the sun and scenery. That lasted about 10 mins until some security chappy rocked up to tell us that we couldn't sit on the grass. Arrrrghh!! In a state of sulky mutiny we wandered down the hill and set up camp on some benches - not nearly as comfy but at least nobody came to move us on.

Our journey back home went smoothly, but only just by the skin of our teeth. We'd been told that we needed to be at the bus-station 4 hours before our flight to catch the airport coach. We sauntered 4 and a half hours before the flight to see that our coach was up on the board and due to leave in 10 mins. WTF???? We hoofed it through the station, slung our bags on the coach and threw ourselves on the coach with about 5 mins to spare. If we'd missed that coach all hell would have broken loose as that's the only way to the airport, short of taking a 100km taxi ride!

At the airport, our plane was then brought forward, meaning that we had to again hoof it off to the departure lounge halfway through out early tea. Not overly amused. But at least we got back to England a tiny bit early.

And now we're home again, and feeling deflated that the mini-adventure is over already. The monetary damage has been assessed (not entirely bankrupt), my ankle's still not right (we got back Tuesday and it's not Thursday), my pack is still ... well ... packed (really need to do something about that!), and I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend, starting tomorrow lunchtime. Mmmmmmmm .... sleeeeeeep ......

TO BE CONTINUED ..... CHECK BACK LATER FOR MORE WORK ON THIS POSTING - THERE WILL BE PHOTOS AND A SPELLING CHECK AT SOME POINT! ;o)