Naked Sculptures

Giant Flag in hotel

Today is Oslo day!  We're starting the day with a city tour that includes Frogner Park, which my travel agent tells me is amazing.

The weather yesterday was fabulous and now today it's rainy and a little cold.  All those capri pants I packed are just a space waster right now :(  I am amused that I've had the same umbrella since around high school.  But realistically I only use it on holidays as at home it's usually more of a heavy rainfall that is steady, whereas so far it is usually just little showers that pop up and are gone right away.

The hotel I'm staying at is really big.  All the rooms are around a giant atrium that currently has a giant Norwegian flag, to commemorate their national day I suppose.  I have learned that the Danes were the one who spent all their time conquering the the other Scandinavian countries.  Denmark was actually the largest European country at one point.  So the Norwegians are excited to be independent.  Their national day was actually yesterday (or May 17th) and I was still in Copenhagen.  They do have an unusual way of celebrating, the younger crowd at least, dresses up in their traditional dresses for the ladies and suits for the men.  They wander around around with flags and celebrate.  I did see on the news when the Royal family stepped out to wave hello on the balcony in Oslo.  The celebrations were done by the time I made it to Oslo, but judging by the amount of dressed up people I saw in Copenhagen I'm guessing they had a big party in Oslo.

Bridge in Frogner park

Our city tour was a dreary and rainy experience.  Fortunately much of it was either just a tour from the bus or touring inside.

Close up of bridge statues

The first stop was Frogner, or Vigeland, Park.  It's in the Frogner area of Oslo and designed by Vigeland.  Vigeland was hired to make a fountain in the park.  However, he was so inspired that he spent his entire lifetime designing statues that weren't included in the fountain.  He was only paid for doing the fountain, but they did supply the materials and extra sculptors to Vigeland for free.  What he envisioned and succeeded in doing was creating a story of life.  He seamlessly blends growing from an infant to growing old and dying in a series of statues.  The fountains were fascinating because it goes in a continuous circle without any sort of beginning or end.  He also created dozens of statues depicting the same ideas along the bridge into the park.  As well as another piece at the top of the hill that has an obelisk made of people along with more statues telling the same stories.  At first when you look at it all you see is a bunch of statues of naked people doing strange things.  But hearing the stories behind it makes it incredible to wander the area.  It was fabulous even in the steady rain that was coming down all morning.  The statues are all naked because Vigeland closeted himself up long enough for fashions to come and go and he realized that while it was a little touchy to do naked statues, they would be timeless and not instantly dated and ignored.  And he was quite correct about this.  So of course nearly all the other statues around Oslo were also naked, except for those of famous people.

obselisk surrounded by statues

Actual fountain he was hired to do

Along with a myriad of sites and buildings we also toured the city hall.  It is this huge imposing brick building on the harbour front.  They have a large clock tower as well, and it is 4mm bigger than Big Ben in London.  The lobby is where the actual Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, the rest are awarded in Stockholm according to Alfred Nobel's will.

Oslo City hall

The lobby/main hall along with a variety of rooms on the second level are all very heavily decorated in paintings that tell the story of Norwegian history.  It was quite incredibly to see how you could cover 100 years of history in one giant diorama painting.

Side room in City hall

Main hall in city hall

So that was all that was included in the city tour and afterwards they had an optional tour to a few museums.  I did want to see a few of the museums but didn't want to follow someone through telling me what I should be looking at.  So I did my own tour.  The museum peninsula, officially called the Bygdoy peninsula has at least 6 different museums to visit.  The group tour included 3 and I ended up seeing 2 of them.  The fun part of Bygdoy is that in the warmer months you can either drive around or take the ferry.  I took the ferry, it was the far more exciting option.

The Fram ship

I first toured the Fram Museum which showed the first boat that made it to the South Pole in Antarctica.  The museum was largely about a lot of the attempted and successful trips through the Northwest passage.  It was interesting to see some of the history for that.  I've always heard of the Franklin exploration but had no idea of the sheer amount of attempts and trips through the northwest.  There was a bit of Canadian history in all that too.

Kon-Tiki boat

The second one I visited was the Kon-Tiki museum with the raft like the one Thor Heyerdahl used.  I'll be honest, I'm familiar with the name but not the full story behind.  The museum was really well laid out and I understand what his voyage was all about now.  Basically, he built a traditional balsam raft and followed the natural ocean currents from South America to the South Pacific.  He was successful to every one's surprise.  Also, I was amazed that any adult would agree to get on that little raft and set off into the ocean with only a hope that they would be successful.

Oslo Royal Palace

After I took the ferry back to city hall I wandered the area and saw the Royal palace.  You can tour it, but only for a few weeks over the summer and I was there too early.  But it was interesting to see, and amazing that you could walk right up to it.  I'm certain the guards would stop you if you got too close but there was no barriers.  But it is where I watched their Royal Family come out to wave to the crowds on the TV a few nights earlier.

Cottages on the Oslofjord

I ended up doing a boat tour of the Oslofjord.  And finally learned what a fjord officially is.  In the simplest form it is a valley that has filled in with water.  Some are attached to the ocean and some are land locked.  Hearing it like that makes so much more sense.  It was really interesting to see all the little summer islands in the fjord.  They have dozens of small islands, accessible only by boat, that are built up with all the summer homes for the people of Oslo.  There are a lot of rules to keep the quaintness of the islands, and to prevent the houses from getting to big.  So they do have to stay under a certain size and you have only about 5 colors to choose from to paint them.  But it does make for a lovely look.

Due to my feeling sleepy on the boat cruise I decided that I had seen all I had time for and headed back to the hotel.  Tomorrow is a travel day to Sweden.  Curious to see how many more Ikea's I can spot...