Our final city stop on mainland Norway = Oslo. We stayed six nights in Oslo’s trendy Tjuvholmen district, along Oslofjord. The neighbourhood connects by footbridge to the shopping/dining area called Aker Brygge. Our first full day in Oslo began with a half-day guided orientation to the city. Museums took up more than a full day. We enjoyed a day of sightseeing via public transit. And one day we caught a bus to the Kistefos sculpture museum, about a 90 ride each way. We loved that most of the streets in central Oslo are below ground, so it’s very pedestrian friendly. We found there was more than enough to fill 5 full days. But, like the rest of Norway, everything’s expensive. Purchasing a 72-hour Oslo Pass and planning our sightseeing, museum visits and transit use within that time window definitely helped.

Getting There

We arrived via 7-hour train ride from Trondheim. We booked our tickets about two months in advance, and paid for “premium plus” seats which were only available in 2 cars. Unlike Scotland, where it’s generally a waste of $$ to pay for upgraded train service, we received good value: lots of room to try out the lens hood for photography through a window, to work on photo processing, complimentary tea, coffee and water, etc. We also enjoyed chatting with fellow passengers.

Arrival and Orientation

As with many legs of most trips, job 1 on arrival in Oslo = make our way to our accommodations. We followed the crowd along the train platform to a lighted passageway that reminded us of the light tunnel under King’s Cross station in London, England.

We emerged into Jernbanetorget, the largest transportation hub in Norway. Thanks to Google Maps, we found our way to the proper LRT station to catch a train to Aker Brygge, where we disembarked. From there, we wove our way through the crowds on the harbourwalk. Several groups studied menus posted at the entrances to the outdoor patio areas attached to the area’s many restaurants.

Once we crossed the pedestrian bridge to into Tjuvholmen, the crowd thinned. We walked the final stretch to our hotel, where we checked in, washed up a little and then headed off for supper at “Dinner,” a 2018 Michelin-starred dim sum restaurant.

Evening Stroll

After supper walk, we started walking, with no real objective other than to get in some steps after our long train ride. Highlights from our meander include the exterior of Oslo’s city hall (Oslo rådhus), Akershus Fortress, and lots of public art. I’ve included our evening photos of City Hall and the Fortress in with photos of those sites taken during our guided walking tour on Day 1, further down this post.

Street Art

Public Art (even the playground equipment looks like public art)

Day 1 – Guided Walking Tour

Our first full day in Oslo began with a guided walking tour of parts of central Oslo. Our guide, Aksel, trains other licensed tour guides in the city and guides Rick Steves’ tour groups when they stop in Oslo. He really impressed us with his knowledge. And he recommended some great restaurants!

Oslo City Hall

We began by heading to Oslo’s City Hall, which opened 75 years ago, in 1950.

Architecture, Construction and Carillon

The architects were Arnstein Arneberg and Magnus Poulsson. Many consider Arneberg the leading architect in Norway of his time. He worked on the interior design of the UN Security Council in New York City. Poulsson was also chairman of the supervisory committee for the Nidaros Cathedral reconstruction from 1931 to 1958.

Decades elapsed between the initial design competition for the building (1916) and completion of construction (1950). Reasons for the extended construction timeline include a poor city economy in the 1920s and a five-year pause in construction due to World War II. As a result, Oslo’s City Hall reflects Functionalism, the leading architectural style of Norway in the 1920s. But there are also elements of modernism and art deco. Oslo City Hall is the last building in Oslo to be built in this style.

The exterior bricks are larger than what was typical at the time of construction, which means they are roughly the same size as bricks used in the Middle Ages. The two towers flanking the central building are 63 and 66 meters tall.

The eastern tower is the site of a 49-bell carillon, weighing 23 tonnes. One ring indicates 15 minutes past the hour, 2 rings = 30 minutes and 3 rings = 45 minutes. On the hour, the carilloneur plays a short tune. The carilloneur’s playlist changes over time. In 2025, to celebrate City Hall’s 75th anniversary, the playlist has featured Norwegian folk songs and medieval ballads. In what I presume is a nod to the Noble Peace Prize, the noon song is “Give Peace a Chance.” Read more about the carillon here.

Yggdrasilfrisen

Two sides of the three-sided courtyard flanking the main entrance to City Hall are mounted with 8 carved reliefs each, depicting various scenes from Norse mythology. The Yggdrasil Friezes (Yggdrasilfrisen) are sheltered by deep overhangs and can be viewed from gently sloped ramps leading to the main entrance. On busy days, visitors line up here while they wait to be admitted to City Hall.

Each ornately painted 2.2 x 2.3 meter panel weighs 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs). The artist is Dagfin Werenskiold, who created the reliefs in the 1940s during the final phases of construction after winning the commission in a national competition held to select the artworks that would appear outside and inside the new City Hall.

St Hallvard

May 15th, the grand opening day for the new City Hall, also happens to be the religious feast day for Saint Hallvard, the patron saint of Oslo. Saint Hallvard is depicted in tapestries and frescoes at City Hall, in a sculpture on the west front of City Hall, on the City’s coat of arms and on manhole covers around the city. Aksel told us Hallvard was a farmer’s son from just outside Oslo. The farm doing quite well, the family was relatively wealthy and well-known.

As a young man, Hallvard came across a pregnant woman, fleeing from three men who accused her of theft. Believing her innocent, Hallvard sheltered her on his boat. The men gave chase and fired arrows, killing both Hallvard and the woman. They buried the woman (likely poor, possibly a slave, and considered of no importance), but knew Hallvard would be missed. So they tied a millstone around his neck and threw him into the fjord.

Despite the massive chunk of stone, Hallvard’s body surfaced the following morning. He was buried in a Christian manner and became a martyr. Thus, St Hallvard is generally depicted holding a millstone and three arrows, and sometimes with the dead woman at his feet.

Main Hall

If you’ve ever watched a Nobel Peace Prize ceremony, you may recognize the Main Hall of Rådhuset. Each year, on the December 10th anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded during a ceremony at Oslo’s City Hall. The rest of the year, it’s open for touring, free of charge.

The Norwegian marble floor, balcony parapet and lower walls of the Main Hall are a soothing and timeless backdrop for artwork of immense scale: Henrik Sørensen’s immense oil painting, Alf Rolfsen’s “A Picture of the Nation” and “The Occupation Frieze” frescoes and a fresco depicting the story of St Hallvard. I imagine you could take hours to study these works and still not appreciate the many details.

Hardråderommet

We walked through seven public rooms upstairs. First = Hardråderommet (the “Hard ruler” room), dedicated to King Harald the Ruthless who is depicted in large tapestries.

Munch Room

The Munch Room has warm wood paneling, with the painting Life (1910) by Norwegian painter Edvard Munch hanging on one end wall. While there is just one Hadeland Glassverk chandelier hanging in this chamber, we saw several more as the tour continued. The glassworks company is about 90 minutes from central Oslo.

Festival Gallery

The Festival Gallery is another marble-surfaced room, softened by end wall frescos by Axel Revold and the tapestries designed by painter Kåre Jonsborg/woven by Else Halling and others.

Banquet Hall

In the Banquet Hall, the walls are covered in damask wallpaper and hung with royal portraits. The north wall serves as a canvas for Willi Middelfart’s painting of Oslo residents enjoying a warm summer day – except for a boy sticking out his tongue and pointing at the kitchen doors added to the end wall while the painting was in progress!

City Council Hall

The City Council Hall seats 59 councillors. I’m not sure what to think about the fact that Oslo’s City Council has 59 elected representatives for a population of about 1.1 million. This compares to Calgary’s 15 elected representatives for ~ 2 million and Canmore’s 7 elected representatives for about 17,000 residents.

Eastern and Western Galleries

My favourite spaces were the Eastern and Western Galleries, flanking the City Council Hall. In the Eastern Gallery, Per Krogh’s fresco The City and its Environs covers every inch of the walls and ceiling. The Western Gallery’s walls are covered by Aage Stortein’s Human Rights fresco, showing the development of the Norwegian constitution with roots in the ideals of the French revolution.

For more about Oslo’s City Hall, I recommend this post on the Norway with Pål website.

Norwegian Royalty

Leaving City Hall, we stopped at a 2.8-meter-high bronze statue of King Olav V of Norway. Titled “Man and Monument,” it was unveiled on June 7, 2015, exactly 70 years after the Norwegian royal family returned from exile during World War II.

Royal History

The history of Norwegian kings dates back more than a thousand years. Harald Fairhair became the first king of Norway, uniting petty kingships into a single realm in about 885. In 1380, dynastic succession resulted in Norway and Denmark being ruled by a single king – Olaf II of Denmark, who was also Olaf IV of Norway. In 1349/50, the Black Death devasted Norway’s population and economy, making Norway increasingly reliant on Denmark. Its subordinate role was formalized in 1536, when Denmark declared Norway a dependency.

Norway’s tie to Denmark continued until the early 19th century, when Norway was forced to partner with Sweden. Early in his reign, King Karl Johann (a Napoleonic brigadier-general who later was elected king of Sweden) selected the location for Norway’s Royal Palace, on a farming hill outside Kristiania (Oslo).

More Recently

The Norway-Sweden partnership dissolved in 1906, mainly because Norway wanted its own independent consular service, a demand Sweden refused. In the resulting political crisis, on June 7, 1905, the Norwegian Parliament declared the union dissolved.

In a strange kind of circularity, Norway then elected the son of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Louise of Denmark as their new king, Haakon VII. He and his wife and son arrived in Norway in November 1905 and King Haakon ruled until his death in 1957. He was succeeded by his son, Olav V, who learned to ski at age 3 because that’s what was expected of him as a new Norwegian.

The current King Harald V is a world sailing champion who competed in three Olympic Games for Norway. He retired from competitive sailing in 2022, but still enjoys sailing despite having to be carried onto his yacht. My Dad, a lifelong sailor until he retired from the sport at age 84, really enjoyed this particular fun fact.

National Theatre

Our next stop was a brief one, outside the National Theatre. We learned that the current building opened in 1899, with three official opening performances. First, select pieces by Danish-Norwegian writer/philosopher Ludvig Holberg, considered the founder of modern Danish and Norwegian literature. Then An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen, who is widely regarded as the foremost playwright of the 19th century and is often referred to as the “father of modern drama.” Finally, Sigurd Jorsalfar by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson.

All three playrights have statues outside the National Theatre. Both Ibsen and Bjørnson attended the opening performances. Neither liked their statue, unveiled concurrently. We came home with a photo of the statue of Holberg with two of his most famous comedy characters, Pernille and Henrik. The statue was created by the sculptor Theobald Stein and was erected in 1875 outside Norway’s National Theatre in Oslo.

Number 24

Just down the street from the National Theatre is a bronze statue of a young man and his bicycle. Aksel told us a little about Gunnar Sønsteby, a highly-decorated Norwegian resistance fighter in World War 2. He was an accountant when Nazi troops invaded Norway. After the war, he worked at a government purchasing center He died in 2012. Sønsteby’s service during the Second World War is depicted in the film Number 24, which premiered in Norway in 2024 and began streaming on Netflix in early 2025.

Royal Palace

While the Royal Palace site may have been well outside Oslo when selected by King Karl Johann in the 19th century, today it’s a short walk from the National Theatre. We chose not to purchase tickets for a guided tour of the palace. Instead, we listened as our guide described how ~ 40,000 children march to the Royal Palace on Constitution Day each year, accompanied by band music. In fact, our guide is a member of a 50-piece band that accompanies the children!

Norwegian Parliament Building

Completed in 1866, the Norwegian Stortingsbygningen is located down the street from the Royal Palace. Designed by a Swedish architect, Emil Victor Langlet, the two wings symbolize welcoming arms, opening onto law. Members of the Storting are seated by geography, not parties. Perhaps more countries should adopt this approach in an attempt to reduce polarization?

Akershus Fortress

The Akershus Fortress is the only medieval building left in central Oslo. The earliest written mention of the fortress is in a 1300 letter from King Haakon to a church in Oslo. The letter doesn’t specify when construction began, nor how far it had progressed. Historians understand that it was built in response to an attack on Oslo in 1287, when it became clear the city’s defences were inadequate. We took photos during our guided tour as well as during our previous evening’s stroll.

There’s a good view of the inner harbour from the fortress walls.

The fortress served its purpose for centuries. Then, in 1940 it was surrendered without combat to the Nazis. During the Nazi occupation, members of the Norwegian resistance movement were executed on the fortress grounds. There’s a memorial at the site, and a list of their names nearby. Learning all of this had quite an emotional effect on me.

Harbour Promenade

We descended from the fortress to sea level, where we made our way along a section of Oslo’s nearly 10-km long harbourwalk. Our objective = an LRT station. Along the way we passed Oslo’s landmark Opera House. Snøhetta has worked on projects of all scales, around the world, including the 9/11 Memorial in New York and the Alexandria Library in Egypt.

The Deichman Library, meant to complement the Opera House, is just across the street. We popped in to use the public washrooms before heading to Vigeland Park. We returned to both of these beautiful buildings later in the week, so look for more photos later in this post.

Vigeland Park

We took public transit to Vigeland Park. So at this point, we activated our 3-day Oslo Passes, which covers admission to many attractions as well as public transit.

Frogner Park is Norway’s most popular tourist attraction, entirely because of the Vigeland sculpture park. Vigeland Park is the largest sculpture park in the world featuring the work of one artist – in this case Gustav Vigeland. According to the Vigeland Museum website, the park is home to more than 200 Vigeland sculptures in granite, bronze and wrought iron.

Vision

In 1906, Vigeland proposed the Fountain for Eidsvolls Plass, the square in front of Norway’s Parliament Building. While the powers that be debated the location, Vigeland expanded his project to include several sculpture groups. In 1919, with the location still unsettled, he added the Monolith to his design. Finally, in 1924, Oslo city council voted to incorporate Vigeland’s sculpture park into Frogner Park, which had been under development since purchased by the city in 1896.

The city approved Vigeland’s design for the main gate in 1927, and the large block of stone that would become the Monolith was erected in 1928. It wasn’t until 1939 that the first completed sculptures were installed – along the bridge over Frogner Ponds. The bridge, which features 58 bronze sculptures, opened to the public in 1940.

The main gate, which we forgot to photograph, was completed in 1942. Also that year, the team of 3 stonemasons who’d worked 14 years to carve the 121 figures in the 17 meter high Monolith completed their work.

Vigeland died in 1943. He designed all elements of Vigeland Park, including the gates, lamps and flower beds. He also designed the Nobel Peace Prize medal.

On-going Staged Openings

The Monolith opened to the public in 1944. That same year, work began on installing the Fountain, which was completed and activated in 1947. Also in 1947, 36 granite sculpture groups were installed around the 360-degree staircase to the Monolith. The wrought iron gates at the Monolith were installed in 1952. By my calculation, 46 years elapsed from the time of Vigeland’s initial proposal to substantial completion, including almost a decade after Vigeland died.

A few more sculptures have been added since. The official grand opening of Frogner Park was in 1993 – 97 years after the city purchased the land!!! The larger Frogner Park also includes Frogner Manor (home of the Oslo City Museum), a sports complex, the Henriette Wegner Pavilion and a pop-up summer theatre venue. Frogner Park is the largest park in Oslo, comprising 115 acres.

Based on our experience, repeat visits to Vigeland Park would be required to take it all in. It was interesting to see the spots on the bronze statues that are still shiny, where visitors touch the art. Some spots on some granite statues showed an accumulation of hand oil. And it would be interesting to visit in other seasons.

Lunch

After we’d absorbed as much as we could, we thanked our guide and bid him farewell. Then we headed off to enjoy a late lunch at Fukuya.

Day 1 – Munch Museum

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the Munch Museum, after catching another LRT back to the area. The Oslo Pass covers admission to the Munch Museum.

The building itself is interesting. Opened to the public in late 2021, it has a unique shape and structure. From the museum’s website, here’s the vision for the building as spoken by Juan Herreros, founding partner of Estudio Herreros:

‘Okay, here I am. I hold the legacy of the most important artist in Norway’s history, and I gaze entranced at Oslo and the fjord because it is the city and its collective dreams that have built me.’

The galleries are stacked, and sit within the closed, static building envelop at the back. The harbour-facing side has lots of glass and is the zone where visitors move between the different exhibition areas. The facade is designed to reflect the ever-changing conditions in the harbour. Many of the architectural choices were climate-driven and the building complies with Oslo’s FutureBuilt criteria, which requires greenhouse gas emissions less than half of a conventional modern building after considering transport, energy consumption and choice of materials.

The Munch Museum houses an almost overwhelming amount of art – more than 26,000 Edvard Munch artworks among a total of 42,000 objects. Munch bequeathed nearly all of his works to the City of Oslo after Nazi troops invaded Norway in 1940. He died of illness in 1944, more than a year before VE-day.

Our impression was of even more diversity of styles, mediums and subject matter relative to what we saw in Bergen. We especially appreciated the extra large pieces in the Munch Monumental exhibition on level 6, sketches from Alpha and Omega and the varied self-portraits.

We tried to visit The Scream room, where a version of The Scream is always on display – either a painting, a drawing or a print. But it was simply too crowed. We opted to be content with the version we saw in Bergen. And then we enjoyed the added bonus of a version in the National Museum later in the week.

I also took a few photos of the fun peek-a-boo mouse dioramas in Edvard Munch Shadows on Level 7, where Munch’s home at Ekely is recreated and animated. The mouse holes are popular with children, but I took those photos to share with Mr GeoKs’ parents, who love all kinds of mouse-related art and literature.

Day 1 – Wrap Up

We walked from the Munch Museum back to our hotel, generally along the harbourwalk. We stopped once for gelato, which turned out to be our supper for the day. Of note, we witnessed a fellow wipe out on an e-scooter. It looked bad; fortunately several people rushed to his aid. Yikes! That’s made me even more careful when riding our e-scooter back home!

Day 2 – Sightseeing via public transit, Happy Canada Day!

The weather forecast looked pretty good, so we opted to make our second full day in Oslo our outdoor sightseeing via public transit day.

Holmenkollen

Our first stop = Holmenkollen, home of a recently renovated ski museum and a venue for the 1952 Winter Olympics. The hill has been rebuilt 19 times, most recently between 2008 and 2010, when the entire structure was demolished and rebuilt. The newest version of the hill has seating for 70,000 spectators. The lift to the top of the tower is included with admission.

It’s a bit of a trudge from the transit station to the entrance, but there were good views and a few statues to distract us from the steady climb.

After showing our Oslo Passes to gain admission, we headed straight to the viewing platform at the top of the hill. As we’d hoped, there weren’t many other visitors there at opening time. Unfortunately, fairly thick fog hung over much of Oslo, so our view towards the harbour was not very clear. But we did get a good look at the Equinor building, which we’d been considering as a photo stop. There’s also a good view of the training courses for cross-country skiing. And of the Holmenkollen Church, a modern structure designed in the style of Norway’s traditional stave churches.

By the time we were ready to go through the Ski Museum at the base of the jump, two tour buses full of passengers were on site. So we did a quick walk around – just enough time to get a sense of the immense change over time conveyed by the scale models of the many versions of the ski jump over its long life.

The recent upgrade to the ski museum, including an extension and new entrance, was designed by Snøhetta, the same firm that designed the Oslo Opera House.

Rose Castle

We headed back to the transit station and rode one stop further, to Rose Castle, an outdoor art installation. It opened in 2020, to mark 80 years since the occupation of Norway in 1940, and 75 years since the liberation. From what I’ve read, it was originally going to remain open for 5 years. But the Roseslottet website now shows it will remain open through December 31, 2026. After that is still TBD.

The five large golden sails (visible from much of Oslo) symbolize the 5 years of war. Rose Castle aims to strengthen understanding of the pillars of a free society: the rule of law, democracy and humanism.

The installation was designed by Norwegian artist brothers Vebjørn and Eimund Sand. They have received several awards for their work, including the Oslo City Artist Award and the Sønsteby Prize (presumably named for Number 24, covered earlier in this post).

The subject matter here is serious. Shortly after we entered, Mr GeoK looked like he was carrying the weight of the world. We stayed long enough to walk through the nearly 300 artworks. I found it helpful to focus on stories of indomitable spirit, how the site is surrounded by nature and the wide range of paintings accompanied by stories of Norway’s occupation during World War II.

From a purely aesthetics perspective, the site did not live up to the impressions I had of it from Google Images and social media. The most impactful images on the internet were taken at night, generally in the winter, and often with a drone. That was impossible to replicate from the ground on a summer morning.

Lunch at Mathallen Food Hall

After catching a train back to city center, we opted to walk rather than catch a bus to a stop closer to Mathallen. I’m glad we did. Our route took us past two points of particular interest.

2011 Memorial

We walked up a narrow passage with construction fencing on either side. Then we passed a square bump out, with a few trees and an engraved glass plaque. We actually walked past before deciding to turn around for a closer look. It turned out to be the memorial for those killed in the July 22, 2011 terror attacks. One perpetrator murdered eight people in Oslo using a bomb and then shot and killed 69 people at a youth camp on nearby Utoya island. This was the deadliest attack in Norway since World War II. It was sobering to study the names and ages, some as young as 14. We stayed for several minutes, holding them in our thoughts.

More Street Art

Our next stop offered a counter effect – a huge mural on two walls nestling a tiny park. From a Facebook post by one of the artists:

“Our 20-meter-high mural in Kristparken at Fredensborg is finally finished! … When you paint on listed buildings from the 19th century, you do it with a deep respect for what has been. That’s why we … [painted] sober colors and important people from the same era, and who are also buried in the neighborhood at Vår Frelsers Gravlund. There were Munch, Collett, Wergeland, Gina Krog and Ibsen. In addition, we got a handful of writers and artists to leave their mark on the lower part of the wall. Like a picture wall with a little bit of everything.”

Lunch

Another six or seven minutes on, we finally reached Mathallen, “Oslo’s favourite spot for specialty food items and great ingredients.” After a walk through, we opted for hot skillet chicken sandwiches with (or without) cabbage and pickles, all topped with crunchy bits of potato chips. We headed outside to eat at one of the patio tables and watch people walking by.

National Museum

We headed back to our hotel long enough to freshen up and ditch our packs. Then we headed back out to Norway’s new National Museum, with cameras in hand. It’s a beautiful building, designed by the architectural firm Kleihues + Schuwerk. Envisioned as a timeless structure, it’s constructed of materials like oak, bronze, marble and Norwegian slate.

The collection is huge, with some 6,500 works on display at any one time. The exhibitions are arranged chronologically and thematically, and we started in Room 1, where we were greeted by ancient faces.

Next up = Greek and Roman statues (including some plaster replicas).

Of course there are lots of old masters’ paintings, including a fake Mona Lisa dating back to the 18th century. The Munch room is a wonderful capsule presentation of his work, including a copy of The Scream. Unlike the room dedicated to The Scream at the Munch Museum, we had no problem walking right up and taking a close look at this one.

We really enjoyed one of the temporary exhibitions, which was on the subject of the new Nordic approach to food. And we mainly got into it because we have a couple of “foodies” in the family. 🙂

I also had fun photographing Narcissus Garden. It was not Mr GeoKs’ thing at all.

Around this point we stopped going in room order because we asked about the plaster casts of Gustav Vigeland sculptures and a docent took us to that room. We never doubled back because the place is just too big to do it all in one visit.

Mr GeoK spent a lot of time with the old paintings and religious icons. I tend to prefer more modern stuff, including some of the sculptures. Here are a few more photos from our visit:

Norway’s Nasjonalmuseet is world class. If we lived in Oslo, we’d definitely purchase an annual membership so we could return again and again, spending due time in each room. We appreciate the couple of hours that we had to get a sense of the place and came away with some great memories and photographs.

No supper again. We grabbed some half-price buns at a nearby bakery just before it closed for the day and spent the evening processing photos. 🙂

Day 3 – Museums Day

With the clock ticking on our 72-hour Oslo Passes, we spent our third full day in Oslo visiting museums. We started by heading for Bygdøy (aka “museum island”) because the Fram (Polar) Museum had the earliest opening time. There are seven museums / points of cultural interest on the island. The Viking Ship Museum, one of the most popular, is closed for renovations until some time in 2027. I wasn’t that keen on the Fram museum, but Mr GeoK really wanted to go. So we headed to the Bygdøyfergene, the ferry between the central harbour area and museum island.

Honnerbrygga is right beside Rådhusbrygge 3, where the ferry docks. The Honour Wharf was built to welcome distinguished guests arriving by sea. It’s also a WWII memorial. After spending five years in exile, the Royal Family returned to Norway. They went ashore here in the spring of 1945, and were received by thousands of jubilant Norwegians.

Fram (Polar) Museum

The Frammuseet tells the story of Norwegian polar exploration – in particular Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup and Roald Amundsen. It’s information dense. Our photos include MANY signs extensively detailing Norway’s polar exploration achievements. I won’t share those here.

The A-framed structures house two polar vessels. The Fram sailed on multiple polar expeditions, most famously Nansen’s 1893-1896 Arctic drift (did not reach the North Pole) and Amundsen’s 1910-1912 Antarctic expedition (reached the south pole). The Gjøa was the first vessel to successfully navigate the Northwest Passage (1903-1906), led by Amundsen.

Fram

Gjøa

North Pole Flight Exploration

May 21, 2025 marked the centenary of the Amundsen-Ellsworth N25-N24 polar flight expedition that aimed to reach the North Pole. It also marked 100 years since the forming of the Fram Museum Committee. Frammuseet celebrated with the opening of a new permanent exhibition and the 4D North Pole Flight Simulator. We really enjoyed this. Not only does it tell the story of how one plane was damaged on take-off and the other one couldn’t be flown until the crew put in some 3.5 weeks of hard labour to create a runway on the shifting ice. It uses moving seats and special effects that simulate being part of the N25 flight, from take off to landing!

Other fun moments included the “cold chamber” and a photo cut-out stand. And, for the record, even though I wasn’t keen to visit Fram, within 15 minutes of arriving I turned and thanked Mr GeoK for standing firm and dragging me along. This was a great experience!

Kon-Tiki Museum

Also included in the Oslo Pass, we took a walk through the Kon-Tiki museum for 2 reasons. First, it’s about 50 steps from the Fram museum. Second, there’s a replica Easter Island maoi outside. Having visited Easter Island in 2011, we were intrigued.

Kon-Tiki

The centerpiece of the Kon-Tiki Museum is the Kon-Tiki raft. In 1947, Thor Heyerdahl and a small crew sailed from Peru to Polynesia in the raft Kon-Tiki. Heyerdahl was an experimental archaeologist, author, and adventurer. He believed it was possible Polynesia was populated by South American migrants, and used ancient building techniques and materials native to Peru to test his theory. While it’s never gained mainstream acceptance, the adventure caught the imagination of enough people that the 1950 documentary film won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

Ra

Noting similarities between ancient Eygptian and early Peruvian civilizations, Heyerdahl wondered whether Egyptians ever sailed to South America. In attempt to prove/disprove this theory, he led another reed boat expedition – this one from Moroccoto to within 600 miles of Central America.

The Kon-Tiki museum also houses an undersea large-scale diorama, artifacts from various archaeological expeditions, a replica of a cave found on Easter Island, Thor Heyerdahl’s archive and more.

The archive was inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World list of invaluable documentary heritage in 2011. It’s comprised of 7 collections: document archive; photo collection; personal library; collection of book editions; newspaper clippings; film and audio collection; and Thor Heyerdahl’s film collection at the National Library. You can read more about the archive here.

While waiting for the ferry back to the central harbour, I wandered around the area a little bit. There were at least three sculptures/monuments and I enjoyed the blue sky and sunshine.

Back in the central harbour area, we made the short walk past the National Theatre to dine at Prima Fila, a restaurant recommended by our guide two days before. It was excellent!

Nobel Peace Center

We changed it up after lunch and headed to a more serious venue compared to the Kon-Tiki Museum. The Nobel Peace Center is the museum of the Nobel Peace Price. Its home is a converted 1872 train station near Oslo City Hall.

Unfortunately, we were too late for the English guided tour, so I’m sure we missed a lot of what’s on offer. But it still left a strong impression regarding stories of peace, conflict resolution, global challenges and the importance of meaningful conversation.

The Exhibits

On the main floor we spent time exploring The Echo Chamber, a temporary exhibition featuring photography from Swedish artist Erik Johansson. The Echo Chamber challenged us to consider what may happen if we dare to look outside our own echo chambers and burst the filter bubbles around us.

The Will to Change the World tells the story of Alfred Nobel and shows how the Peace Prize has evolved over time.

A Message to Humanity pertains to the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese organization for survivors of the 1945 atomic bombs. Their work aims for a nuclear weapon-free world.

In the Nobel Field, visitors can “meet” all of the Peace Prize laureates going back more than a century. This is the first permanent exhibition to be updated once a new laureate is announced.

In the Medal Chamber, a golden Peace Prize Medal slowly rotates. Designed by Gustav Vigeland in 1901, a medal is produced for each new Peace Prize laureate and awarded at Oslo City Hall. The design has remained constant over all the years.

I had read about Forget-me-not before we traveled to Norway. So I was alert to noticing it. The oversized flowers are crafted in stainless steel and painted canvas and are installed so as to visible to both visitors to the Museum and passersby. The work is by Kosovar artist Petrit Halilaj and Spaniard Álvaro Urbano.

Deichman Bjørvika

Deichman Library is the main branch for the city of Oslo. It’s named for its founding donor, Carl Deichman, a Norwegian-Danish nobleman, collector and scholar who endowed the library with his 1785 donation. And for the fact that it’s located in the Bjørvika district, just across the street from Oslo’s Opera house.

Atelier Oslo, the project’s architects, conceived the building as a “large, central continuous space that stretches up through the storeys.” It’s about 140,000 sq ft over 6 floors. And aside from the lower level and main floor, much of that space is a ring around a central open space. The ceilings are exposed concrete, with a honeycomb pattern. In addition to the expected shelves of books, CDs and DVDs, there are children and teens’ sections and some fun art.

Some of the architectural details and finishes reminded us of Calgary’s Central Public Library, which opened just a few years earlier, in 2018. Things like the triangular windows, abundance of natural light, exposed concrete and natural wood finishes.

Future Library

One of the most serendipitous experiences of our 3 weeks land touring in Norway was in the Deichman Library’s Silent Room, aka Future Library. I’d recently read an article about the Future Library in the Globe and Mail. From the library’s website:

“The art project Future Library has received a completely separate, specially designed room on the 5th floor as a gift from the municipality of Oslo. The room is clad in wood made from the trees that stood where the Future Library Forest now grows. Each manuscript has its own drawer, where they will lie until 2114. By then, the spruce trees in the planting field will have grown large and will be turned into paper, on which all 100 texts will be printed. The Still Room in Deichman Bjørvika was designed by artist Katie Paterson and architects Atelier Oslo and Lundhagem.”

To our surprise and delight, when we entered the Future Library, the woman sitting quietly on the curved bench introduced herself as Katie Paterson, the artist behind the project. She happened to be in Oslo for a conference and had stopped into the library for a bit of quite and to sit with her project.

We chatted with Katie for about 15 minutes. Before we left, she gave us the booklet produced for the 2024 addition to the Future Library, Tommy Orange, which includes a short essay by the author and a piece by an artist. She assured us these printed booklets are highly collectible! So I carefully stored it and managed to get it back home with no creases or other damage.

Of note to us, as Canadians, was that Margaret Atwood was the first author to have a manuscript stored in the Future Library, back in 2014. Try to imagine writing a book in 2014 that will not be published until 2114. Talk about pressure! Learn more about the Future Library project here.

I didn’t go quite wide enough with the last photograph. Had I used a fish eye lens from ground level, it would have better shown that taken together, the construction of the Future Library is like the rings in a tree, balanced vertically.

Opera House

Constructed of white Carrara marble, granite, aluminum and turquoise-tinted glass, and situated right on the waterfront, Oslo’s opera house almost seems like an iceberg floating in the harbour. It’s the largest cultural building constructed in Norway since Nidaros Cathedral (~ 1300).The Opera House won the culture award at the World Architecture Festival in 2008 and the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture in 2009.

Guided tours are usually offered. Unfortunately for us, we visited when some kind of construction work was going on, so much of the building was closed off to public access. Still, we had a look around to the extent possible.

Several art projects were commissioned for the Opera House – both inside and outside. The one most easily viewed by the public is She Lies, which floats in the fjord, moving in response to tides and wind. Again, it looks kind of like an iceberg. It’s constructed of stainless steel and glass panels by artist Monica Bonvicini.

Norwegian Resistance Museum

Our last stop of the day was the Norwegian Resistance Museum inside Akershus Fortress. Like the memorial plaque outside, which we’d visited earlier in the week, the museum is sobering. Some will choose not to visit because the exhibition material is hard to bear. If this is a concern, consider visiting shortly before closing time. We arrived about 45 minutes before closing, just enough time to study the dioramas and read some of the information. But not sufficient to absorb all the details.

The exhibition space has no natural light, so I felt like we’d entered a dungeon. The atmosphere suited the subject matter. The museum opened in May 1970, to mark the 25th anniversary of the liberation of Norway at the end of WW II. The material spans from the 1930s prelude through the liberation in 1945. Themes include military resistance against the German forces in the spring of 1940; the Nazification of Norwegian civil society, daily life during the occupation, the Home Front’s civilian and military resistance efforts; and the liberation of Norway and return of the royal family.

The old-fashioned dioramas and other displays suggest not much has been updated since the museum opened. I did note the addition of the Kings of Liberation portraits, which were commissioned in 2015.

One sign really made me pause and think. As I wrote about in this post, my paternal grandfather’s family emigrated from Kristiansund early in the 20th century. I shuddered to imagine what my life would (or would not) have been like had they not sailed to North America.

For a more in-depth write-up, I recommend this post written by Peter Hohenhaus who has a long-running “dark tourism” website and blog.

No Supper Again

Part way through our long walk back to our hotel, we stopped at another gelato outlet for “supper.” Then we headed back to our room for another evening of photo processing,

Day 4 – Day Trip to Kistefos

The regional transit system runs a seasonal bus between Oslo and Jevnaker, site of Kistefos Museum and Sculpture park. The bus also stops at Hadeland Glassverk, supplier of the beautiful chandeliers in Oslo’s City Hall. We thought we might have time to visit both during the ~ 6 hours stretch between our drop off at Kistefos and the pick-up time for the return trip. We were wrong!

Kistefos is a bit hard to describe. It’s an industrial museum, a sculpture park and an art gallery all in one. I plan to write a separate blog post specifically about Kistefos, so I won’t go into much detail here. The industrial activity dates back to 1889. A new vision dating from 1993 resulted in the industrial museum, sculpture park and gallery spaces that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Sculpture Park

The sculpture park has 55 sculptures by prominent contemporary artists. On opening in 1999, and for several years after, the sculpture park mainly featured Norwegian contemporary artists. After a few years, the park started adding installations by international artists. Since 2005, a new site-specific work has been added each year. In other words, the artist visits Kistefos and then conceives a work suited to the location, usually somehow related to water, energy, industry and/or nature.

We came away with several photos of All of Nature Flows Through Us by Marc Quinn.

Mr GeoK received advance written permission to fly his drone here. While he was doing that, I thoroughly explored Path of Silence by Jeppe Hein. This one is a big draw for children and teens, who like to stand in the middle of the fountain.

Industrial Museum

With a functioning sawmill, a heritage pulp mill and numerous ancillary buildings, there’s a lot of photographic subject matter.

When we visited in July 2025, two of the industrial buildings were also being used as exhibition space for works by Kathleen Ryan.

Gallery Space

The Twist gallery space opened in 2019. In response to a design competition, Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) presented a torqued metal bridge spanning the Randselva River. We allocated a day for a trip outside Oslo specficially because of this architecture.

We had a late lunch at Kistefos cafe, where we paid the eye-watering equivalent of C$24 for baked potato!!

A visitors’ centre is under construction, slated to open late in 2026. The architectural sketches depict a structure that blends into the surrounding nature. The building will house tickets sales, a new museum shop, visitor facilities and a restaurant.

It was a long, fulfilling and tiring day. Mr GeoK dozed on the bus ride back and had a rude awakening when I suddenly shook him and said let’s get off here! And then we walked along another stretch of the harbourwalk back to our hotel.

Day 5 – Street Photography and Astrup Fearnley Museum

We planned our final full day in Oslo around three main considerations: 1) our Oslo Pass had expired, so we prioritized “free” attractions/street photography all within walking distance of our hotel; 2) our hotel provided us with passes to the Astrup Fearnley Museum when we checked in, so we’d use those; and 3) we needed to transfer to a hotel at the Oslo airport and check in with the team for our Svalbard expedition cruise.

Street Photography – Barcode District and Adjacent Neighbourhoods

Friends recommended we spend some time photographing the Barcode District, Bjørvika. The overarching vision for the district was for 12 standalone buildings, with strong geometry, openness to the nearby fjord, airiness and natural light. A different architectural firm designed each of the twelve buildings. So while each is unique, when viewed collectively they resemble a barcode.

We’d read that one of the best vantage points to photograph Bjørvika is Akrobaten (‘the acrobat’), a pedestrian bridge that stretches across the tracks of Oslo central station. It’s appeared in the HBO TV series Beforeigners. And apparently its colourful lighting makes it fun to cross after dark.

The see-through walls along either side of the bridge are highly reflective. In hindsight, we should have packed along our flexible lens hood.

Here are a few of our favourite shots, both from the bridge and from street level.

We also took some photos from the Oslo Opera House, where we also spent some time exploring the marble “plaza.”

And we walked further southeast along the harbourwalk, past the Munch Museum and The Mother sculpture.

By that time, we needed to turn around and head back to our hotel, to check out and leave our luggage in the care of the front desk.

Yokoso for Lunch

We chose a Japanese restaurant for lunch. While not everyone would appreciate being able to “order using a tablet,” we understand it makes it easier to send the appropriate orders to the four different kitchens that work to prepare the variety of dishes. Although we had a technical glitch, our lunch eventually appeared. And it was delicious!

Astrup Fearnley Museum

Founded in 1993, the Astrup Fearnley Museet is one of Scandinavia’s most notable contemporary art museums. For one thing, it holds the extensive Astrup Fearnley Collection, which dates to the 1960s and is one of Europe’s most comprehensive collections of contemporary art. Changing exhibitions draw on this collection and debut new commissions by artists from around the world.

The Astrup Fearnley Museum complex, designed by Renzo Piano, spans two buildings bisected by a canal. It sits right next door to Tjuvholmen Sculpture Park.

I think it’s fair to say we generally preferred the temporary summer exhibition, Space Making, over the permanent collection. But we also spent quite a bit of time with a few pieces in the Astrup Fearnley Collection. It was also neat to recall that the first time we saw the name Fearnley in Norway was on a old wooden boat in Kristiansund’s harbour.

To the Airport and End of the Land Portion of our Norway Trip

Mid-afternoon we had our hotel call a cab to ferry us and our two large and heavy suitcases to the airport. The drive was painfully slow, with droves or people in vehicles leaving Oslo for a summer weekend outside the city.

By the time we checked in for our overnight stay at Radisson Blu Airport Hotel we were ready to call it a day – even though it was only about 5 pm.

We also checked in with our expedition cruise team, and learned we’d be joining just 66 fellow passengers aboard the Sylvia Earle. Which meant our extended sailing around Svalbard was at just 65% capacity.

We hung the “Do Not Disturb” sign outside our room and turned our attention to a bit of repacking, cool showers, and looking forward to a reunion with friendships struck about the Greg Mortimer in Antarctica, back in 2023.

Final Thoughts

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Oslo. It’s very pedestrian-friendly, with an extensive public transit system. By no means did we see / visit everything we had on our list of possibilities. We also think that breaking up the city siteseeing days with the day trip to Kistefos added to our overall enjoyment.