Oslo, Norway (Day 1)

  One thing I forgot to talk about while in Copenhagen.  

We met a bunch of Malaysian ladies in the lobby of the hotel who were also waiting for transportation to the boat to Oslo.  We got to talking and turns out they were in the same hotels and on the same tours as Terry and me.  They are from Kuala Lampur and all very nice.  Terry and I each have our one little carry-on bag, but these ladies are toting honking big old bags with them.  We had a good laugh about what they were carrying and what we were carrying; and now we have met more new friends.

Coming into Oslo

Upon arriving in Oslo, the ladies were right behind us for the disembark because we had a bus to catch for our Oslo tour.  We got a picture

We disembarked and stowed our bags in the outside compartment of the bus (self-help only).  Ours were not too bad, but the poor Malaysian ladies had those really big bags.  We all finally got on and away we go for our two hour city tour.

Touring the old city on the bus so judge the pictures accordingly

City Hall (The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded here.  All other Nobels are awarded in Stockholm Sweden)

Parliament

The Grand Hotel (All the Nobel Awardees stay here).  The playwrite Ibsen came here often to the cafe.

We passed a statue of Sonia Henie, but no photo op for that one. We did stop at the Vigeland Park. Every sculpture but one is unclothed.  The clothed one is the sculptor himself, Gustav Vigeland, and our guide was pushing us through the park so fast that we were unable to get a picture of the only one with clothes. 

"The Vigeland Park is the world's largest sculpture park made by a single artist, and is one of Norway's most popular tourist attractions. The park is open to visitors all year round.

The unique sculpture park is Gustav Vigeland's lifework with more than 200 sculptures in bronze, granite and wrought iron. Vigeland was also in charge of the design and architectural layout of the park. The Vigeland Park was mainly completed between 1939 and 1949.

Most of the sculptures are placed in five units along an 850 meter long axis: The Main gate, the Bridge with the Children's playground, the Fountain, the Monolith plateau and the Wheel of Life".  All the sculptures represent human interaction such as Man/Woman, Parent/Child, and all ages from birth to death.  We really wished we could have spent more time here.

One of the more famous ones is "Angry Boy"

From the youngest to the oldest

It is thought the obelisk represents the struggle for life as the figures on the bottom are trying to reach the top.

Each figure has a different expression

They were fascinating sculptures

From here we rode up to a famous Nowegian Ski Jump which was ok, but would rather have spent more time in the park

This was pretty much the end of the bus tour.  They took us back to City Hall and dropped us off.  We caught a cab to our hotel next to Central Station and then went out on our own.  Going to publish this one and then start the rest of the day, so it doesn't get so long.