We woke up to blue skies and sunshine in Oslo, a welcome change from the 2 days in Bergen. (BTW, my Swedish cousin Anna says that it rains 272 days a year in Bergen, 19 of them in June. That’s amazing.) Oslo is the largest city and the capital of Norway. There are about 650,000 residents in the city and nearly a million in the metropolitan area.
It is the home of Harry Hole, the fictional detective of Jo Nesbø. Nesbø is one of the authors of Scandinavian Noir fiction.
It is a beautiful city with modern and old architecture mixed together. From my balcony on the ship at 4:30 PM I can see dozen boats of one kind or another in motion on the water and another several dozen docked.
Directly across the street from our ship was the Akershus castle or fortress. It has been operational in some way for over 700 years and is still in use today for some official events. Over the years it has been the Norwegian residence of Danish kings when they were in Norway, a military facility, the center of city government, and other uses.
In front there was a single ceremonial guard standing at attention. It was the first time our experience that such a guard was female. A group of oriental tourists were trying to take their picture with her and if they got on her gun side she made them move. On the other side if they got too close she used her arm to move them away. She did all of this without changing expression or turning her head. See the pictures below. I thought she should have used the tip of her bayonet to move the tourists away.
The grounds around the fortress were beautiful. Here is an example, some of the beauty fixed and some of it movable.
We took a tour of the building which was more interesting than we first thought it might be.
On the left: This drum-candle holder was hanging from the ceiling in the room that was formally used as a school room for the resident children. Caroline thought it would be a good use for an old drum she has. On the right: Queen Caroline invites the guests to sit for dinner.
The Oslo Cathedral is a beautiful building. On the door there is a sign that says it is open 24 hours a day as a place of peace and quiet, a place to pray, or just to sit for while. In one of the side chapels there was a sculpture of the last supper. It was interesting to note that in Jesus’ hand are several slips of paper folded up. One would assume they are prayers and it makes me wonder if anyone from the church reads them and joins in the prayers.
Our day ended with a late lunch at a restaurant called Engebret’s. I had a great lunch of 4 varieties of pickled herring made at the restaurant and a good Norwegian beer. A lovely day.