Vikings for a Day – Oslo

We slept in a little – 7:15 am. It wasn’t a bad idea since it was raining all night and just starting to let up. The positive was that the weather prediction was for partly sunny and low 70s. Yes 70s! We had to pack an overnight bag only however, and leave our bags in hotel storage since we’d be leaving for the overnight ferry to Copenhagen mid-afternoon. No problem. Nice to travel light.

After another huge buffet breakfast (gonna be some serious calorie countin’ after this trip) we took off on a walk of the downtown and old town areas, passing by the National Theater on our way toward City Hall.

City Hall is a fairly boring piece of architecture, but the friezes are the most spectacular part of the building.

The interior was also amazing with a series of murals all around the perimeter and upper floor.

From City Hall we made our way parallel to the waterfront, past the preserved structures of the Old City to the mind-boggling Opera House, almost an ice berg rising from the sea.

The sculpture anchored in the water, also ice-bergian, is loosely fastened so it moves and turns with the wind and tide.

As we enter the building we run over to see if we can catch a tour. One has just left, but we run up the stairs and are able to join. Absolutely great back behind the scenes look at the venue. We even walk by the ballet rehearsal areas where some of the dances are going through their paces (no photos allowed – damn). The costume area is buzzing with what seems like hundreds of people sketching and sewing the 4,000+ costumes they make a season. The backstage is available for us to see – it’s the largest backstage in the world. The complete sets for four operas are sitting, waiting. They do 400 performances (opera, dance and concerts) a season.

From the opera house, past the sculpture we could see our ferry/cruise ship ready to whisk us to Copenhagen and a sorely needed reunion with Sekita and Frits.

In the meantime we continue our exploration of the area, passing descriptive manhole covers – everything has a good sense of design here.

We made a quick stop in the City Cathedral.

And it’s comfortably stated interior. Great place for a quick rest – well after Marsha hit her 10,000 steps.

Back up the beautifully planned walking street – past every American store you can imagine…

…with lovely planting’s everywhere. We headed for a final destination of the National Gallery.

We wanted to see the largest collection of Edvard Munch…beyond the Scream.

We did. They have the largest collection of Munch anywhere and the city is even building an “all-Munch” museum that we saw being constructed.

Marsha’s favorite, Matisse was also well represented…

…with a couple of paintings we’d never seen before.

Now it was time to get back to the hotel, gather our things and get to the boat on time. We did, had another enormous buffet dinner on board, and pushed off south to Denmark and lovely Copenhagen. May be delayed in posting for a day or two, but will see you again soon.

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