A couple of weekends ago Andy (the other half) and I went away for a long weekend to Oslo. He'd spotted an awesome deal on flights with Ryanair and since we've been trying to get to Norway since he came back from his dissertation research there 9 years (9 years!? My goodness, where has that time gone?!) we decided it was an opportunity we couldn't miss out on.
It meant a very early start to get there (I mean up at 3am kind of early) and by the time we finally arrived at the apartment where we were staying it was a good 12+ hours later, but we had a quick wander round, decided on a few things we wanted to do then crashed for the evening. (That was once we'd discovered that the bedding and any form of cutlery were an extra cost that is!)
Saturday we went to the Nobel Peace Museum followed by the Norwegian Resistance Museum, so it was kind of the opposite to Tolstoy's book! The Peace Museum was amazing and I was constantly surprised at how much was in English. I have to say it puts us Brits to shame that we're (as a nation) generally so rubbish at other countries languages. We learned so much of the current 3 Nobel Peace Prize winners who are all women so the exhibition was named 'Sheroes'. Very apt; they really are inspirational women.
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| The Sheroes |
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Giving Peace a Hand...
can you see mine? |
The Norwegian Resistance Museum was also so interesting; I didn't even know there had been a Norwegian resistance and I studied that period of history at length whilst at school! It was pretty inspirational at the length people went to in those days; I wonder how many of today's 'youth' would do the same... We spent so long in both of those museums we completely forgot to have lunch!!
Sunday we took a nice walk round the city, in fact we were up so early (only 9am) that I think everyone else was still asleep! It was beautifully snowy! We took a visit to the town hall; it looked really soviet-like from the outside, but the inside was absolutely stunning...Marble, Oak, amazing murals etc etc. We then took a visit to Akershus Castle which at various points in its long and turbulent history had been a prison! Again, another stunning, but freezing cold building!!
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| The Town Hall |
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| The main hall |
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| Akershus Castle |
Having been all educational we took a further wander round the very cold (-13) but beautiful city, taking in the sites and the rather expensive coffee! We had a really fabulous few days and there was so much we didn't see...Must go back in warmer weather I think; I want to go to one of the islands to explore about the Vikings!
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| Andy meeting one of the locals! |
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| Andy and I in front of the port |
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| The Palace; it's not like Buckingham Palace...we could've walked right up to the door! |
I so can't wait to go back....
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