Out and about in Oslo – Day 1

Breakfast is served in the immaculate cafeteria, after which we catch up on the goings on in the world via the free Wi-Fi connection, then set out for the TI to get an Oslo pass – Because Station TI’s are usually swamped (Oslo’s certainly is/was) we head over to the TI by the Radhus (CityHall). It has rained overnight and the skies are overcast – the forecast is not looking good, with more rain forecast for the rest of our stay here (thus we were fortunate to have had 4 out of 5 fantastic weather days in the Fjords). We arrive at the TI and there is no wait at al. The delightful young woman who responds to our enquiry about the pros and cons of purchasing an Oslo card quickly does the Math for us and Yes it makes sense to get the card for two days during which we will visit the attractions that charge admission, while on the third day we get a transit pass that will allow us to travel between the attractions that have free admission. Smart woman that – she’s “with the programme!” I thought I detected a Manchester accent (call me Professor Higgins), but she confessed that she had never to England – all of her English phonetics she learned from TV!
We head down to the docks and catch a ferry to Bygdoy, where we visit four museums – The Museum of Norwegian Culture, The Polar Ship Fram Museum, The Kon-Tiki Museum, and lastly the Norwegian Maritime. The latter three are a “Tour de Force” of Norwegian Exploration and Maritime prowess – remarkable for such a small nation. Besides Roald Amundsen, who most Brits recall because he beat Captain Robert Scott to the South Pole, we learn of Fridtjof Nansen, explorer turned statesman who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for two of his efforts, notably the repatriation of POWs from Russia after WW1 and his efforts to help Armenians who had risen up against the Turks at the urging of The Allies and got butchered as a result – we are mindful of Turkish government posters that we saw in Bodrum 4 years ago, denying that event, but Turkey’s entry into the Euro-zone continues to be deferred on account of that episode.
In the Kon-Tiki exhibits we visit the story of migration of natives from Easter Island to Polynesia, and reflect on the Maori exhibits that we saw in Auckland and Rotorua earlier this year attesting to the mythical homeland “somewhere in the Pacific”!
At the Maritime Museum we are treated to a Panoramic “Super-Video” in the same format that we encountered in Fjaerland at the Norwegian Glacier Museum, only this time the subject is a flyover down the coast then (c 1900) and now, with glimpses of the current maritime fleet – Those explorers and sailors have not been idle!
So it’s back, via ferry, to Hotel Permalinen for our early, cheapie dinner, then out for our Passagieri – this time to Aker Brygge (Oslo’s version of our Yaletown) then over to Karl Johan’s Gate (Oslo’s version of Copenhagen’s Stroyget) – a pedestrian street stretching from the Central Station to the Royal Palace. All in all a good day.

Source: http://frugalgeorge.blogspot.com/2010/08/out-and-about-in-oslo-day-1.html