Day 22 - Saturday 13th May 2023

Today we'd be staying in Oslo. This was the last full day of our bus tour of Scandinavia with Insight Vacations.

The weather was looking promising. Although it was cloudy, it was not raining and it was warmer (11C) than it had been elsewhere.

The first activity today was a tour of Oslo with a new guide, Christina. The bus left at 9am to drive through city streets.

She said Oslo was originally founded about 1000 years ago by one of the kings called Christian and so he named it Christiana. There are no buildings left from that era. The oldest currently surviving buildings date back to the 1300s.

The first stop was at the waterfront where we had a good view back to the new opera house and other buildings. She talked about the artist Edvard Munch who is famous for his painting "The Scream".

Back on the bus, we drove past various other buildings such as the ancient fortress (dating back to the 1300s), parliament house, the royal palace, prime minister's house, Nobel peace prize building. We also saw the main street of Oslo. trams and the royal gardens.

At about 10am, we stopped at the highlight of the tour: Vigeland Statue Park. This is a very large park containing a large number of statues created by Gustav Vigeland in bronze, granite and cast iron.

It was a good day to be visiting the park because of the pleasant weather. There was blue sky with a few clouds. I wore my puffer jacket but by the end of the tour, I decided I should have left it on the bus. By the end of the tour the temperature was 17C.

Initially, Christina took us through the large ornamental gates at the entrance to the park. She pointed out that, despite having an impressive front gate, the park has no fences and so has 24/7 access.

She then walked us slowly down the long wide path which is lined with statues of men, women and children. The statues are intended to represent the stages of life and relationships. Christina described this as the circle of life.

At the end of the path, there was a square surrounded by more statues with a large ornamental statue in the centre. Christina stopped at several of the statues and explained what they were intended to represent. This gave us a good perspective. Otherwise we would have just walked past them thinking they were nice.

Beyond this square, there were a series of staircases lined by more statues. The bus was waiting for us at the other end of the park and at about 11:10 we set off to see more of the city and continued on to the peninsula.

We passed by forest and farmland areas as well as beaches, marinas and the summer house for the royal family. Here the houses are traditional white timber.

The destination was the Fram Museum which contains the original Fram boat that was used on a number of polar expeditions. We arrived there at about 11:30. Christina, our guide, showed us through various exhibits and took us to an auditorium that showed a film about polar explorers.

Suzy did not come on this museum tour but went back to the hotel on the bus.

After visiting the museum, Chris, Janet and I had lunch in a cafe at the Maritime Museum next door. It was very pleasant siting in the sunshine. It was a warm 18C. Afterwards, we took photos of the harbour. There is another museum nearby too for the Contiki Expedition.

We were back at the hotel at about 1:30. The city and the hotel foyer were quite crowded with people who'd been participating in a fun run.

For our predinner drinks, we met in Chris and Janet's room and at 6:45. We met the rest of our group in the foyer for the short bus trip to our final celebration dinner for the Insight tour at Cafe Oslo.

We were back at our hotel at about 9:15 and said goodbye to the people who we wouldn't be seeing again tomorrow.