Date: 27-28/07/2017
From/To: Oslo – Hjartdal
Distance: 179Km
Total Distance: 8760 Km
Weather: Cold, Raining, Sunny
Road: Paved

At the Ulysses club meeting back in Germany we meet a group of Norwegian Ulyssians. I went with them through my travel plans. In general I had already most highlights, except the Stave Church in Heddal. What is a stave church? You might ask:It is a elaborately carved wooden church

This was our goal today. We left Oslo and arrived in Heddal in the afternoon. The Heddal Stave Church is the Norway’s largest stave church.


Doesn’t it look magnificent? Inside but around the main church was a walkway, where the people stored there weapon before entering the church .The doors and pillar had great carvings.

 



The church had a well a bishops chair, that dated back to the 13th century (picture right). The altar was not as old, but still impressive.


Anyway,we continued and started to have a look for an accomodation. It started to rain heavily so we looked desperatly for a shelter. We stopped at a guest house on the road but no room was free. Nevertheless the host called a friend J, he had a farm nearby and a guest cottage for a good price and it was free. So we continued a couple of km off the main road to his farm, where his wife and daughter showed us the cottage.

It was really cosy, particular when looking outside and watching the clouds coming through.

The next day, the clouds were gone and the sun was shining, what a beautiful view.

Today we will continue close to Lysebotn and see if we can find a nice accommodation there.

Date: 20 – 26/07/2017
From/To: Oslo
Distance: 179 Km
Total Distance: 8760 Km
Weather: Sunny
Road: Paved

On our way to the last accommodation we saw an Ikea, so the idea was to have breakfast there. We arrived just before they finished serving breakfast so they strongly encouraged us to take as much as possible-so we did J


Not long after we crossed the border to Norway we found a ‘Museum for Sience and Technology’. Since we had only 200km to our accomodadation, we stoppd an had a good look. Well, there were plenty of sicence experiments, and we tried most of them J


I couldn’t resist to have my picture taken in a space suit J and Sigrid played with the ball liftet by water.


After so much entertainment we decided to continue to the flat we’d booked in Oslo via airbnb. We were a bit skeptical since we had one let down in Sweden. But this time it worked well without a hitch.. The building didn’t look very enticing, but the flat was perfect. It had everthing we needed, was in walking distance to the CBD and we could even watch the bikes from the window.


We stolled along the streets for 10 min then we came to a small place with water fountains, some small water falls and a bar. The atmosphere was really nice and relaxing. The audience were mostly young people and plenty of them were on a push bike.


The next day we walked along the rear to the city center, to get Sigrids mobile phonefixed. It was hard to get charged, the small USB socket must have been damaged when Sigrid lost it. On our way we found some nice art in the street. I like the chandollear hanging in the middel of a foot path.

 

Or the beer bottle with very strange pictures and text.

We found a shop which would repair the IPhone but it would take an hour or so. So we had a look at Oslo Central Staton


We found the operea house, but it was too late for a guided tour, so we decided to do that tomorrow. The next day we were down there again for the guided tour. On the left is the opera house, which was finished in 2008. On the right is Sigrid on the main stage. We could even see how the main stage was constructed. Each of these squares can be moved around separately , the stage is actually a lift which goes down four stories.


You can walk as well up the roof which we did. You have a really good view on Oslo, you can even see the ‘Holmenkollen Ski Jump’.


From here we walked direction ‘Nobel Peace Center’. We didn’t’ realise that only the ‘Nobel Peace Price’ is awared in Oslo, whereas all other prices are awarded in Sweden. Anyway, on the way we found that nice fountain with a hand sculpture.


And some troll houses on a traffic light J


Finally we arrived at the nobel peace center. There was an exhibition about ‘Juan Manuel Santos’ the colombian presiden who was awarded the 2016 nobel peace price.


And here is the place where the award is given, the Oslo city hall. There are as well guided tours, but we were too late, so some pictures from the outside will do.


Sigrid rolled her angle at the Opera house roof. I must admit, I stumbled as well a couple of time, the sureface is not always even and there are sometimes odd steps which are hard to see if you look around. Anyway, the ankle started to swell, so Sigrid cooled it down.

Below are some pictures from the park leading from our accomodation to the city center.

 

The next day we had a go at the museums. In Oslo there is something like a museums peninsula housing multiple museums. We opted first for the Vikings and then the Kon-tiki museum. The Viking museum offers a stunning view of three restored longboats from different times. Really interesting was as well where the Vikings travelled between 750 and 1050 AD, particular when you look at the boats and imagine to go on a boat trip from Norway to New Foundland on boats like this, even with multiple stops between.


The boats had some intricate carving.


The Viking had as well carts and slates; both could be disassembled to transport it on a ship. The slate has as well some intricate carvings.


The next stop is the Kon-tiki museum. When I heart the name first, I was thinking straigh away on the Kontiki tours (tour for young people, plenty of partiing).

The Kon-Tiki museum is an exibition showing the live and adventure of ‘Thor Heyerdahl’. He gained worldwide fame when he crossed the Pacific Ocean (Peru to Polynesia) on the balsawood raft Kon-Tiki. The expedition was designed to demonstrate that ancient people could have made long sea voyages, creating contacts between separate cultures

The original raft was exhibited there.


After his success in 1947 he had a go at prooving that the Agypts could have sailed to the Caribian with one of there reed boats. The first attempt failded due to a boat builder design error- the boat just disintegrated during the journey. The type of boat was apparently known in ancient Egypt and still constructed by the Buduma people from Lake Chad. For the second attempt he used the Aymara Indians from Bolivia, which built almost exactly the same type of boat. They must’ve done something different, since the second attempt worked. J


We were realy fascinated by the stories about the planing of the trip, preparation, selection of the crew, building of the vessel and executing the trip. For example: the material for the balsa raft. The balsa trees were not growing close to civilisation anymore, only in the rain forest. But the transportation was deemed as impossible, well Thor and a friend went into the jungle and organizded the wood. He had the same drive to overcome all other obsticles in his way and finally went on the jouney

The next stop was the Frogner Park, where the Vigeland installation can be found. Vigeland was an Norwegian sclupturer and 212 of his bronze and granite sculptures. The center of the installation is the Monolith Plateau, which houses the monolyth itself and lots of granit sculpures around.


 

On the bridge to the platform, you can see multiple bronze sculptures. On the left, Sigrid tries to at a falling child J and the angry boy, which is better known to the public.


Again a picture of the monolith-it shows more than 100 humans rising toward the sky.


The entry to the plateau had multiple wrought iron gates, each showing human figurines.

That was enough for a day, so we returned to our accommodation. The next day we strolled to the city. On the left hand side you can see the green area in the middle of some houses, which is used by nice weather for people picknick, play ball or just sunbath. We found a building which really looks like a living container.


In the city we found a new definition of ‘Sky diver’ J

The last day, we gave our noble steeds some TLC and cleand them thourourly on the neaby petrol station. As we found out, people use it as well to clean the pushbikes.


Tomorrow we are leaving Oslo and start our Norway trip.