Just a few last thoughts about Oslo before we move on to Hamburg. Oslo is a beautiful, clean, livable city. It has great public transit, the water in the harbor is clean enough to swim in (as we’ll see later), and it is filled with parks and museums. The food is solid. There are not as many must-see sights as, say, Rome or London, but I’m coming to realize that that’s actually the way Garett and I prefer things. I’m so pleased we came here.

We made our way to a few more sights on Friday and Saturday.  Garett and I have been arguing about who has to be in pictures–we both are very reluctant–so we’re light on portraits in this post.

We walked the palace grounds first, then into the city.

There is a general leaning towards avant-garde statuary throughout Oslo, which range from interesting to disturbing. We already showed you the black panthers and some of the statues at Frogner Park. Here are a couple more.

We also went to the Akershus Fortress which has been in continually use from the 1300s. It was surrendered to Nazi forces when they took over Norway in the 1940s and used as a prison and execution place by the Wehrmacht. Now it’s a lovely free sight with good views of the harbor. You can see in the picture how many different layers of stone there are from the base of the building up; that means it’s been around a while.

Saturday we went to the Norsk Folkemuseum which is a primarily open-air museum with a ton of buildings from different eras in Norway’s history. It’s complete with people dressed up and in character. We saw something similar in Sweden (Skansen) and loved it, so we thought we’d give it a try.  It was pretty fun. Perhaps our expectations were a bit high. Here are a few pictures.

Our favorite exhibit was the Gol Stave Church. It was a beautiful building and seemed really novel to me. It has been dendrochronologically dated (date determined by age of wood) to the 12th century! Of course, it’s been extensively renovated.

We also went to the Modern Art Museum here. It is a privately owned collection and its hours are pretty short, so we were happy to make it on time.

It was interesting, but I should admit that I didn’t really enjoy it. Modern and Contemporary art can sometimes just be so sad. Even the beautiful stuff is sad. Look at this picture below. Really beautiful, right?

But then you find out that it’s all real butterfly wings. So then you’re not sure whether you should think it’s beautiful or morbid and then it just makes you unhappy. I understand that there’s a tidy and articulate message that can be found in it, but it’s hard.

Other highlights of the permanent collection include a cow and a goat each cut in half, preserved in formaldehyde and put on display in glass cases so you can see all the innards. There are also dead animals arranged in a triptych like they are being crucified. Almost every picture we looked at was dealing with the decay of society. I think I’m getting more conservative and ornery as I get older and it’s harder for me to appreciate stuff like that.

There were some memorable and fun things that I liked.

And outside the museum, there’s a beach! In the harbor! People were having the best time; it was such a beautiful day.