Oslo, Norway
At our first port, we were docked spittin' distance from town, so we did a bit of walking before returning to the pier to meet for our very first tour, "Walking Tour With City Hall." The first thing we passed was an interesting and fairly recent memorial, to victims of a ferry fire in the area; the second was a barely recognizable statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in recognition of his harboring of part of the royal family after the king defied the Nazis in WWII.
Our first stop was the rather remarkably unattractive City Hall, which we'd seen from the water side on our quick walk. The entrance from the city side is a lot more interesting, with a fountain and some great wood carvings, but still pretty much an eyesore. It was built in the 1930s (in the old red-light district, of course), and the interior was nearly covered with frescoes. If you didn't know you were in Norway, the frescoes would probably make you think of Soviet Russia: angular, out of perspective, nationalistic, Glorious People's Frescoes. The least ornate room was the Munch Room; my notes for the tour aren't very detailed, but we seem to recall either he was just too frail to decorate the whole place, or he died. Either way, it was mostly wood paneling. Hallvard, the patron saint of Oslo, was killed by three arrows, and a motif of three arrows appeared on anything that wasn't a fresco (and some things that were); the walls in the senate chamber were covered with a fabric with the motif woven into it.
Continuing our walk, we passed the National Theatre, where a statue of Henrik Ibsen stood out front, and Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" was playing inside. As we headed down Karl Johanns Gate toward the palace, the sidewalk was inscribed with quotes from Ibsen's plays; he had walked that path daily from his apartment to lunch at the Grand Hotel (where the Nobel Peace Laureates stay when they're in town for the City Hall ceremony). We passed the downtown branch of the University of Oslo, a new-looking building in a classic style, and arrived at the National Palace. I'd seen a lot of pictures of it, but never without the Field Band formed up in front. It was originally planned to be about twice its current size, but it looks really tasteful the way it is.
As it began to rain, we stopped at a few more sites, and huddled under a tree to point at the oldest non-church building in Norway. We were kind of surprised at how "new" it was (it's only from 1680! I commented, "There's stuff in the US older than that!"), but the guide pointed out that when virtually every structure is made of wood, you get a few fires here and there. Our next stop was Akershus Fortress, begun in the 1290s and still in use as a military installation. It rebuffed eight attacks by Sweden, and was handed over to the Nazis without a fight, so the Norwegians like to say it was "never taken in battle."
Since the ship was virtually docked right at Akershus, that was the end of our tour. We'd decided to walk back into town for lunch, and fell in step with the tour guide again for a nice conversation. Leaving her, we went to Akers Brygge for lunch, a shipyard-turned-mall, then returned to Akershus to check out the Norwegian Resistance Museum we'd spotted earlier. It looked like a tiny house, but since most of the exhibits were about the activities of the Norwegian underground movement, most of the museum was fittingly underground as well. Virtually all of Norway seems to have been involved in the resistance; the first to openly defy the Nazis were the athletes, followed by actors, teachers, and the clergy (one Easter Sunday, 800 of the 850 bishops resigned en masse).
When we got back to the ship, there were two guys balancing on a small pontoon boat painting the hull. Back in our room, we sat on the veranda and listened to a nearby carillon playing "I Dovregubbens hall" (that's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" for those of you who don't read Norwegian), and rather nerdily took a photo every two minutes as we pulled away from Oslo.
After dinner, we turned in very early, believing we had an early tour departure in Gdansk the next morning.
We didn't.
Pedometer count: 17,367
Our first stop was the rather remarkably unattractive City Hall, which we'd seen from the water side on our quick walk. The entrance from the city side is a lot more interesting, with a fountain and some great wood carvings, but still pretty much an eyesore. It was built in the 1930s (in the old red-light district, of course), and the interior was nearly covered with frescoes. If you didn't know you were in Norway, the frescoes would probably make you think of Soviet Russia: angular, out of perspective, nationalistic, Glorious People's Frescoes. The least ornate room was the Munch Room; my notes for the tour aren't very detailed, but we seem to recall either he was just too frail to decorate the whole place, or he died. Either way, it was mostly wood paneling. Hallvard, the patron saint of Oslo, was killed by three arrows, and a motif of three arrows appeared on anything that wasn't a fresco (and some things that were); the walls in the senate chamber were covered with a fabric with the motif woven into it.
Continuing our walk, we passed the National Theatre, where a statue of Henrik Ibsen stood out front, and Tennessee Williams' "The Glass Menagerie" was playing inside. As we headed down Karl Johanns Gate toward the palace, the sidewalk was inscribed with quotes from Ibsen's plays; he had walked that path daily from his apartment to lunch at the Grand Hotel (where the Nobel Peace Laureates stay when they're in town for the City Hall ceremony). We passed the downtown branch of the University of Oslo, a new-looking building in a classic style, and arrived at the National Palace. I'd seen a lot of pictures of it, but never without the Field Band formed up in front. It was originally planned to be about twice its current size, but it looks really tasteful the way it is.
As it began to rain, we stopped at a few more sites, and huddled under a tree to point at the oldest non-church building in Norway. We were kind of surprised at how "new" it was (it's only from 1680! I commented, "There's stuff in the US older than that!"), but the guide pointed out that when virtually every structure is made of wood, you get a few fires here and there. Our next stop was Akershus Fortress, begun in the 1290s and still in use as a military installation. It rebuffed eight attacks by Sweden, and was handed over to the Nazis without a fight, so the Norwegians like to say it was "never taken in battle."
Since the ship was virtually docked right at Akershus, that was the end of our tour. We'd decided to walk back into town for lunch, and fell in step with the tour guide again for a nice conversation. Leaving her, we went to Akers Brygge for lunch, a shipyard-turned-mall, then returned to Akershus to check out the Norwegian Resistance Museum we'd spotted earlier. It looked like a tiny house, but since most of the exhibits were about the activities of the Norwegian underground movement, most of the museum was fittingly underground as well. Virtually all of Norway seems to have been involved in the resistance; the first to openly defy the Nazis were the athletes, followed by actors, teachers, and the clergy (one Easter Sunday, 800 of the 850 bishops resigned en masse).
When we got back to the ship, there were two guys balancing on a small pontoon boat painting the hull. Back in our room, we sat on the veranda and listened to a nearby carillon playing "I Dovregubbens hall" (that's "In the Hall of the Mountain King" for those of you who don't read Norwegian), and rather nerdily took a photo every two minutes as we pulled away from Oslo.
After dinner, we turned in very early, believing we had an early tour departure in Gdansk the next morning.
We didn't.
Pedometer count: 17,367
Labels: honeymoon
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