We disembarked from the Hurtigruten ferry a week last Sunday and the Campervan has been pitched at Camping Bratland, near Bergen since then. We reserved 12 nights here to relax and wind down from the huge journey North and the equally tiring Hurtigruten trip from Kirkenes from Bergen.
We will leave Bergen later this week but in the spirit of not relaxing too much, we have just spent a few days in the Norwegian capital city, Oslo. We booked a train ticket a few days before we knew that our arrival in Oslo would coincide with the quarter final tie between England and Norway. In reality, we didn’t have a lot of choice as the iconic Bergen to Oslo trains were mostly fully booked and the idea was for Moe and I to celebrate my big birthday with a train journey.
The trip from Bergen to Oslo is around 7 hours in duration and reaches its highest point of 1222 metres above sea level near to the village of Myrdal. The mountainous region between Bergen and Myrdal is most spectacular and several of the mountain villages such as Finse (population 15) are only accessible by the four trains a day between Bergen and Oslo Central.
In this area we could see that the summer population is much higher with many hiking and cycling tourists. In fact, there appears to be some fantastic cycling around the Myrdal – Finse region with some great dedicated cycle routes. It would be a nice idea to return to this part of Norway with the bikes…
Our journey to Oslo was on time until we were around an hour away from our destination when the driver announced a problem with the engine unit. After several attempts to reboot (aka switch on and off) he declared the engine kaput and radioed for a replacement.
We arrived into Oslo over three hours late and with just a half hour until the start of the football game. Here we learnt more about the restrictive Scandinavian alcohol policies as the shops aren’t allowed to sell beer after 6pm on a Saturday. All the bars were ticket only, sold out and Oslo was rammed with football fans.
Our Hotel was centrally located just around the corner from City Hall.
The bar at our hotel had also latched on to the opportunity and was charging guests 500 NOK (£40) for entry to watch the game. Eventually they allowed us to buy a pint which we took back to the room to watch the game. The result (2-1 to England) and the accompanying torrential rain somewhat subdued the Norwegian supporters.
Sunday morning was breakfast at a local Bakery before we visited the harbour and Akershus Fortress nearby. Also known as Akershus Castle, it is a medieval castle built on the banks of Oslofjord to protect and provide a royal residence for the city. It is believed that the construction was started around the late 1290s.
Later in the day we visited the Opera house and dined at a Mexican restaurant nearby in Bjorvika.
Monday was a visit to the Royal Palace, which unbeknown to us, later in the evening would be surrounded by 100,000 Norwegians celebrating the return of their World Cup team. We had wondered why the town was extremely busy, after the departure of the cruise ships and on a Monday evening!
Before then we had taken a ferry to the peninsula to Bygdoy and visited the Kon Tiki museum.
The museum was originally built to house the Kon-Tiki, a raft of balsa wood that Norwegian adventurer Thor Heyerdahl used to sail from Peru to Polynesia in 1947. Another boat in the museum is the Ra II, a vessel built of reeds according to Heyerdahl’s perception of an ancient Egyptian seagoing boat. Heyerdahl sailed the Ra II from North Africa to the Caribbean after a previous attempt with the reed boat Ra failed.
Beneath the raft is a model of the whale shark that the crew encountered on the voyage.
Dinner was at a restaurant in Aker Brygge, the upmarket harbour dining area of Oslo.
Tuesday we returned to Oslo central, via the Cathedral for our return journey to Bergen. This time it was punctual and un-eventful but we had the comfort of Pluss seating, which whilst expensive, was all that was available when we booked.
The Cathedrals in Norway are uninspiring and less aesthetically pleasing than their grandiose counterparts in much of Europe. This reflects that Christianity arrived late into a Norwegian culture that is largely pagan in origin. In fact, it is believed one of the Norwegian kings was keen to adopt the Christian faith in order to not become a target of the Crusades…
