I looked out of the window the following morning to see that the forecast for the day did appear to be wall to wall sunshine. The first place I was going to visit was the famous National Museum which has over 90 rooms of art, architecture, and design, along with a study room, library, shops, and a café, plus it is also home to Edvard Munch’s famous painting: The Scream that was painted in 1893 and rivals the Mona Lisa. This was a great way to spend the first part of the day, and you could even go out of the rooftop terrace for some refreshments and look out over the magnificent Fjords.
The afternoon was a relaxing guided boat trip on the Oslo fjords in an electric boat. I thought it would be interesting to see the comparison between the Oslo fjords and those in Stockholm. This trip was really enjoyable, and there was plenty of good refreshments on board - although the queues were a little long! The cruise lasted for 2.5 hours and gives you a good taste of Oslo’s culture, history, and wildlife. This trip is more coastal in comparison with the Stockholm fjords, but it has similarities in its array of small islands with picturesque houses dotted around. When you begin your return to Oslo, you get great views of the Opera House, National Museum and Munch Muse from the water. There is also a small beach area where many people were lounging in deck chairs by the water, making the most of the fabulous weather.
After the boat trip, I took a long walk along the Harbour promenade which links old and new parts of the city. This area is lovely to walk around and has everything from places to eat and drink to beautiful apartments by the water. It is then easy to access the Opera House from here with its huge glass windows and sloping walkway that is meant to resemble the Norwegian slopes. It was so hot this day that the sun reflected off the building and surrounding areas, making it even hotter and more difficult to walk up the long incline to the top. The view from the top was magnificent, though.
I next visited Akershus Castle and Fortress that dates back to 1300AD and is where Norwegian Royalty are buried. The castle and Fortress are like pieces of medieval history amongst all the modern attributes of the area. The fortress was built to protect Oslo and has survived many sieges. It has also been used as a prison, but today it is a military area that is open daily to the public – the Norwegian Resistance Museum and Armed Forces Museum are also housed here. This is somewhere not to be missed, and especially as it is free to go in!
My final call of the day was to the Munch Museum which is dedicated to the life and works of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch. There are 13 floors of his artwork to experience here – I hadn’t actually realised how many pieces of artwork he had produced over the years of his life. It is in the munch that you can view several versions of the Scream at different times throughout the day. There are two versions in tempera and oil paint and two in coloured pencil and pastel. The Scream has become a universal symbol of anxiety that allows many people who suffer from mental illness to recognise the intense feelings that come with loneliness, despair, and isolation.
After all the excitement of the day and the prospect of a long walk back in the heat, I ended up taking an electric scooter back to the hotel. This wasn’t the first time I had used one in a city, but it will be my last. I had a few issues with the accelerator, which I haven’t experienced before, so I still don’t know if there was an issue with it or whether there was just some setting that had been changed that I didn’t know about. Anyway, this scooter trip unfortunately resulted in me being catapulted at high speed and landing in a heap on the floor – just lucky that Oslo has plenty of cycle lanes! I ended up in A and E and had to have stitches in my chin. I also had extensive cuts and bruising on my legs and arms and my hand was very sore to move, but luckily not broken.
I am now nearly six weeks on from this accident and my hand is not right just yet, nor is my jaw, as the impact caused problems with the muscles in my face and jaw. But I am at least getting there and hopefully on the mend now, and grateful that it wasn’t any worse and that I didn’t cause injury to anyone else in the process. I don’t know what I would have done without a particular lady that helped me so much that day and can only be describes as Florence Nightingale. I wish I could have thanked her more for all that she did – so if you are her and you ever read this, thank you from the bottom of my heart! I wanted to tell you all about this to warn others to be careful on these e-scooters, as they are more powerful than you realise, and to let people know that sometimes holidays are not stress free because things do sometimes go wrong. I will never look back on this as a holiday I would rather forget because Oslo is a lovely place, and the Norwegian people are some of the best I have ever met. So, if you holiday here, you know you will be in good hands!
