Home Exchange: Oslo

Another fantastic home exchange.  We had a 3 bedroom house that was about a 15 minute drive from Oslo city.  The kids were happy playing with the hose in the garden and watching trains over the back fence.  This was a non-simultaneous exchange which means this family will come and stay with us in Prague in October, we look forward to hosting them.  

Oslo is an incredibly expensive place, even for the people who live here.  We looked at a boat trip in the Oslofjord but decided our budget didn't extend to the $500 for a 1.5 hour trip!  We were advised in advance to buy our food in Sweden,  we were thankful that we did.

Norway is a very beautiful country and somewhere that we would like to return to in the future, although not Oslo.  There are some amazing sights (mountains, lakes, rivers and roads) along the west coast.  It is definitely a perfect camping or caravan holiday place.        

Sun, Sand and the North Sea

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So far our trip has involved dodging the rain with the odd sunny day.  Finally the weather has taken a turn for the better so we had a break from city sight seeing and made our way to the North Sea.  Deciding to get away from the city we drove down the coastline to Larvik.  Here we found a lovely little island that had beautiful clear water and rocks to climb over.  We enjoyed a picnic lunch, swimming and sun bathing.  

On our way to Larvik we saw a blow up water park, while the weather continued to be sunny we went there the next day.  We had a great time swimming out and going over all of the obstacles, in fact it was so much fun we went two days in a row!  Our final days in Oslo we very relaxed and we all enjoyed the beaches, the North Sea is definitely cooler than the Mediterranean.    

Viking Ship Museum

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The rain is definitely coming down hard today!  Opting for an indoor day we chose the Viking Ship museum, which is located on the Bygdoy peninsular about a 15-minute drive from our house.  The museum in an old church and is home to 3 Viking ships plus other Viking artifacts.  All three ships were grave ships that had been buried.  Vikings used to bury important people in ships with supplies like ox, horses, berries, grain, ship equipment and house hold supplies to give the dead person everything they needed to journey to the world of the dead, they believed dead people still ate food! The ships were from the 9^th century and had fantastic carvings on them.  We were also surprised to see a few sleighs that were also covered in carvings, but it does make sense that much of this part of the world is covered in snow and ice for most of the year.  There were tools, shoes, shipping equipment and much more.  We really loved this museum, it was small but really interesting and different from all of the other museums we have visited.     

Dancing in Oslo

Like usual, Corban can't pass a street busker without getting her money's worth.  This time it's Oslo city and she even managed to get Leo to join in too! 

Oslo City and Vigeland Sculpture Park

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Our first day in Oslo, Norway was forecast for rain starting at lunch so we decided to have a walk around the Palace and Palace gardens thinking that was all we would do before the weather set in.  However the rain didn’t come so we carried on into Oslo city for a walk around the main sights.  Oslo is a cute, tidy city and probably one of the most modern cities we have visited.  The Opera House is very impressive, costing 500 million to build.  The roof starts at the waterline and slopes upwards; you can walk up it and look back over the city.  We also passed by the National Gallery, Parliament, Oslo Cathedral, City Hall and the Nobel Peace Center where the Nobel Peace Prize is given out.  Corban and I had fun taking photos by the Palace guards, one even turned to look at us although they did seem a little more relaxed than other guards we have seen.  On our way home from the city we stopped at the Vigeland Sculpture Park probably home to some of the most unusual modern sculptures we have seen.  I have only included a few photos of the sculptures in the park as it is literally full of hundreds of them, we’re not sure why but the crying baby is pretty famous in Oslo.  Definitely thankful the rain held off, we achieved way more than we had anticipated today. 

Driving from Denmark to Norway

Driving to Oslo, Norway takes about 6 hours so once again we were on the road.  This time our trip took us across the longest structure in Europe the Oresund Bridge.  It is 4km of underwater tunnel followed by 8km of bridge from Denmark to Sweden.  It cost 46 Euro to cross the bridge one way, so thankfully we only have to cross it once on our summer trip.