Oslo is the City of Tigers.  That is why this large sculpture of a tiger is near the Sentral Station.

We used the instructions given to us yesterday and took bus 54 to bus 20 and arrived at Vigelandsparken Sculpture Park where we took a stroll through the park.  Vigeland Park is the largest sculpture park in the world created by a single sculptor.  It is located in the Frogner Park area and has more than 200 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland (1869–1943) in bronze, granite and cast iron. including.  We walked across the bridge with sculptures along both sides.

Although I took many photos, I could not capture the enormity of this park nor these sculptures..

 

I took a photo of Jane in front of the The Monolith (Monolitten) to give perspective of the size.

Many of the sculptures depicted strong emotions.

This is a small portion of one of the gates in the park.

Although there were some tour buses, we were lucky to have quiet time to view the sculptures.  is one of Norway’s top tourist attractions, with more than one million annual visitors.  Vigeland was also responsible for the design and architectural outline of the park.

There were several groups of local people in the park including a few pre-school groups, a group of people around our age jogging through the park, and individual locals just walking.  A strange part is that there were no signs telling us about the park, Gustav Vigeland, or the names of any of the sculptures.  We found the Vigeland Museum on the edge of the park but it was closed until October.

We took tram 12 back to the waterfront area and visited Akershus Fortress or Akershus Castle.  I loved the views of the waterfront.

Akershus Castle is a medieval castle that was built to protect and provide a royal residence for Oslo. The castle has also been used as a military base, and is today a museum, open for public. I loved the walls of the castle

As we entered we passed this sculpture of President Franklin Roosevelt.

 

There were great views of the water from the castle.

We also visited Norway’s Resistance Museum also known as the Norwegian Home Front Museum is a museum located at the Akershus Fortress in Oslo. The museum collection focuses on Norwegian resistance during the occupation of Norway by Nazi Germany from 1940 to 1945. The museum displays equipment, photos and documents from the war years when Norway was occupied by the Nazis.  They were showing an interesting film about the King of Norway and the resistance to the occupation.

The area is still a military base.

As we were leaving the area we passed a group of people dressed in period costumes.  They were filming a TV show and had dropped many rose petals on the ground.

We walked from the castle towards the Oslo Opera House.  On the way we stopped at Salt area for lunch.  They were advertising the Greatest Grilled Cheese Sandwich in the world.  Sue and Jane had fish and chips and I tried the cheese sandwich that peppers, onion, pickle and other veggies on it and was actually quite good.

Near the food cart where we ate there was a large sculpture with shirts hanging all over it.  The title of the sculpture was We Are Still the Same and it was created by Kaarina Kalkkonen.  A sign near the sculpture said, “In every shirt there is a story because someone with a warm heart has been wearing it.  All kind of people are together here, but we are still the same.  We are no wiser than fish.  We all still go in the same direction, following each other like a shoal of Fish.  We are a part of nature and nature is with us.”

I took a photo of the Opera House from the table where we had lunch.  Many people were walking around the outside of the Opera House and that is what we did when we got there.

I took one of the views from the top.

In the water near the Opera House is a sculpture.  There was no information about the sculpture.  I asked in the gift shop and the woman looked it up on the internet.  The title of it is “She Lies.”  It was created by Monica Bonvicini (an Italian artist) and it is here interpretation of Caspar David Friedrich’s painting titled “Daj Eismeer done in 1823.  We thought it was a depiction of a ship but it is actually a depiction of an iceberg.

The ship in the background helps to show the size of the sculpture.

Then we went to the Munch Museum.  I was happy that we were taking the Metro to get there because we hadn’t ridden on that yet.  We were disappointed to find out that only on room in the Museum was open so we never got to see, “The Scream.”

We took the Metro back across town to see the National Theater which was just okay.  We didn’t get to go inside because they were rehearsing for the evening’s performance. I loved this fountain in the park near the museum.  We sat on a bench and people watched.

There were many tents being set up and we learned that it was for a student science fair which focus on the environment.  So appropriate.

We walked over 7 miles today and were all very tired.  So back on bus 54 to the Co-Op to buy more salads for dinner. We were all glad that this was the last time walking up the 3 flights of stairs.   It is hard for me to wrap my brain around how exhausted we got just touring Oslo.  I know we didn’t see everything we could have seen and I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t realize that there was a Jewish Museum so we missed that.  We also missed the Holocaust Center because Sue said it would be too emotional for her and we stayed as a group.  We only had one key to our apartment and no way to reach each other if we had separated.

I was so impressed with the transportation system in Oslo is amazing.  You can get anywhere in the city.  We never had to walk more than 2 or 3 blocks to find a bus, trolly, or subway.  It reminded me of getting around Amsterdam.  Bus routes and trolly routes crossed over each other winding back and forth.  We were also so impressed with how absolutely immaculate the streets in every area we were.  There was absolutely no trash anywhere  – not even a gum wrapper. All in all I think we did a wonderful job of covering the sites in Oslo.  Purchasing the Oslo pass was a great idea. We definitely enjoyed our time in Oslo.