Oslo, Norway

Wednesday 15th September 1999

We entered into the city today with the ferry trip to Denmark first on the agenda. We started at the tourist office, down by the harbour, then worked our way backwards along the Lonely Planet's walking tour towards the ferry offices, passing the grounds of the royal palace on the way.

We soon found the Color Line office but for Stena Line we'd have to go down to another part of the harbour. We headed in the general direction but first checked in at a airline office to try to change Mum and Dad's return ticket to a month later. They'd decided to stay on a bit longer and spend a few weeks in Britain as well.

No luck. All KLM flights for the month after their current ticket were booked solid. This was unexpected. It seemed unlikely that things would change in the next week so we quickly adjusted our plans. We'd already figured on a couple of days in Oslo so we now decided to try for a ferry on tomorrow night then hightail it down through Denmark to Esbjerg where Mum and Dad could get a ferry to England and at least have a few days in London.

It was well past lunchtime so we looked for something affordable to eat, finally finding a bakery with hot dogs and cheap pastries. Places like Pizza Hut, at about $A30 a pizza, were definitely out of the picture.

That done we headed down to the Stena Line to check out the competition. They couldn't take the van until Sunday so Color Line it is. Back up to the city we go and make the booking at the office.

All of this has killed most of the day but we decide to see a little more of Oslo before we head back to the campsite. We head back along towards the palace, passing the university and art gallery on the way. It's now 5:30pm but we quickly check if the gallery is still open. It is, until 6, and it's free. Sounds good to us. We particularly wanted to see Edvard Munch's The Scream so we figured that wouldn't take long.

The gallery turned out to be more interesting than expected, with some very good Norwegian artists represented, including a large collection of Munch's quite varied work. An added bonus was a Van Gogh self-portrait off in a small side room. Brilliant as always.

After being thrown out of the gallery we jumped on a tram and headed for Vigeland Park, a large park with over 200 lifelike works in bronze and granite by the sculpture Gustav Vigeland, everything from petulant crying babies to a huge column of entwined bodies. The city gave him a house and workshop in the park on condition that they could keep all sculptures. Seems quite a deal.

After strolling through there we finally made our way back to the campsite, pleased to have made something of the day apart from travel arrangements.