Oslo Day 2

We have a lot planned today! So we set off first thing in the morning. We pick up breakfast from a bakery on the same street and eat it in our hotel. Afterwards we take the bus west of the city to the Bygdøy peninsula. We want to visit a few museums there and decide to buy the Oslo Pass for 24 hours, which includes some museum admissions and ferry rides. First we go to the Fram Museum, one of the best-rated museums in Norway. The exhibition tells of the polar expeditions of the explorers Amundsen, Nansen and Scott. We learn a lot about the history and polar research voyages of the three explorers. The museum also contains two of the expedition ships: the Fram and the Gjøa. With the Gjøa, Amundsen sailed towards the North Pole for the first time. He learned a good deal about the Inuit and was able to prove that the northern magnetic fields are not constant in one place but move. Nansen also sailed north on the Fram, and when the ship could go no further, he and a comrade continued alone with a few sled dogs. The adventures fascinate us very much. We can even go aboard the Fram ourselves and look at the inside of the ship. But we must not spend too much time here, because we still have a few museums ahead of us. Next we go to the adjoining Maritim Museum, where we can see some records, replicas and paintings of ships. There is also a great view from a corner window with a direct view of the sea.

We only stay in this museum briefly and visit the Kon-Tiki Museum right next door. It is a rather small museum, but it impresses us all the more. It houses the real (restored) Kon-Tiki ship. It is a huge raft built of balsa wood with a sail, on which a Norwegian and his crew were the first to travel from Peru to French Polynesia, showing that the islands there might once have been settled by South Americans as well. The journey on the raft was one single adventure and lasted 101 days. But the whole crew survived. The museum also displays some statues and figures from Easter Island. Afterwards we want to visit the Viking Ship Museum and the Folk Museum, but they are closed today. So we take the ferry back to the city centre again. We arrive at the City Hall and walk to Akershus Fortress.

Unfortunately it too has closed in the meantime, but we can still look at the fortress from the outside. Our last stop for today is the Royal Palace.

We can watch the changing of the guard there and walk through the palace park. We rest for a while on a small bench and then walk back to the hotel. On the way we pick up something to eat in a supermarket and dine in our hotel.