Oslo Day 3

Today we pick up our breakfast from the same bakery as yesterday. Fortunately it is right on the way to the City Hall, our next stop. From there we take the ferry towards Dronningen and eat our chocolate croissants, cinnamon rolls, pretzel and coffee with a view of the open sea. From the boat landing it is another 10 minutes’ walk to the Folk Museum (Norsk Folkemuseum), where the very famous stave church (Gol stavkyrkje) stands. We look at it with excitement and a constant smell of wood in our noses. The church dates from the 13th century and has already been moved to a new location several times.

Since our Oslo Pass is only valid for barely another hour, we can no longer see the entire large open-air museum grounds and instead go straight on to the Viking Ship Museum (Vikingskipshuset), which is very close by. There are 3 original Viking ships to see there, which are still very well preserved. These Viking ships were buried together with their leader after his death. Countless grave goods, such as horses, jewellery, weapons and money, were added. After their discovery the ships were excavated within 5 months. The restoration of the ships took over 7 years, however, because the wood was in poor shape after so long under the earth. Nevertheless, the ships in their present form still consist of 90% of the original wood from back then. And that is quite a while ago, because the ships were built between 700 and 900 AD. So the wood has survived this period of more than 1000 years.

After this very interesting visit we take the ferry back towards the City Hall. Our Oslo Pass expires in the meantime, but we can still use the ferry for free, because the ticket inspector remembers us and therefore does not want to scan our ticket again.

After a stop at a shop we have our lunch by the beautiful opera house building with a view of the sea.

There we photograph the imposing piece of architecture a few more times before we make our way towards the hotel. Today we have to pack and plan everything for tomorrow, because our flight was rebooked. Now tomorrow we set off even earlier towards the Lofoten. We have to catch the train towards the airport as early as about 06:00.