Oslo: Sculptures, Markets, Ibsen, and all the city's magic

A little while ago I visited Oslo with my friends in Bergen for a weekend trip. We took the train from Bergen to Oslo, which was quite a difference in travel time (the train journey takes around eight hours, whereas a flight would be roughly one hour and a half), however we had heard that this is one of the most beautiful train journeys in Europe.

It definitely was.

I have travelled to many places in Europe via train (especially in the UK, all my journeys there have been on a train), and have enjoyed many of them. Yet the Bergen-Oslo railway offers so much more. Usually I just see the ocean or forests, but on this journey I got to see mountains (actually loads of mountains), with valleys, snow, glaciers, and lakes in between. The most magical part of the journey was definitely seeing the town Finse – I was told this is the highest point the train will take you up (although I could be wrong). It was almost like entering a scene from “Into The Wild”, apart from the train station itself, there really wasn’t any civilization to be seen. People actually live in Finse, but at this point in time I could only see people waiting at the train station, everywhere else I looked was just the mountains and glaciers and snow covered ground making it seem like no one actually lived here, they just stumble across it on their train journey to another destination.

(Above: Finse - one of the glaciers can just be made out)

This is my other favourite moment on the train (picture above). I don’t know which town it was, but what I liked best about it was how the mountains reflected in the lake below – it was such a beautiful landscape, one that really makes you appreciate nature just that little bit more for how naturally mesmerising it can be. 

What I found bizarre before arriving in Oslo, was how much the people in Bergen hated the capital city. In the weeks before our departure to the city, many Norwegians had said to us negative comments, that Oslo was an ugly city, or it was horrible, it had nothing to offer, and the comments continued this way in this tone. I was really taken aback by it, and didn't take their comments too much to heart, but at the same time I tried not to have too high expectations of Oslo.
Well, I don't know why there is hate from the Norwegians in Bergen towards Oslo - perhaps it's city rivalry - but all I know is that I completely loved Oslo and was in awe of the city as soon as I stepped out of the train station.

So here's some of my favourite places and moments from the trip:

The Norwegian National Ballet and Opera:

Unfortunately I didn’t attend any events held here, but I still felt lucky enough to see it. Before I arrived in Oslo, I was very curious to see it as I had heard rumours that it was giving the Sydney Opera House a run for its title of great designs. I can’t really conclude which opera house is better, but nevertheless the Norwegian Ballet and Opera house is absolutely lovely. It’s completely white: the building itself and all the pavement and walls leading up to the house; hence it gives the effect as if you’re in a typical snowy winter day – although the time of day and weather when we went to visit helped to give this effect too (we had visited at dusk and it was an overcast day). It’s right by the sea and if you were coming past on a boat, you couldn’t not see it, it begs for attention to be seen with its different shape and gleaming white colour.

I think if I get the chance to go back to Oslo, I will definitely look at getting tickets to the Norwegian National Ballet and Opera.

The Vigeland Sculpture Park

This has to be one of the weirdest, but coolest, places I have visited on my adventures abroad. As suggested by the name, it is a sculpture park. You can spend hours here and visit it on numerous days to see all that it has to offer. Sadly, we only had an hour or so here if we wanted to see everything else we had planned, but an hour was definitely sufficient time to get a sense of the oddness that the park offers. What is odd about it is the statues themselves. The ones we saw were all of people, all displaying weird and wonderful emotions. Plus they are all naked which adds to the strangeness. You can definitely view things in a different way if they are shown naked. For example, there were many statues of men and women, young and old, all hugging and holding each other in different positions – now this is quite normal and natural behaviour, yet when you add the aspect that they are naked, it causes you, whether willingly or not, to change your perception of the image portrayed. A particular statue (that my friends found disturbing, but I thought quite funny) was of two children on top of their mother’s back ‘riding’ her. Now this is usually naturally for young children to play pretending they are riding a horse when on a person’s back (which more often than not, is usually the parents job). Yet, the statue makes you question this innocent childhood game:

Whether the statues were meant to be funny or serious, I do not know, I guess it’s open to any interpretation which is what most art tries to accomplish. What I loved most about the sculptures was the emotions the artists had captured in their human portrayals. For example one of the most famous statues in the park is this:

Most people will walk past this statue and look at it, and immediately think of different moments in their life from viewing this emotion – like it reminds them of when they were a child, or reminds them of their own child. It’s such a natural emotion that everyone goes through at some point in their life that it causes so much effect.

The Vigeland Sculpture Park is a little further out of the city (i.e. if you’re planning on walking), but it is definitely worth walking that little bit more or parting way with some of your cash for the bus fare.

Markets

Some of the best things about travelling (as I have mentioned in many of my posts) is stumbling across unknown places, the places that you might not always find in your dependent guide book.

In Oslo this happened to us when we were walking around the area, Grünerløkka. We went to this area since one of our friends had told us it’s a good area for cafes and vintage shopping. While we did find a café, on our walk back to some other place (I can’t even remember what exactly we were looking for), we came across a market.

The market was amazing, it was relatively small but they had stalls outside and also some more inside a building; and it smelled incredible! As soon as we crossed the little bridge to see more, our nostrils were immediately filled with the tasty smells of Norwegian waffles. It’s quite a good luring bait actually. 

One of my favourite stalls at the market was handmade jewellery by Anima Soleil. There were many different designs of necklaces, bracelets, rings, etc, but the ones I loved most were these inspirational bracelets. They were either gold or silver bands with inspirational messages engraved on them. I fell in love with them instantly, and so I just HAD to buy one. My good friend Emma helped me choose one, and she picked out one which said “Everything Will Be Alright” – particularly because every now and then we will start singing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds”. Now I know it isn’t the exact words from the song, but every time I look down at the bracelet and read those words, it instantly takes me back to all the memories I have had here in Bergen with Emma.

Henrik Ibsens Gate

My favourite Norwegian writer has to be, without doubt, Henrik Ibsen. I first was introduced to his plays in high school, where I had to study Ghosts. I really enjoyed his play, it was controversial and the imagery was so powerful in regards to his vivid descriptions of the props and costumes. Most plays I have difficulty reading – as my literature teacher had once explained, they are meant to be performed, not read – however Ibsen is possibly one of the only playwrights were I can easy enjoy simply reading his works, I don’t need them to be performed.

So, as you can tell, when I had read about all the monuments to Ibsen in Oslo, I went a little crazy and was persistent to my friends that I had to see them, whether with them or alone. I ended up going alone, but I didn’t mind.

Among some of the different monuments to Ibsen (there’s the theatre, his grave, etc), there is a street actually dedicated to him, called Henrik Ibsens Gate. On here there is the Henrik Ibsen museum – which is actually his old (last) house but converted to a museum) – but what I was impressed with most was that on the street, they have quotes from all his plays engraved in the pavement. They are all in Norwegian, so I couldn’t recognise some of the plays, but I was still intrigued by it anyways.

It is possibly one of the most fascinating ways of showing dedication to a loved writer in their home country.

Litteraturhuset 

All lovers of literature should come here. Or perhaps those who just love a cup of coffee and some good hearty meals.

It’s a bookshop, but a café/restaurant as well – it is perhaps one of the easiest ways to appeal to me as I love a good book and a good cup of coffee or plate of food.

We stopped in here on our way back from the sculpture park, and I think there is something cosy about drinking coffee and eating cake next to tables and shelves filled with books.

Overall the place does actually even more than just books and food, they also host events here like readings, signings, concerts, debates making it an ideal hang out for book-lovers, students and anyone else who is interested in those sorts of things.

It’s a good thing that they didn’t have a huge range of English books (or from what I could see anyways), as I definitely would of spent hours here trawling through the shelves and tables.