Oslo, Norway - 01/26/18

Downtown Oslo

Oslo City Seal (United and constant)

From the Viking Museum in Larvik, we made an inspired trip to Oslo, the Tesla Capital of theworld Norway. There is also another Viking Museum in Oslo, that we could have teleported to, but it would be to easy.
As is the case with most Norwegian cities, despite being the capital, Oslo is still rather calm and relatively small, but it's the most populous city with only 672.061 inhabitants (2017) in a 480 km² (185.62mi²) area. -*Or 975.744 in Oslo county and Akershus(which were recently merged) and 1.5 million in the metropolitan area)



Interesting Facts: 

• Oslo was know as Kristiania from 1877 to 1925 after being reconstructed after a fire, during the reign of Christian IV, but was founded in 1040 by Harold III. with the actual name.

• Oslo, Bergen and Tonsberg are the only cities that don't have a COA, but use a city seal instead, in Norway.

• There are 40 islands within the city limits and 343 lakes.

• Oslo is to ban cars from the city center by 2019

The city has plenty of room to spare, and is very accessible, be it on foot or motorized public transport. It's atmosphere is marked by lots of open spaces, mostly due to it's relatively small population and unusually large land area, as well as a diverse and modern architecture, one example being the Oslo Opera House and Bjorvika borough (Meant to look like a barcode from a distance).

The Nobel Peace Prize is given in Oslo every year at the city hall.


Oslo is Europe's fastest growing capital, and the birthplace to famous figures, Edvard Munch and Henrik Ibsen. - As we were walking, flabbergasted by how expensive (Oslo has been named the world's most expensive city, and is still very much so, at 3rd place) most thing were, - the internet seems kinda cheap, and produce too, but 1bottle of beer is $10. We stopped to observe the city's beautiful architecture, which is currently being modernized. Some of the places we will visit include: The Holocaust Center, Edvard Munch Museum and National Museum.

The first stop we made was to Norway`s most visited turist attraction, Vigeland Park in Frogner park. At the first sight of it, we were convinced it was just a private park of very good taste, but no, we were amused to discover that it was actually public and open all year round.

In the park are more than 200 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland, who also designed the archtecture and layout of the park. The park was completed between 1939 and 1949.

We took our time appreciating the expressive sculptures, and taking in the moment, it feels good to be here, what a nice atmosphere.

Vigeland Park

Oslo Museum (Frogner Manor)

In the Frogner borough, which is consisted of agricultural land, and now the frogner park, the 18th century buildings on the grounds now are also holding the Oslo Museum.

Skipping Oslo Museum, we went right to Edvard Munch Museum, in Old Oslo (Gamle Oslo) -which is currently being relocated to near the Opera House (see the video), in a  project which dates back to 2008 and is to be completed in 2019-  to see the collections left by Munch himself , and his sister, to the city.
The museum has well over half of Munch's entire production of paintings, and at least a copy of all of his prints.
We appreciated the art as we listened to audio tours about the works and Edvard's life. The exposition was very concise and organized, we could observe all the styles and all the variety in his work.
It was opened in 1963, comemmorating Munch's 100 year anniversary, financed by Oslo cinemas. The designers were Einar Myklebust and Gunnar Fougner.

The National Museum was also in the proccess of changing locations, but it was probably the best Museum visit we have made in Norway.

We have covered the entire south coast of Norway!- Next stop, Halden, The one with the jail-free high security prison. 

Larvik, Norway - 01/11/18

Larvik, Norway

Larvik COA; (Three sails)
represents maritime tradition.
Granted in 1989.

After casting away the Paradox Monster's curse, we continued our path, which suddenly shrank right before our eyes, reaching the city of Larvik in Larvik municipality in a lighting fast speed.
The first thing that caught our attention was the heavy viking heritage displayed in many ways around the city, which we quickly learned is due to an important mark that happened here.
Norway's first town, Kaupang (Derived from Old Norse ’kaupangr’, meaning market or a trading place), was founded here around the year 800 and served as a hub for trade as well as production. At Kaupang today there is a Viking house like they think it could have been. We could also see a model of the town, and information about the escavation of the area, which is not 100% dug. Inconveniently enough for us, the replica viking house in Kaupang does not work during winter, but we found a way in anyway, since we came here from so far.

     

Miniature representation of the old viking settlement

Guides dressed as vikings

Larvik is the 19th most popupous city in Norway, with 43,867 inhabitants as of 2016.

Interesting Facts:

• Larvik has a daily ferry connection to Denmark (Hirtshals)

• The name derives from Old Norse, meaning; 'logr' (river) 'vik'(cove): "The cove at the mouth of Lagen" (Now called Numedalsagen river)

"SuperSpeed 2 has the capacity of taking up to 2000 guests, 764 cars or 117 trailers."



Maritime Museum
To get to know more about the maritime history of the city, and about this Thor Heyerdahl fellow we keep hearing about everywhere, we decided to make a visit to Larvik Maritime Museum, which is honestly a rather simple exhibition, with pictures and model ships. Also, the ship Jærbuen II, dating to 1898, from famous Larvik shipbuilder Colin Archer is usually docked here.
Colin Archer and Thor Heyerdahl are represented in statues a stone throw away from the museum

Interesting Facts:

• There are also ferries to other national and international lacations: In Norway: Oslo, Kristiansand, Sandefjord. And Kiel in Germany.

Color Line ferry connections

• We are only 65 miles southwest of the capital, Olso, now.

Thor Heyerdahl was an explorer from Larvik who conducted an expedition in 1947 trying to prove that South American natives could have settled Polinesia in Pre-columbian times.

His aim was to show that there were no technical reasons preventing the natives from doing so, thus he used only material and technology available to those people at the time (except for communication and orientation devices)

Very interesting in depth article about his life
Thor wrote a best seller about the expedition, and a documentary was also made (a film was also made in 2012).
The trip started in Peru, founded by private loans and equipment donations from the US Army. The raft, called Kon-tiki, named after Inca sun god, Viracocha, was constructed out of Balsa logs and other native material in an indigenous style as recorded in illustrations,
He and other five companions sailed for 101 days and over 6.900 km(4.300mi) across the Pacific, before smashing into a reef. They returned safely.

The expedition inspired many others to try (at least 9) and demonstrate this idea, some succesfully, others not so much.

After that, we have seen almost everything there is to see in the city, we are now parting to our next and probably penultimate stop in Norway.

 

Next stop, Captital of Norway.

,

Kristiansand, Norway 01/02/18

Kristiansand -COA

Kvadraturen borough, Kristiansand

This time our stop was a little farther, almost 100 miles, so we made some stops. -Not for food though, because we can't afford anything here :), but to rest our feet a little.
After 2 weeks, we finally arrived in Kristiansand (historically "Christiansand"), a city and municipality in Norway with 88.598 inhabitants as of 2016, being the 5th largest in Norway.


- We are doing it in the wrong order! - Some habiticans are saying, as the order of the most populous cities we are visiting are wrong. First there was Bergen, Norway's second largest city, then Odda, way down there with 5.5thousand inhabitants, then Haugesund, 14th, and Stavanger, 4th place in Norway.


We learned that the road from Stavanger to Kristiansand is only 3 hours by car, and that there is a road connecting the city to Denmark, but our trip on foot took us 2 weeks.

The town was founded in 1641 as Christiansand, on a sandy headland, by King Christian IV(renowned for having founded many towns), who is depicted in a monument in the city.

Some notable people from the city include:

• Agness Kittelsen: Actress
• Andreas Thorkildsen: Olympic world champion in Javelin Throw.
• And many singers, athletes, writers and artists.

Interesting Facts:

• Kristiansand is the third most viatnamese populated city in Norway

• Kristiansand Dyreparken (which we visited) is the zoo that sells most girrafe in Europe.

Kvadraturen

Odderoya Island

The center of the city is called Kvadraturen, a very organized planned block, one of the five boroughs in the city. There we visited Fiskebrygga, a very popular small port and fish market with a nice scenery. Immediately to the south of the city center and Fiskelbrygga, connected by 4 bridges, is mostly undeveloped former naval base now made into a recreational area, Odderoya Island, with approximatelly 0.7 km²(170 acres), with a popular concert stage where names such as; David Bowie, Bryan Adams, Alice Cooper, Ozzy Osbourne, John Fogerty, Bob Dylan, Sting, Kanye West, No Doubt, Foo Fighters, Aerosmith, Daft Punk, Björk, Alicia Keys, Black Eyed Peas, Damian Marley, Backstreet Boys, Pink, Slash, Oasis, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, The Who, Muse and Coldplay have played

Our favorite trail for running, walking and other activites in the city was Baneheia, a recreational area with extensive paths, that is sadly infamous for the murder of 2 girls in 2000.

Dyreparken, or Kirstiansand Zoo and Amusement Park

6 miles(11km) east from the city center, we visited Norway's most visited attraction and probably the biggest and most complete Zoo in Scandinavia.
Dyreparken, or Kirstiansand Zoo and Amusement Park, encloses a complete zoo, an entertainment parks, as well as a waterworld, in 150 acres(61hectares) of mostly open and explorabe (via walking paths) Nordic terrain.
Among the animals we saw african savanna animals (Giraffes, Zebra and lions) as well as native Scandinavian animals sucha as Wolves and elk, a large breeding ground for Bastrian Camels, and exotic animals such as alligators, orangutangs, pandas, Siberian Tigers and a variety of apes and monkeys roaming freely or swinging on the ropes an trees in the park.

There is an atificial town inside the park which was made to look like Cardamom Town in the book by Thorbjorn Egner, as well as villages Captain Sabertooth and Abra Havn(Port of Abra), taken from a theatre act bt Norwegian author Terje Formoe also serving as a hotel, with 170 apartments, along with Dyreparken Hotel.

That was it for our stop, we are aiming big for the next ones!