Saturday, July 7, 2012

Norway--Oslo

Norwegian Air


When I planned our trip to Norway, I only scheduled one day in Oslo. I expected my kids to be tired of visiting museums and churches and anyway, our goal was to get to the fjords--on the other side of Norway.

What I didn't expect was how quickly our lone day in Oslo would fly by and how thrilled my kids (as well as Rob and I) would be with the few sights we did have time to fit into our short stay in Norway's largest city.

oslo main drag


I expected a visit to Oslo's Opera House to be a quick stop. One look at this architectural wonder and you can quickly understand why our visit lasted well more than an hour.

opera house


The building was designed to look like an iceberg. This place must be stunning in the winter!

opera house angle


The cruise ships park across the water from the Opera House.

boat in opera glass


opera sculpture


daddy and lily at opera



joey sam bw windows


The inside is as beautiful as the outside.

inside opera house


Norway is insanely expensive. Helsinki looks cheap by Norwegian standards! So we made a lot of sandwiches for lunch. Fountains always make a good place to stop for lunch!


joey fountain


On the move again, we arrived at the Royal Palace just in time for the changing of the guards.

royal palace family


palace guard joey


Sam served as the family photographer for this event.  I took a few liberties with editing his shots :)

palace guards march


guard guns


Rob and I would have loved to spend several hours here (the Nobel Peace Center):

Nobel Peace Center


But even the ticket sales person said Lily and Sam would not get much out of it.

Our final stop of the day was at Vigeland Sculpture Park.

vigeland park


Vigeland was an extremely prolific Norwegian sculptor. He is also the designer of the Nobel Peace Prize medal.

There are 212 bronze and granite sculptures in the park.  I don't think Sam can look Joey in the eye without laughing!  (Or maybe he was giggling because I asked the boys to copy the pose of the two nude guys behind them?)

vigeland j and s


vigeland lily with kids


vigeland kids in fountain 2


vigeland fountain lily



vigeland joey with girls


I think it's pretty easy to guess what the subject of Vigeland's art was.

Youth...

vigeland tantrum boy


Parenthood...

vigeland man with girl


Love...

vigeland man and woman


old age...

vigeland old man


LIFE...

vigeland tower



1 comment:

  1. Great article! I’ve recently decided to spend 5 months next year travelling around the world. You’re so right about the fact that in most cases we could afford to do such a thing if we make that a priority rather than blowing cash on things that yield no return or substantial impact. I made my decision 2 weeks ago and already “found” $2000 to save toward my trip. Online Travel Agencies

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