Oslo: Day 4
by Vincent | April 12, 2015
I was feeling a little better this day — recovering from a very poor day before. My throat was still sore but I could talk a little.
Oslo Pass
For our last day in Oslo we wanted to grab the free Oslo Pass the city was giving away — lucky for us that we were there the one day of the year they decided they’d give away free passes!
The Oslo Pass will give you free entry into most of the museums in Oslo as well as discounts at restaurants, free public transport, and a discount on a fjord tour. It’s worth it, if you want to visit all the museums but we picked up two anyway — we hadn’t needed it the previous days. The line was long, wrapping around the block — but it moved fast. It only took about 20 minutes to get our passes and then we were out of there.
Since I’m writing this now, I can tell you we didn’t even use the pass except for a discount for lunch. Since we visited the museums we wanted the days before and because the National Gallery is free on Sundays, we didn’t even need a pass our last day. Go figure!
Akershus Fortress
After getting our passes, we wanted to visit the fortress on the pier as we read it had cool grounds and the museum was neat if you got a guide. Brandishing our shiny new passes, we made our way to the gate of the fortress — only, it was closed. What? But it’s open on Sundays! Staring incredulously for a bit, I noticed it said something about another door — so we walked around the block to where we spotted a pedestrian bridge leading into the fortress. Except, as we got closer, the gate to the stairs leading up (so you could get on the bridge) was also closed. GRRRRR!
We were very frustrated at this point. Celeste even said she didn’t want to visit it anymore. Having a bit more tolerance for frustration, I noticed that some people were walking even farther down the block and around the corner, so that’s where we went. Eventually, the street wrapped around so you had to enter the fortress through a checkpoint, and only then could you cross the bridge into the fortress. No wonder this fortress was still standing and in working order— getting in was still a chore even in 2015.
The worst part is since our experience thus far of Oslo was positive (easy to navigate, great guides and brochures), this could have been avoided with some clear signage at the main entrance (“Follow X street and turn right to go through the security gate and enter the fortress from the bridge.”)
Finally setting foot onto the grounds of the fortress, we were then at a loss at figuring out where to go to get to the tours and museum. Again, signage was sparse and nothing pointed us in the right direction (“Looking for castle tour? GO THIS WAY →”). We followed the ramparts and trail along the grounds and there were some great views of the bay.
The grounds were also pretty cool.
We did finally come across the entrance to the castle — it was farther up.
The door was closed though, so we were still confused — we thought it was open Sundays. We went to the visitor center (a right from the entrance, though there was no sign that said that) and we asked. Turns out it was open, but at 12pm. It was 11:30 and we didn’t really feel like waiting around for it to open so we left to go do other things.
We rested for a little bit and I noticed a super loud raven — he was yelling at people and strutting around. He got close to us but didn’t do anything, he seemed like he was a mean old bird.
National Gallery
Celeste really wanted to see The Scream in the National Gallery so we headed there after the fortress. We stood in line with the rest of the folks looking to get in for free on Sunday (again, Oslo Pass was useless here).
Once we were in, we made a beeline to The Scream having worn ourselves out on art in Amsterdam, Paris, and other museums. It’s just a bunch of marks on a canvas, right?
We admired some of the other works in the room and then headed out — we had stuff to do!
Lunch at Kaffistova
A little cafeteria called Kaffistova came up when we were looking for affordable places to eat and the Oslo Pass actually included a discount so we went there for lunch. The food was delicious (we had soup) and we’d definitely recommend it as a place to go for cheap eats. For more expensive tastes, they also served reindeer steaks and whale salad.
Nap time and street market
I wasn’t feeling so hot again after lunch and decided I’d like to take a nap. We parted ways and Celeste, still on the hunt for a souvenir, headed to a street market she heard about that sells crafts made by locals.
While I slept, she had fun at the market and bought a street waffle and finally found a souvenir — a crochet square. Being a craftsperson herself, she loved the knitwear and crafts on display at the market. In France, they don’t really knit or crochet so this was pretty cool for her.
River walk
When she came home she woke me up and I thought it might be fun to take a walk along the river before dinner, as it was still a little early to eat.
We walked north along the river and admired the views. If we had more time and I had felt better, it would have been fun to walk the length of the river as they did a good job making trails and parks along the way.
We saw these apartments on the way there, as if someone saw some grain silos and said, “Hey, those look like they’d make a great apartment complex.” Okay guy, okay.
Dinner at Bari Pizza
Remember Bari Pizza from day 2? Well, we loved the gyros so much we went back. This time I got a gyro plate and Celeste had a gyro (last time she only had a falafel sandwich). It was fantastic (and cheap), just like before, and we sat inside and talked about the day.
After dinner, we headed home and stopped by a 7/11 to grab some snacks for the ride home the next day.
The celebrity guest
Usually the ride home doesn’t merit much discussion but our ride home for this trip actually stopped in London first and then continued on to Marseille. I had stitched together two RyanAir flights — one from Oslo to London and then from London to Marseille. This kept the trip home cheap as dirt.
We left the keys in our host’s mailbox and walked to the bus station to leave by bus on the Torpekspressen headed to the Torp airport (we arrived in Oslo at the Rygge airport). Our flight was headed to London Stansted.
I only mention this because at the Torp airport we ran into someone we both recognized and proceeded to have a bout of celebrity fever.
Moss! From the IT Crowd! Turns out his mother lives in Norway and he visits regularly. I mustered up the courage to ask him straight up if he was Moss since we just had to know. He was, he admitted shyly. We promptly and awkwardly left him at that, since he was with his family and we didn’t want to make it any more weird or ask him for a picture. Just knowing was good enough. Later on, after we boarded the airplane, he got on and waved at me as he passed by our seat. We hardly ever see celebrities in the midwest plus Moss is our favorite from IT Crowd, so it was a good day.
The rest of the ride home was uneventful and boring — we had a layover in London Stansted for about 3 hours. I ate Burger King (sorry, craving for my old Original Chicken Sandwich), it tasted the same and I regretted it like always, and Celeste had a sandwich from a fast food place we ate at in Paris. The end of our Oslo adventure!
