Dual Travelers : Day 7 Oslo Norway

Nautical Term of the day …

As The Crow Flies

When lost or unsure of their position in coastal waters, ships would release a caged crow. The crow would fly straight toward the nearest land, thus giving the vessel some sort of navigational fix. This is also why the tallest lookout platform on a ship came to be known as the “crows nest”!

Morning started early for some of this morning. First tour was at 8:30 am.

Highlights and photos below.

Below the Akershus fortress, on a spot where on November 26th in 1942, 532 Norwegian Jews were embarked on a trip with no return, a memorial monument was set up. It’s a work by British artist Antony Gormley. Eight empty chairs without seats, set alone or in pairs, evoke the “absence” of deported Jews. With its void, ie the inability to sit on the chairs, the work represents, on the one hand, the abuse of power and loss of human dignity and life, but on the other hand, the ambience and beauty of the location where it stands offers a place for reflection and contemplation.

I wish I had gotten a better photo of this but moving bus hinders me

Oslo Highlights and Vigeland Park

Gustav Vigeland (11 April 1869 – 12 March 1943), born as Adolf Gustav Thorsen, was a Norwegian sculptor. Gustav Vigeland occupies a special position among Norwegian sculptors, both in the power of his creative imagination and in his productivity. He is most associated with the Vigeland installation (Vigelandsanlegget) in Frogner Park, Oslo.^[1]^[2] He was also the designer of the Nobel Peace Prize medal.

(Vigelandsanlegget) in Frogner Park. The Vigeland installation features 212 bronze and granite sculptures all designed by Gustav Vigeland. The sculptures culminate in the famous Monolith (Monolitten), with its 121 figures struggling to reach the top of the sculpture.^[8]

The flowers in the gardens were beautiful along with the trees leaves turning colors.

Gustav Vigeland is most widely known for the Vigeland installation, a permanent sculpture installation in Frogner Park in Oslo.

In 1921 the City of Oslo decided to demolish the house where Vigeland lived and build a library. After a long dispute, Vigeland was granted a new building from the city where he could work and live; in exchange, he promised to donate to the city all his subsequent works, including sculptures, drawings, engravings and models.^[7]

Vigeland moved to his new studio on Nobels gate in the borough of Frognerduring 1924. His studio was located in the vicinity of Frogner Park, which he had chosen as the definitive location for his fountain. Over the following twenty years, Vigeland was devoted to the project of an open exhibition of his works, which later turned into what is known as Vigeland Sculpture Arrangement(Vigelandsanlegget) in Frogner Park. The Vigeland installation features 212 bronze and granite sculptures all designed by Gustav Vigeland. The sculptures culminate in the famous Monolith (Monolitten), with its 121 figures struggling to reach the top of the sculpture.^[8]

Monolith

This is a fountain he sculpted but because of a water shortage in Oslo it can’t have water.

His depiction of the Circle of Life

Next we drove up to Holmenkollbakken

Holmenkollbakken is a large ski jumping hill located at Holmenkollen in Oslo, Norway. It has a hill size of HS134, a construction point of K-120, and a capacity for 70,000 spectators. Holmenkollen has hosted the Holmenkollen Ski Festival since 1892, which since 1980 have been part of the FIS Ski Jumping World Cup and 1983 the FIS Nordic Combined World Cup. It has also hosted the 1952 Winter Olympicsand the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships in 1930, 1966, 1982 and 2011.

Tried to talk Michael into doing this but he said no way. 😂

That’s what I imagine your face must look like when you tackle that jump.

We saw people ski skating…who knew? Only competitors use these facilities but is has a huge stadium for spectators to watch.

After a bus ride back to the ship we grabbed a quick bite of lunch before heading out on our next tour.

The rest of our group headed out on the tour we took in the morning while we did the next tour.

Vikings & Norwegian Explorers Tour

The Kon-Tiki expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. The raft was named Kon-Tiki after the Inca god Viracocha, for whom "Kon-Tiki" was said to be an old name. Kon-Tiki is also the name of Heyerdahl's book. Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have reached Polynesia during pre-Columbian times. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tikiexpedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so.

We visited the Maritime Museum and heard about building the Viking ships and he is in the process of building a replica of a Viking ship using their methods and tools.

Next up on the tour

The Fram Museum (Norwegian: Frammuseet) is a museum telling the story of Norwegian polar exploration. It is located on the peninsula of Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway.^[1]

The Fram Museum is centred principally on the original exploration vessel Fram. The original interior of Fram is intact and visitors can go inside the ship to view it. Fram was commissioned, designed, and built by Scots-Norwegian shipbuilder Colin Archer to specifications provided by Norwegian Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who financed the building of the ship with a combination of grant monies provided by the Norwegian government and private funding in 1891.^[4]^[5]

The ship is in the building and you are able to go through it and it is impressive in size and accommodations. However I may have gotten a bit claustrophobic before it was over when I couldn’t see out when we reached the bottom. 🤦‍♀️