Oslo in January
 

We have just spent a week in Oslo at the start of January.

It's cold and dark, the streets are quiet because of the fantastic public transport and the Teslas everywhere. The only ICs I saw were biogas. Our flight in was late and luckily we planned to stay at the airport because the snow took the flights back by 2 hours until 2am arrival time. Stayed at Radisson Red (great breakfast). Caught the bus into town because it stopped outside hotel number 2 Bondeheimen. Small room but a good price with lots of local places to eat. Breakfast good.

The snow continued and the pavements became very dangerous so stayed in. Next day went to the town hall and the National museum. The town hall is where the Peace Prize is given out and is an architectual masterpiece. The National museum needs a minimum of 6 hours and could do with lots more. We ended up at the Munch because most Wednesdays it is free. More of a meh visit for me. Walking home we came across a demonstration at the Parliament, which was not marching but singing.

Pavements still terrible. Moved to Radisson Blu Plaza (hotel no 3). Not such a great hotel but with bigger rooms and a small pool not a bad swap and I got to spend time with my sister and neice. This end of town has more malls and unfrozen internal streets so a bit easier to get around. Managed to get into the Opera (wow) and the local city library (double wow) before frozen bits took us back indoors.

Next day we wondered over to the salmon farm propaganda centre, and did a bus tour over to the Fram and Maritime museum. Buses are very easy as are trams, T bahn etc etc.

The next day a walking into Grunerlokka which is a bit more boho with the chance to visit the Maker Space there, some yarn shops and dring a lot of coffee. -7C

Final day was just walking around including the Vulcan ( a large hall with lots of different mini-restaurants) and Oslo Street Food, the same idea but a bit weirder.

Back to the Radisson Red (hotel number 4) at the airport as our flight was an early one, using the local trains are far cheaper and almost as fast as the super-express.

Back home in the UK it is hard to believe that it was warmer in Oslo than it was here. I got to see family, and some lovely buildings, meet some nice people, see the sun every so often and get very very cold.

Odd things, many hotels call the floor on the ground floor number 1. But some call it the Lobby floor with 1 above. I'm used to them going Ground, 1, 2 etc. I know this is a whole thing in itself but I still struggle with 1 being at street level.

Glad you had an enjoyable if slippery trip. Always nice to meet up with family too.

When we went we struggled with the icy pavements, especially in the Vigeland sculpture park, much to the amusement of a bunch of 6 year olds on a school trip. They had no problem with it all of course.
The pavements weren't as well treated as I found in other towns and cities in Norway where they were regularly gritted, which made it a tad easier to get about.

Norway is leading the world in EVs, but I won't get into that here.

They don't take up much room.

https://www.canadasafety.com/product...stud-traction/

Yes the little chains are good

We had them, just forgot to take them the day we went to Vigelund. Around the hotel was clear and we caught a bus almost outside the door. Only when we got off and starting towards the park did we realise our mistake!

We used to use them in the winters here when we a) had winter and b) had dogs that needed walking.

bilboburgler--Thanks for reporting back.

I was trying to convince my husband at the end of our June 2024 trip to do an Oslo winter test in 2025. As much as he loved Oslo, he refused to take the winter challenge. His words: "I've already had to go to Toronto, Minneapolis and St. Paul in winter. I'm pretty sure that I'd end up doing the same thing I did in them as I would do there--hustling to get my butt to shelter."

I shall tell him you fell on the grenade for him.

RE the National Museum: We totally agree that it needs 6 hours minimum. We stayed until our legs gave out and thought we should have approached it much like we always did the Louvre: Visit/revisit over multiple days only in two-hour segments.

Not only did I not get to see it all, I have corners there I'd love to revisit.

I feel bad you did not get to the Resistance Museum (Norges Hjemmefrontmuseum), although at least you made it to Grunerlokka and we did not. We enjoyed the museum and had wished we had started the day with it because it's a lot of information tucked into teeny-tiny space. Now that we've just seen the film "Number 24", we really want to go back. The name Gunnar Sønsteby somehow did not register with us then. Now that we've seen the film and now that I've read his autobiography, we're psyched for a revisit.