Discovering Oslo

Town Hall

The once controversial town hall is only a few minutes’ walk from Karl Johans gate towards the waterfront. The imposing dark brown brick building with its twin towers was opened in 1950 to celebrate the city’s 900th anniversary.


The main approach to the town hall is up a wide ramp. There are side galleries adorned by wood panels illustrating pagan Nordic myths. Inside the main hall the décor is dominated by vast stylized murals by leading Norwegian painters. Entry to the main corridor is free as the building is home to the city’s political administration but the main hall is only open to tours which depart Monday to Friday from September to May and daily at other times.


Outside, at the back of the building there are six bronze statues representing the trades who worked on the building and a fountain with four massive female sculptures. When the weather is fine, this is a lovely spot with views of the harbor, the Akershus peninsula and the ultra modern Aker Brygge shopping and office complex.


Nobel Peace Centre.

This relatively new complex was built to celebrate and publicize the Nobel Peace Prize. This is awarded each year to an individual selected by a committee appointed by the Norwegian parliament. Some past recipients have been Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.


The building’s ground floor features a series of displays about conflict and peace while upstairs there is a display on the Nobel family and the ‘Nobel Field’ where each of the past holders of the peace prize has a light bulb on a flimsy stalk.


Opera House
The dramatic marble Oslo Opera House is the home of the Norwegian National Opera and Ballet. The stark white exterior is in the form of an iceberg or a ship. In stark contrast, the interior glows with curving oak walls. The building is on the edge of the city, at the head of the Oslofjord. The structure includes 1,100 rooms, and there are three performance spaces. The Opera House was finished in 2007 with the opening event held in April 2008. Unlike the Sydney Opera House, the building was finished ahead of schedule, under budget.
The building won the culture award at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona in 2008.

The Royal Palace.
The Royal Palace is a monument to Norwegian openness. The palace is at the end of Karl Johand gate. It sits in a park which is open to the public. The building has no walls or strong barriers; just a small royal guard unit for effect. The building was commissionjed by Karl XIV Johan in the early 19th-century but he died before it was completed.

Norway was handed to Sweden at the end of the Napoleonic war in 1814 and was ruled by Karl who was the Swedish King from 1818. Swedish power was devolved, however, and the union was ended officially in 1905.

The palace is partially open to the public during the summer but you can watch the changing of the guard any day at 1.30pm.

Oslo’s main street is called Karl Johans gate. It starts at the Oslo S train station at the eastern end of the city centre, up the hill passing the cathedral and on to the parliament building as a pedestrianised street. From here it sweeps down the hill past the university towards the Royal Palace. It really is the main thoroughfare for the central city.


The street starts off unpromisingly. Outside Oslo S station there are a collection of young and not so young junkies hanging about and the first 100 metres or so of the street contains mainly tacky shops and a few beggars. Things pick up somewhat when you reach the curious two-teired Basarhallene building, once the city’s food market but now a shopping and restaurant centre. Just past this is the cathedral.


From the outside the cathedral looks quite plain. It was built in the late 17th-century but the tower comes from 1850. Once inside it is a different story. The elegantly restored interior is a delightful surprise with maroon and gold paint splashed everywhere. The flashy Baroque pulpit, the royal box and the high altar are all worth seeing. Enjoy the elaborate stained glass windows by Emanuel Vigeland and the brilliant painted ceiling.


From here, it is a brief stroll to the parliament building. From Karl Johans gate it is difficult to know what purpose this building serves but in summer it is periodically open to the public. The yellow-brick building is a solid imposing piece of neo-Romanesque architecture.


The street now opens up with a long slender piazza stretching from here to the National Theatre. There are fountains, statues, gardens and kiosks. I’m told that in winter there are small open-air ice-skating rinks. Along the other side of Karl Johans gate there are shops restaurants, nightspots and the Grand Hotel which was constructed in the 1890s.


Near the National Theatre you pass three of the main buildings of the university. These are grand 19th-century buildings with classical columns and imperial pediments. The middle building is the Aula where the imposing entrance leads to a decorated hall with controversial murals by Edvard Munch. Unfortunately, it only appears to be open during summer.


The National Theatre built in 1899 has only marginal appeal from the outside but the 800-seat hall has been restored to its turn of the century glory. I am not aware of any tours inside the building – you must go to a performance. This was built primarily as an outlet for the works of Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and a statue of him and another of Bjornstjerne Bjornson can be seen outside.

Oslo Airport, Gardermoen is the principal airport serving the Norwegian capital. It is also the main international airport serving Norway, with flights to a large number of European airports, and some flights to other continents. It is located at Gardermoen 48 km (30 miles) northeast of Oslo. When you arrive you notice that the airport is crisp, modern and efficient.

When planning your trip, however, you need to be careful because Sandefjord Airport, Torp also serves Oslo, primarily by low-cost European carriers and regional airlines, though Torp is located more than twice the distance from the city as Gardermoen. In early2008, a third airport, Moss Airport, Rygge began serving private airlines as well.

Built as a military airfield, Gardermoen was enlarged and reopened in 1998 as a commercial airport. Now it serves more than 19 million passengers each year. The airport has two parallel runways, and 34 passenger bridges. The airport functions as a national hub, with 25 domestic destinations.

The airport compound includes the Radisson SAS Airport Hotel, a 7-story building with over 500 rooms. The hotel is within walking distance of the terminal building, but there is also a shuttle. The hotel was completed shortly after the airport was inaugurated and expanded in 2006. Recently a couple of other hotels have been built just outside the airport.

We found transport to the city extremely efficient but quite expensive. The rail station is built into the airport terminal. The main service is the Airport Express Train that operates to Oslo S Station in 19 minutes, six times each hour. Three services continue onwards to Asker station. All inter-city and express trains on the Skien-Oslo-Lillehammer-Trondheim route also stop at the Airport station so you can quickly get up-country.

Taxis are readily available from the terminal. There is a taxi information desk in the Arrivals hall and the taxi rank is located outside Arrivals. Prices to central Oslo are horrific unless you are in a party of three or four. The SAS Airport Bus runs between the airport and Oslo Central (journey time: 40 minutes). There is also a night service to Oslo Bus Terminal.

There are ATMs and bureaux de change in both the Arrivals and Departures halls. Wireless Internet is available in all public areas of the terminal. Fax/photocopying is available at the information desk in the Arrivals hall. Various restaurants, cafés, snack bars, fast-food outlets and bars are located throughout the airport. Duty-free shopping is available in the International Departures hall; various other shops are located throughout the airport. Because Norway is not part of the European Union duty-free is huge.

There is a left-luggage and lost property office, located opposite the railway station and a porter service is available. There is a travel agency in the Departures hall (before security). The airport is located just off European route E6 and there are rental car facilities which we found very efficient when we returned our car here.

On our first evening in Oslo we went walking around the city centre looking for a suitable place to eat. There were plenty of choices but we were horrified at the prices. Main courses were between Nkr 150 and 250 with drinks Nkr 40 to 60. We later realised that this was a problem throughout Norway.

After checking out several places we came across Thank God It’s Friday and Egon side by side in the main street. High-class restaurants they were not but the food served on the outdoor terrace looked good and the menu prices seemed reasonable. We had not heard of Egon so we decided to try it. And what a good choice it was!

We quickly discovered that Egon has restaurants spread across the length and breadth of Norway, from Harstad in the north to Kristiansand in the south. It is a very popular restaurant chain. It offers lunch, starters, steaks, fish dishes, pizza, wok dishes, moussaka, fajitas, hamburgers, salads and desserts. In addition to all this Egon offers a daily all-you-can-eat pizza buffet. There is also a separate children’s menu. We were tired so it was just the perfect ‘no-hassles’ place to be.


The friendly staff were happy to welcome us and to suggest some dishes from the menu. We discovered they had a broad, varied menu (available in Norwegian, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian and Japanese), meaning most people should find something to whet their appetite. Service was quite fast although we were not concerned about this because we were at a sidewalk table and it was great watching the passing crowd. We probably learned more about Norwegian characteristics in an hour sitting here that we had all day.


We later discovered that there were several more Egon restaurants around Oslo including one at the main railway station. Most are folksy and rustic and many have antiques and weird objects on the walls or in the corners. All have the same menus and the same family-friendly atmosphere. They are not elegant or sophisticated places to eat, but the food is good and the price is right. In our opinion the outdoor terrace at the Karl Johan gate restaurant is still the pick of the places if it is not raining.


Egon restaurants open from 10am to midnight Monday to Thursday, 10am to2am on Friday and Saturday and midday to midnight on Sundays.

Choosing a hotel before you arrive in a new city is always problematic. You can visit the hotel website and read some ‘independent’ reviews but there is always some doubt as to what you will get. We chose the Royal Christiania after doing both of these things but what really swayed us was the location.

We planned to travel from Oslo airport by train or bus and we needed a place within walking distance of the station and tourist information office. Despite initially being put off by major roadworks which made access difficult we discovered that Norway's second largest hotel was a very comfortable place to stay and an exciting meeting place located in the heart of Oslo.


The hotel is situated only 100 meters from the Central Station, airport train and airport shuttle. It is close to Oslo's finest shopping, sightseeing and entertainment. The hotel also has indoor parking facilities if you arrive by car. It is wonderfully simple.


With a solid history of blending trend and tradition, this full-service hotel is a modern and sophisticated place, sumptuous and airy with bold colors and artistic details. There are 508 modern, smartly decorated rooms in different sizes. Our room on one of the upper floors had a nice reception space and a great bedroom with spectacular sloping windows overlooking the city.


The room had all the usual facilities and the bathroom was smart and quite large. We spent very little time in our room during the daytime but found it welcoming and warm to return to at night. There was cable TV, direct dial phones and in an area off the main reception we found several computers with free email access. There is also a well-appointed recreation centre which includes a pool, Finnish sauna, fitness equipment and for the women the possibility for all kind of treatments for face and body.


We don’t often dine in hotels and here there was absolutely no need to. In the surrounding streets there were restaurants of all kinds and we ate out each lunch and dinner. We did, however, enjoy breakfast each morning in the large spacious Atrium in the heart of the hotel. Again this is a smart modern area and the buffet was excellent. That meal set us up for most of the day. There is a sports bar and the lobby bar, for those who enjoy a late afternoon drink or a nightcap.

We initially thought the reception staff were a bit aloof but we later realised that this was just part of the Norwegian personality and when we made any direct request we found them to be extremely helpful. I had arranged to collect a rental car and needed to know where the depot was and then how to get back to the hotel. I left with a map with a route clearly marked on it so had no problem at all with this exercise. On checking out we discovered that the hotel computer was down but again this was handled professionally and without drama. It was a most enjoyable stay.