From Stockholm we took the train to Norway. We had 24 hours in Oslo and revisited some of Jen's favorite sights from her year at the University of Oslo in 2004-05.
Our first stop was City Hall. City Hall was constructed from 1931 to 1950 and is decorated with gigantic Socialist Realist murals depicting work, play, and pride in good governance! It's Jen's favorite sight in Oslo. It's free to visit and has the nicest public restrooms we've ever seen (no picture of that though).
Then we made a trip to UiO to see campus and have a waffle in the cafeteria. Jen survived on waffles in the cafeteria during her time as a student. Hazel found a snow pile and claims this is the #1 thing she did on her two week vacation.
In the afternoon we hit Vigeland Park and took obligatory silly photos. Vigeland Park contains a lifetime of work by Gustav Vigeland. According to our buddy Rick Steves, "In 1921, he made a deal with the city. In return for a great studio and state support, he'd spend his creative life beautifying Oslo with this sculpture garden. From 1924 until his death in 1943 he worked on-site, designing 192 bronze and granite statue groupings - 600 figures in all, each nude and unique." Indeed.
By the 12th day of our crazy journey fatigue had set in and we called it a day. We got up early the next morning for the final leg of our trip. We linked Oslo and Bergen via the "Norway in a Nutshell" itinerary. This consists of: (1) a 4-1/2 hour train from Oslo to Myrdal, (2) a one hour old-timey train from Myrdal to Flam that winds down from 2,800 feet to sea level through 20 tunnels, (3) a two hour cruise through Auralandsfjord, (4) an hour bus ride from Gudvangen to Voss, and finally (5) an hour on the Voss to Bergen train. In retrospect we should have broken this bit up into two days. Jen recalls it as a fun day trip childless at age 27, but as 40-somethings with a six-year old we found it really exhausting.
We laid a bit low on our final two days, but we were still able to see a bit of Bergen, get some amazing seafood for Garth to cook up, take in some amazing views via the funicular, and snap a picture of Hazel with a troll. And the vacation was done.
