Vinayak Hegde

Oslo has several good museums. They are very varied both in what they exhibit and how they exhibit. I generally avoid visiting museums unless they have something special. But a glance over a list of over 20 museums brings up some interesting museums.

The Fram Museum

The Fram Museum on the Peninsula of Bygdøy showcases the lives and the ships of the Norwegian Polar explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen. Roald Amundsen led the first expedition to the South Pole – where he was locked in a tight race to reach the South pole first along with Robert Scott – who finally perished in his attempt to reach it first. Roald Amundsen was also the first person to reach both the north and south poles. The museum is built around the intact body of the ship Fram. Visitors can actually go onboard the ship and see how it was built. Fram is the wooden ship that has traveled farthest North and South. The whole journey is nicely chronicled in the displays around the ship and conveys the sense of adventure the men aboard the Fram must have experienced.

The Kontiki Museum

The Kontiki museum documents one man’s quest to change history and it’s understanding by conducting expeditions. That man was Thor Heyerdahl. Before Thor Heyerdahl’s voyage across the Atlantic on a reed boats (The Ra), historians believed the people from the ancient world could not cross the great oceans using Papyrus boats and hence did not have any contact. The Ra Expedition, The Kontiki Voyage and his other voyages across the great oceans of the world changed the understanding of history and spawned several best-selling books and documentaries (Kontiki). Kontiki is the only film from Norway to win an Oscar. More about the Kontiki Museum

The Viking Ship Museum

The Viking Ship Museum displays 3 Viking ships and artifacts that were recovered from Viking graves. The Tune, Gokstad and Oseberg Ships are displayed here. These are some of the most well preserved viking ships in whole of Scandinavia.

The Munch Museum

The Munch Museum is located in one of the suburbs of Oslo, Norway and is dedicated to the life and work of famous Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (pronounced Moonk). The Munch museum has several famous paintings of Munch including the iconic “The Scream”, “The Madonna” and “Starry Night”. It also has several watercolour and charcoal paintings by him and his iconic master-series “The Frieze of Life”. Munch’s paintings have a certain minimalism and economy of colour but are able to convey emotions beautifully – especially the dark moods – fear, jealousy and melancholy. I later read that the brilliant colours of the sunset in the background of “The Scream” were inspired by the brilliant sunsets all over Europe in the aftermath of Krakatoa eruption.

The Folk Museum

Oslo’s Folk museum is an open-air museum that has actual houses and building that have been reassembled from all over Norway. You can walk into some of these houses which have been preserved as they were built originally and can get a glimpse into the everyday lives of ordinary people from all over Norway including the Sami tribes that live north of the arctic circle in Norway. It also has a stave church built completely from Wood. Some of the Stave Churches around Norway have survived over several hundred years.

The Complete Set on Flickr

The Vigeland park is a part of Frogner park – a large recreational area about 3kms away from the city center. The Park is quite big (about 80 acres) and features around 212 sculptures all carved by the Gustav Vigeland. Some of the sculptures are made of Bronze and the rest are made of granite. The sculptures depict the human form in different interactions such as between a father and a child, two lovers, grandparents and grandchildren and are very realistic. The realism of the sculptures is very moving. Partly it could be due to the influence of Auguste Rodin (who sculpted “The Thinker”).

In addition to the bronze and granite sculptures, there are also several wrought Iron gates featuring men and women conversing on either side of the huge granite monolith. The Granite Monolith is has carving of humans all over it and is made of a single block of granite. The monolith is about 17m high and has about 121 figurines carved on it. The monolith is on raised plateau that has about 36 granite sculptures.

More info about the park and more pictures at the flickr set

From the Pulpit’s Rock wikipedia entry.

Preikestolen or Prekestolen, also known by the English translations of Preacher’s Pulpit or Pulpit Rock, and by the old local name Hyvlatonnå, is a massive cliff 604 metres (1982 feet) above Lysefjorden, opposite the Kjerag plateau, in Forsand, Ryfylke,Norway. The top of the cliff is approximately 25 by 25 metres (82 by 82 feet) square and almost flat, and is a famous tourist attraction in Norway. During the four summer months of 2009, approximately 130,000 people took the 3.8 km (2.4 mi.) hike to Preikestolen, making it one of the most visited natural tourist attractions in Norway.

When I researching for places to visit in Norway, I chanced up some photos of Pulpit’s Rock and Kjerag. It seemed like a good trek with some fascinating views of Lysefjorden. The only problem was that there were very few details to get there. After searching a lot and contacting a few people I figured how to get there. You have to take a bus to Tau and from there take a ferry across the sea to a bus stop. From the bus stop, you can get to Preikestolhytta (youth hostel) where the climb starts. The climb is not long but tiring as you continuously go up and down by the edge of the Fjords and takes about two hours each way. In some places it is downright dangerous to climb as you have nothing much other than a chain to cling to and a crackegde to put your foot on. The fall can be several hundred meters.

It was raining during my stay at Stavanger and the rain continued during the trek. That make the trek worse as I was carrying my camera and completely drenched as I reached the top. It was misty and it was hard to see more than a few meters ahead. But the views were magnificent whenever the mist receded. There were few people that day due to the weather. About 70% of the people did not reach the end of the trek as they decided it was too dangerous to go on or were ill-prepared. Those who reached the top alongwith me were greeted with thick mist. At the end, there were only about 50-60 stubborn people who stayed back. I was determined to get a good glimpse of the Lysefjorden below and stayed back hoping that the skies would clear. They did clear and our patience was rewarded some of the most awesome views of Lysefjorden below.

Among the people who stayed back were a group of models who had climbed all the for a photo shoot and a married couple who wanted to take their wedding pictures in the scenic surroundings. The upside of the inclement weather was that there were few people on Pulpit’s rock.

I arrived at Stavanger to go to Pulpit’s rock. The journey from Bergen to Stavanger was very scenic as I had the to take two ferries across the jagged west coast of Norway. There standing at the bus stop for my host, I meet Jerry – A couchsurfer and master of coincidences. Jerry, a gentle guy – He greeted me and asked me whether Sam was hosting me. I was taken aback but he said he guessed after looking at my big backpack and my description by Sam. I later realized that he had messaged me earlier that he could host me in Stockholm. As luck would have it, we did not meet in Stockholm,Sweden but in Stavanger,Norway. Traveling to the same place and staying the same host at the same time was a pleasant coincidence. Jerry was a seasoned traveler who had traveled to more than 60 countries. After we went to Sam’s home he realized that Sam had a painting of picture of a wharf in Polperro, UK. Sam had bought the watercolor picture of the wharf from a traveler gypsy girl. Now Polperro is not your run-of-the-mill tourist destination. Jerry was convinced that he had been to that place 22 years earlier and taken exactly the same picture from the same angle. Obviously Sam and I were skeptical. Jerry went into a shell for sometime and then dug out the digitized version of the picture from his laptop to our disbelief.

Much of my time in Stavanger was wasted as it was raining pretty regularly. So Jerry and I went by the harbour to do some people watching and we were not disappointed. Amongst other things, we witnessed a marriage, saw a marathon in the rain, chatted with Norwegian soldiers, chased a stray cat to take pictures, saw a man dressed as Spiderman selling hotdogs and a guy about to get married busking for money. I also had some of the most delicious seafood on this trip.

Current Mood:  calm

Fjords are U-shaped valleys dug out by glaciers. When the ice melted during the Ice Age, these u-shaped valleys were formed. The dramatic steep valleys (some rising upto 1400m above sea level from the sea) provide a amazing backdrop to clouds nestling the tops and small houses at the foothills.

A cruise through the fjords is a fantastic experience. I visited the Sognefjord and Nærøyfjord in Western Norway using the Norway in a Nutshell tour. It worked out cheap for me as I was able to use the Eurail pass for part of the journey from Bergen to Myrdal. The journey from Myrdal to Flam using the Flam Railway (FlamsBana) is very scenic as it runs on one of the steepest gradients in the world. On the way the trains stops at the Kjosfoss waterfalls where there is a small platform where the passengers can get down.

After the scenic cruise through the Nærøyfjord – a World Heritage Site, you come to the town of Gudvangen from where you can take a bus to the town of Voss situated by the Fjord on the way back to Bergen.