Thoring Out

Welcome to the land of Vikings and the Cold! On our way to Oslo, Norway from Copenhagen, Denmark, we stopped at Goteborg (second largest city in Sweden, top photo). Goteborg is a port city with red-brick buildings but not too well laid out and unexciting.

Oslo (pop 550,000), Norway's capital and largest city is a different story. Norway was founded by the Vikings in 793 and the modern Norwegians claim that they invented skiing! Norway became independent from an old Swedish alliance in 1904, stayed neutral during WWII, was occupied by the Nazis in 1940 and voted against joining the EC. Oslo (when it is sunny, 100 days or so per year) is a refreshingly outdoor city, well laid out with a nice harbour (with darling harbour style eateries), main boulevard and some offbeat sites: one is the expected viking ship museum (third photo shows unearthed ship built in 820AD, used for the funeral of a high ranking female politician!) and the other is the 200 sculptures, by GustavVigeland, comprising the human body, displayed in an open air park called Vigelandsparken (bottom photo). Oslo is also home to the bizzare painting "The Scream" and has a 1299AD castle (second photo). We stayed with my first cousin Peter Golfin (from Orange) and his wife Hege in a little town nestled in a valley, 40km from Oslo. ironically, Norwegians are very green, recycle everything, are one of the most literate peoples in the world but they still eat baby seal and whale!!! Norway and Japan constantly exchange title of the most expensive city in the world - a 0.5L beer here is $15AUD compared with $0.75AUD in Poland!!! When we were here, the sun set at around 11pm - Oslo is above the UK and level with the bottom of Greenland!!! Distance travelled so far: 12,731km.