Oslo and Copenhagen in one week!

Sebastian and I never really thought about going to Norway. However, while we were living in London, one of my best friends Mariana and her boyfriend Tomás were on an erasmus program in Oslo, so we decided to visit them.

We paid around 75 EUR, round trip, for our plane tickets from London Stansted to Oslo. The flight lasted for about 2 hours, so it was a quick ride until we got to the Oslo Airport. From the airport, we took an NBS train to Oslo S (Oslo’s central station) that cost around 93 NOK (approximately 8.20 EUR). Mariana warned us that there are two train companies that go from the Airport to the city center, which are NBS and Flytoget, which is an express train, however it costs twice the price. Since the ride with NBS was 20 minutes, this worked perfectly fine for us.

The first thing we did after arriving in Oslo S and meeting our friends was to get our public transportation passes. Since we were staying a bit less than one week, we bought the 7 day ticket, that costs 310 NOK (27.30 EUR) - this was only for zone 1, which includes all the central city of Oslo.

We stayed at Mariana and Tomás’ student house with them near the Kringsjå metro station. You can see that this area of the city looks very student-friendly, as there is a supermarket Kiwi right before the students’ houses, sports fields and study areas inside the buildings.

What we visited

This was the first trip we made without having a full itinerary built. Since we wanted to spend time with our friends, who had classes during some parts of the day, we basically quickly searched what we wanted to do and planned our days around their schedules, so we could meet up when they were free.

Either way, this didn’t stop us from visiting some of the most famous attractions in Oslo, so here they are!

Oslo Opera House

The Oslo Opera House is right in the center of the city, and is one of the most visited buildings in the area. One of the main attractions to do here is to climb up to the building’s roof and gaze at the Oslo fjord. The design of the building was inspired by Norwegian glaciers, and that is why it has cold toned colors and lots of glass. This design was one of the reasons the Opera House has received many awards.

Sognsvann Lake

If I’m not mistaken, this was the first thing we visited on our first day in Oslo. The Sognsvann lake is about 10 minutes walking from the student campus. Since we went there in the beginning of March, everything was covered in snow, so it was quite hard to distinguish the lake from land, since the lake was frozen and the land was all white.

The lake is a very sought after recreational area in this part of the city. We could see many people and families cross-country skiing and playing. I heard that some people even go ice fishing in the lake during the winter, however we didn’t see any.

What we did was grab our slides and slide down the small hills surrounding the lake, which was one of the most fun things we did during our trip!

Slottet

The Slottet is Oslo’s Royal Palace. Norway is still a monarchy, so this is the official house of the current Norwegian monarch, Harald V.

The palace is located at the top of a small hill right at the end of the city’s old center. The palace was built in the first half of the 19th century, and you can see by its design that it looks pretty recent.

The palace is surrounded by the Palace Park, which is a public park and one of the biggest in the city. I thought it was so interesting that the palace is not inside any kind of gates, it is very easy to approach the main door. The only thing keeping the castle inaccessible are the Royal guards, which are also a big attraction in the area.

Frogner Park

When we were searching places to visit in the city, we came across two parks: Frogner Park and Vigeland Park. I read about both and they seemed pretty similar, in the same area, and I was confused for a bit. After a while, I understood it was the same park. The correct name of the park is Frogner Park, however there’s quite a big area inside the park that is a permanent exhibition of statues and other larger structures created by Gustav Vigeland, so the name is often swapped when people talk about it.

This is the world’s largest sculpture park created by a single artist, so you can imagine we wandered for quite a while inside the park appreciating all the art. It was wonderful to see that, besides the cold and the frozen floor, people were visiting the park, walking their dogs and enjoying this beautiful place. It looks like it is the most famous attraction in Oslo, and the entrance is completely free of charge.

The most searched for statue, located in the highest point of the park, is called Monolith - this is a tall cylindrical structure, where you can see dozens of human figures creating this cylinder.

I was reading about the park and it looks like it is a huge recreational area in the city, where people go jogging, picnicking, playing badminton and so on. We didn’t have the chance to appreciate this since it was winter and snowing, but I heard the park is also known for having over 150 different species of roses that fill the park with more than 14 000 flowers.

There’s also other attractions inside the park that we didn’t visit since it looked like everything was closed (we went very early in the morning), such as an open air pool, the Frogner Manor House, Museum of Oslo and a summer restaurant called Herregårdskroen.

Munch Museum

We initially visited the Munch museum looking for “The Scream”. We took the metro to the station Tøyen and paid 60 NOK (2.30 EUR) for our museum tickets - we still had a student discount at the time, so this is the student fare. Full fare is 120 NOK.

As you can assume by its name, the museum is dedicated to the life and art of Edvard Munch, who was a Norwegian painter. Spoiler alert: since this was the Edvard Munch museum, we assumed the painting “The Scream” would be here. However, it looks like there are four versions of “The Scream” painted by Munch with different materials - the one supposed to be in the Munch Museum, which is the second version, was not there (maybe it was under maintenance, or maybe we passed by it and didn’t even see it), which was a bit of a bummer since we wanted to take a look at it.

Anyway, the remaining art in the museum is very interesting, and not only contemplates some major work created by Munch, but also by his sister and some other artists.

National Gallery

Since we were unable to see “The Scream” at the Munch Museum, we headed to the National Gallery, where the original painting is also exhibited. We were planning on going there anyway because we were very interested in some of the artists contemplated here such as the sculptor Julius Middelthun.

To get to the National Gallery we took the metro to Nationaltheatret. We paid around 30 NOK (which is approximately 2.60 EUR, and the full rate is 50 NOK).

Since it was snowing on this day, the museums were such a perfect plan to enjoy our days in Oslo, and I would definitely recommend these two (National Gallery and Munch Museum) to all art lovers!

Kon-Tiki Museum

We didn’t have much time to visit museums, so we had to choose between the Kon-Tiki Museum and the Viking Ship Museum. We were reading reviews and saw some comments about the Viking Ship Museum just displaying two viking ships and not having much else to see, so we decided to go to the Kon-Tiki Museum - please note that, since we did not go to the Viking Ship Museum, we were unable to see if we agreed with those reviews or not!

Either way, I was very happy with our choice! I admit I went into the Kon-Tiki Museum without knowing what to expect, this time I didn’t investigate what this museum was about. The museum circles around the history of Thor Heyerdahl’s discoveries. In case you’re wondering who this gentleman is, he is best known for crossing the Pacific ocean in a hand-built raft - that is currently displayed at this museum - in order to prove that ancient people were able to make long sea trips.

The museum has much more information about this and other expeditions made by Heyerdahl, and it was such an enriching and enlightening experience that I would recommend it to all who, like me, are fascinated with human experiences.

Student rates for the museum are 50 NOK (around 4.40 EUR) and the full rate is 120 NOK. I

On their website you will be able to consult more rates available. The museum is not located anywhere near the metro lines, so we took a bus from central Oslo to an area (or bus stop) called Fredriksborg and still had to walk about 10 minutes to get there. This would be one of the top attractions I would recommend to Oslo visitors!

Arkershus Fortress

The Arkershus Fortress is a medieval fortress in central Oslo that was originally built to protect the city. Nowadays, it is a temporary office for Norway’s Prime Minister.

We were not planning on visiting the fortress, however we were wandering around and saw that the fortress was an interesting attraction, and since it was a sunny day we decided to take a walk nearby. We did not go inside the fortress, but according to the Visiting Oslo Website, this is something you can do.

If you’re not interested in visiting, I would recommend at least taking a walk nearby since it is right on top of the river and it is surrounded by some beautiful gardens, right next to the Oslo old center. Around the fortress, you will find a lot of small statues, very different from the classical ones you firstly think of. I was unable to find any information on these statues, however we did have some fun finding them throughout the garden and looking at them.

Oslo Boat Ride

One of the most interesting things we did was to take a small boat ride across Oslo’s islands. This was recommended to us by Mariana - the islands surrounding Oslo are all connected by ferry services that depart from the port in front of the city hall, and these rides are included in the weekly and monthly public transportation passes, so of course we needed to take advantage of it and go on a ferry ride.

Although we just rode around in the river and went straight back to Oslo since we did not have much time, we heard that the island called Hovedøya is really worth visiting, and there’s a ferry ride that stops in this island’s port and you will enjoy walking around the Hovedøya’s grounds.

Riding the ferry allowed us to look at some pretty incredible views of the islands and little houses by the river, many of them with traces of snow on them, which is an amazing sight, especially if you’re not used to seeing snow on a daily basis, like we weren’t.

Oslo Vinter Park

One of the activities we were most looking forward to was to go skiing in the Oslo Vinter Park. I used to go skiing sometimes when I was younger, however since I was about 7 or 8 years old I hadn’t set foot in the snow.

We took the metro to Voksenkollen and walked for about 15 minutes until we got to the Oslo Vinter Park front desk. They have season passes - that you can check on their website - however since we only had the opportunity to go skiing on that day, we paid 450 NOK for a day pass (about 39.60 EUR) and an additional 420 NOK (about 37 EUR) for equipment rental - this included all equipment (ski, boots and poles). You also have the chance to rent ski pants and jackets, however we brought our own and did not have to rent them.

This was quite an adventure since Sebastian had never skied before, and he went full on to try snowboarding, which I’ve heard is more difficult to learn. We spent about 1 hour in the kids’ tracks so he could get used to it, however he got hurt shortly after we arrived and so he didn’t have the chance to enjoy this experience that much. I was warming up in the kids’ tracks as well before I went on a green track - I have to admit, since I hadn’t done that for years, and when I did I was a small kid, I was not used to skiing anymore so it was also a rush for me.

This is something I really enjoyed doing, especially since the tracks were surrounded by trees and the places I used to go when I was a kid were just plain snow, and not at all framed by this beautiful nature. At least that’s how I remember it, it’s honestly a blur since it was ages ago.

I’m not at all a ski expert, so I’m not a good person to tell you if the Oslo Vinter Park is a good skiing spot, however for beginners and people who are looking forward to having a different experience while visiting Oslo, I would recommend spending a day here and enjoying the snow sports.

Food

The majority of our meals were made at home, however we had the chance to go out to eat once. The restaurant we went to is an Italian restaurant called Olivia Tjuvholmen, that’s located near a marina in the center of Oslo.

Mariana also recommended that we tried a typical Norwegian pastry called boller. The boller is kind of a round bread with cardamom. We bought ours from a small cafe near the Oslo Opera House. It was interesting to try this kind of pastry, it’s very different from what we usually have in Portugal. It was good, however I usually prefer sweeter pastries, ahah.

Copenhagen

Mariana had already been in Oslo for a few months before we went, and she knew that there’s a cruise company called DFDS that hosts short cruises from Oslo to Copenhagen, and they had a super discount were we paid only 11 EUR - and these 11 EUR could be later spent inside the cruise in food or in their stores.

We boarded on the cruise at 16h in the Oslo port. We had a room with 2 bunk beds each, and the cruise was huge and very well equipped. This was the first time I went on a cruise, so I don’t have any other experiences to compare it with. The cruise had several stores and a few restaurants, and we had dinner at an Italian place there that served some pretty tasty pizzas.

We rode through the night until we arrived in Copenhagen the next morning, at 9h00. This was not our friends’ first time going on this cruise, so they had a very detailed plan for us. We didn’t have much time since we would go back to Oslo at 16h00 that same day. This was on a Sunday in March, so many attractions and museums are closed, so our plan was mostly to wander around and enjoy the sights.

The first thing we visited after getting off the ship was to visit the Little Mermaid statue. This statue was inspired by the novel by the Danish author Hans Christian Andersen, which you are probably already familiar with. The statue is a Danish icon in Copenhagen, however we did not find any big queues to see the statue. Also, it is not very accessible since it is standing on a rock by the waterside.

We then went through the Kastellet, which is one of the most well preserved fortresses in Europe, but also a public park. We walked along a street called Toldbodgade until we arrived at Amalienborg, which is the Danish Royal Palace. The design of the space is quite interesting, since the structure is composed of 4 huge buildings surrounding an octagonal courtyard. In the center, there’s a massive statue of a man on a horse, which we later found out was King Frederick V, who was the founder of Amalienborg.

We walked over to the other side of the canal to visit an area of Copenhagen called Christinania, which is considered the Copenhagen’s “hippie free town”. According to the information we found on the internet, in 1971 a group of hippies invaded this former military base and created a community with their own rules, and it is considered independent from the Danish government. It is quite censored because of an area inside the military base called “Green Light District”, in which the main purpose is to trade cannabis and other drugs. We walked around for a bit, however it was a rainy day so the streets were practically empty, even giving the area a bit of a scary mood.

We started heading to a restaurant that Mariana and Tomás really wanted to take us to, and on our way there we stopped in an area (or street) called Børsengade. Here we were able to appreciate the Christiansborg slort, which is a government palace, and also a beautiful building called Børsen, which was a stock exchange from the 17th century.

We arrived at the restaurant, called Halifax, which is a burger house in the city. Their prices are very student friendly, for those who are travelling on a budget (Northern countries are not famous for being cheap), and we had an amazing meal here. I ate a cheeseburger (you know, basic), some side fries, a water and dipping sauce, and paid around 185 DKK (about 25 EUR). Sebastian had a burger with caramelized onions and he also said he really enjoyed it.

After lunch, we headed to an area of the city called Nyhavn, which I believe must be one of the most famous photos spots around. Nyhavn is a 17th century canal surrounded by colorful townhouses, with large wooden sailboats docked by the canal walls, creating an amazing and picturesque atmosphere. Although it was pouring rain by the time we got there, we stopped to enjoy it and appreciate the view. This was my favorite part of the city!

Before we headed back to the ship, we went souvenir-hunting. Me and Sebastian collect handmade magnets, however since it was Sunday we were having a hard time finding an arts and crafts store that was opened. We were wandering around the streets of the old center and eventually found a souvenir shop that was open, and although the magnets didn’t look handmade, we brought one of the little mermaid statues that seemed the closest to being crafted.

At 16h we boarded on the cruise and arrived in Oslo at 9h00 the next morning.

Rainy days can really kill the vibe for me when I’m visiting a new place, however Copenhagen really left me in the mood to come back. So many things were closed, like the Tivoli (a very famous themed park), local stores and attractions, I feel like going back there and actually visiting the city for a couple of days will be very much worth it.

I feel like I can also say what I previously wrote about Oslo - Oslo is a wonderful city, people there are super polite, the city is very clean (this is something I really pay attention to when I travel) and there are so many fun things to do that I feel like the days we spent there were not enough! In total we spent about 5 days in Oslo (in which one of them was fully dedicated to skiing, and many hours of those 5 days where we just spent time with our friends enjoying each other’s companies), and about 6 hours enjoying Copenhagen.

The next time I go back to Oslo, I believe I would take the time to visit the Viking Ship Museum, visit the Hovedøya island, visit the Norwegian Folk Museum that also seems very interesting, and maybe enjoy a few more walks around the city and absorb the local lifestyle.