The tourist season in Oslo starts around the middle of June
and finishes in the middle of September. The
15th of September, to be precise.
This means that going to Oslo in October is not such a great
idea. The second mistake was not only visiting Oslo in
October but also flying there with Ryanair. A very bad move
as Ryanair lands in Torp, some 100km away from Oslo where
there is only a Ryanair bus to take you the 2 hour journey
into Oslo. Torp airport is small, very small, the size if
Cork perhaps (another Ryanair destination in Ireland) and
there is little to do when your flight is delayed or waiting
for luggage. There is also little tourist info at Torp.
By October, Oslo is beginning to be cold. The first day of
the Beetle weekend, temperatures were around
6OC and the next day it snowed. If
you don't do cold, this is not the time and place for
you. Take a hat, gloves and a scarf, plus a warm coat and
good walking shoes.
OK, what is there to see: well, the “attractions”
consist mainly of walking around the town (it's small),
seeing the royal palace, the university, the Parliament
building, the town hall, visiting the Arkhus Castle, taking
boat trips, (summer months only), and visiting the 20 or so
museums, none of which have free entrance. That is Oslo in a
nutshell. You will not want to eat, have coffee or go
shopping – it is so prohibitively expensive! Also, the
shops are closed on Sundays and the museums have shorter
opening times so that after about 3pm, on a Sunday, in Oslo,
there is very little to do – so book your return flight
for the late afternoon!
Spending more than a weekend in Oslo might necessitate
considering your finances, maybe a second mortgage: it is
breathtakingly expensive – about 50- 100% more than
central London prices!
The next mistake was to buy an Oslo card. The Beetle could
only find one guidebook in the whole of Stamfords, (the most
wonderful travel bookshop on this earth – funny, that
…), but both the guidebook and the local literature,
of which there was plenty (thanks goodness!) all said that we
should buy an Oslo card and this would entitle us to free
entrance to all of the museums and local transport.
A 2 day Oslo pass costs around £25 or $40 per person.
This allows the holder free entrance into all Oslo museums
and free transport around the city. As museum entrance only
costs around £2.50 or $4, it became a challenge to
visit as many museums as possible in order to get our
money's worth! However, our vfm did not take into account
public transport – when we added in the cost of a day ticket
for the bus, train and tram, (£5 or $8) we just broke
even.
The Kon-Tiki museum is disappointing: small, amateurish with
bizarre exhibits including polystyrene sharks. Very odd. The
Fram museum was one of the better ones: a small-ish A frame
building, built around the original early
20th century ship used by Amundson
and others in voyages to Antartica. The Viking museum houses
3 10th century long boats and even
if you are a Viking buff, it'll take you about 20
minutes. The Museum if the Inquisition was plain upsetting.
The Beetle's fave place was Viegland Park, a park a short
tram ride out of town with a collection of sculptures and
statues. The Oslo city museum was dire; about a third of the
exhibits were labelled in Norwegian only! The ski Museum is
one of the most expensive museums to get into –
entrance fee around £7 or $11 but you get to go up to
the top of the old Olympic ski jump. We had to go there to
get value for money and also take in the views of the city!
The transport system is excellent, frequent, clean, modern
and fast. There were many fast food outlets – Kentucky,
Burger King, McDonalds – when you see the prices in the
restaurants, you can start to understand why. Eat well at
your hotel by stocking up on the buffet breakfasts is the
Beetle's advice! The people were friendly enough, but
compared to the last Beetle visit, an embarrassing 15 years
ago, the city was surprisingly dirty, the walls had graffiti
sprayed on, and there were a few people begging on the street
– not at all the clean Scandinavian image the Beetle
had imagined, but then it is a capital city and perhaps
nowhere is exempt from these problems.
If you want to visit Oslo – go in the summer months!
Then you can take boat trips and visit the fjords. For more
info on Oslo, contact the Beetle on: Beetle@globetrotters.co.uk