Oslo Norway

We had planned to fly out of Oslo Norway at the end of our trip – mainly because that is where we found the least expesnive flights during that time. We booked three days in Oslo and planned to sight see and wander the city. We thought maybe we could see a Fjord or two during our time there as well… Julia and I had been looking up Norway on Pinterest for awhile and were in awe of the stunningly beautiful landscapes it had.

HOWEVER, we were awfully let down by our experience in Oslo Norway. It was mainly due to our lack of knowledge of the area before we booked the amount of time we did… After more research we realized that Oslo is pretty far south in Norway compared to where the gorgeous spots we were finding were located. After a moment of disappointment we decided to let it go since we already had it booked and to see what we found when we got to Oslo.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a beautiful place nestled right on the water. However, it was very modern (which wasn’t exactly what we were hoping for) and there weren’t many historical places to visit right in the city (at least not that we could tell). There were a ton of random museums.. Such as, ‘The Bottle Museum‘. Which is at weird as it sounds… “The Mini Bottle Gallery is the only one of its kind in the entire world, and contains the world’s largest collection of miniature bottles, with 53,000 exhibited in 50 different installations in a 3-story building. There are bottles filled with fruits and berries, worms and mice, just to mention a few. If you are the adventurous kind, you can take the slide down to the horror room.” We didn’t make it there, but it sounded quite interesting.

Ryan and I went on the Oslo Fjord Cruise. It was a beautiful boat ride through the Fjord. However, when we looked up ‘Norway Fjord Cruises’ before our trip… This was not what we had in mind.

We found an awesome coffee shop that was branded around Traveling. It was great! They had so many travel books, gear, and coffee from different parts of the world. The guy working there was fun to talk with as well. His mother is from the States and his father from Norway. So he grew up in both places and had a lot of fun stories to share! He said that of all of the Scandinavian cities that Oslo was the most boring! ha ha ha! Having a local share that made us feel less bad about our impression of the city. He did say that the Western and Northern parts of Norway are incredible!

When we got home and I was going through my images I realized I didn’t take many photos while we in Oslo… I don’t know if that was because it was towards the end of our trip and I was getting a bit tired of the ‘go, go, go’ of it all.. or because I wasn’t very inspired by our time there. Whatever the reason.. Here are a handful of images from our Oslo Cruise…

One of the more interesting things I remember from the cruise was when they explained to us what the tiny house like structures right on the shore of the water were… Originally they were placed there because women could not be seen in their bathing suits – so they would go into the small houses with their suits and get changed. Then there was a cut out in the bottom of the floor with a ladder that they would then climb down to get into the water so that no one would see anything except their heads above water. Later they were used for making alcohol when Norway went through their own prohibition. Now some of them have mini kitchens in them and are used for fishing and cooking up what you’ve caught… I thought that was all quite interesting. Not to mention how cute the tiny structures are!!

There were gorgeous trees and blooming flowers all over as well!!

We read somewhere in a travel book/website that if you visit Norway and don’t go up North that you should have your passport revoked… SO, we failed! If you plan a trip to Norway, I would say you could see Oslo in a day and then head up North to the smaller villages and stunning Fjords!!

Don’t miss next week when I share about our incredible adventures in… ICELAND!!!!!!

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