Day 9 - Oslo

We got up a little late today...had a nice sleep in and headed down for a great breakfast in the hotel.  The breakfast that is included here is great.  Full spread of everything!

After eating breakfast, we packed up our stuff for the day and headed to the metro (T) station.  The transit system here is great.  There are trams, buses and the metro to get you where you need to go.  Although it does get you anywhere...it does take some figuring out and a large section of the metro was shut down while we were there, which made it tricky to naviage around.

Our first stop was Frogner Park and the Vigeland Sculpture Garden.  It was amazing!  An absolutely beautiful park, and the scuplture were incredible. 

Vigeland Sculpture Park covers 80 acres (320,000 m2) and features 212 bronze and granite sculptures all designed by Gustav Vigeland. In 1940 the Bridge was the first part of the Sculpture Park to be opened to the public. 58 of the park's sculptures reside along the Bridge, a 100 metre (328 ft) long, 15 metre (49 ft) wide connection between the Main Gate and the Fountain. All are clad in bronze and contribute to the Human Condition theme of the park.

 

 After the sculpture garden we took the tram downtown and took a stroll along Aker Brygge.  This was a really neat area.  This was our first really warm day and we sat down and had a nice cool drink at the waters edge.  The buildings in this area were really interesting architecturally.

After Aker Brygge, it was time to head to the Opera House.  Erik's flip flops had unfortunately come to the end of their life, so it was a very long walk!  We strolled along the water and had some yummy polish hot dogs wrapped in bacon (the specialty here I gather as you can get them anywhere...they are delicious!).

As we neared the Opera House, it was really awe inspiring.  It is truly an amazing building.  The angles on it are fantastic.  From every vantage point you get a different view of the building and it constantly changes...really cool.  We headed over to get inside and really have a good look.  It was truly impressive and worth the visit for sure.

After the Opera House we had to head back to the restaurant from last night to get Avery's raincoat, then the girl's were getting really sleepy so we had to head back to the hotel to give them a nap.  It was around 5pm by this point, and Dave and I figured that this was now our only opportunity to go get some laundry done.  It was starting to get a bit dire by this point as we have been travelling for sometime now and kids are messy...let's face it!

Online I found what looked like a really neat place to do our bags of laundry.  It was called Cafe Laundromat and it was supposed to be a neat restaurant with books and beer and meals.  So Dave and I loaded up all of our laundry and hopped on the bus in search of the cafe.

When we got there we thought we had made a huge mistake and that maybe it was just a cafe with laundromat in its name.  After some stealth searching, we found a series of machines tucked into the very back of the cafe.

The concept was really awesome. You can eat and drink and read books and surf the net, all while doing your laundry.  Dave and I had a couple of beers, we shared a pizza early on during the wash cycles, and then a delicious turkey burger later during the dryer run.  We just read and surfed the net and chatted, had a really nice time actually, and I just ran back from time to time to check on the cycles, and switch over the loads or fold things.

Cafe Laundromat is open seven days a week (7am to 1am M-F & 10am to 1am SA-SU).  They don't sell soap unfortunately, and the machines only take 10kr coins.  So you don't have to bother the bar too much it would be good to bring both.  We were there on a Sunday and had no soap, so luckily someone had left some behind as stores are closed on Sundays.  Anyways, we would recommend this place whether you have to do laundry or not...the food was great at the atmosphere was really chill...kind of a bit bohemian.





We finished up and were back to the hotel at around 9pm.  As we got there the girls were just finishing dinner outside with grandma and grandpa.  We headed up to our room with them and watched some tv and hung out before heading to bed.

After our full day in Oslo, we've re-evaluated slightly and have decided that its actually a pretty great city overall.  It has some wonderful neighbourhoods that we truly enjoyed exploring.