The Vigeland Park, Oslo.

I was in Oslo a few times. Firstly, I believe, two or three years ago, a completely spontaneous trip with my friend, sleeping at some couch surfer’s place, trying to explore the whole city in two and a half days. Then another one, when I have been already living in Hamar, for a karaoke night with friends, then for a job interview, for a walk through main streets… but never went to Vigeland before. Now I ask myself, why?

I and my partner started our car trip to Oslo quite late, I believe around 2 pm or something like that. We ended up in the capitol after 4 pm, but hence the weather was so nice and lovely, we weren’t worried about a single thing. Just look at the sky in those pictures, perfectly blue! However, I must apologize for the quality of photos this time, for some reason they all are out of focus etc. I tried my best with editing, but I had to put them in a smaller size, so those defects aren’t visible.

The Vigeland Park is part of Frognerparken and is named after Norwegian sculpturer, Gustav Vigeland. And yes, he made all of those art pieces, himself (!). There are around 212 sculptures, showing 600 different figures. As far as I have noticed, all of those are human acts, both women, men, and kids are presented in all kind of different poses.

It’s a really big park, I must admit. We walked around for maybe two or more hours, but it seemed like there’s much more to see, however, we were hungry and wanted to go to some restaurant. But before that, I did one silly thing, that could be a warning for you guys, if you ever happen to be in this park. Seriously.

There were public toilets in a small and modern piece of building between the trees. We came closer to see those electric things to read credit cards and holes for coins. I say: “Okay, so it’s paid, great. I can wait until someone goes out so I don’t have to pay”. And oh lord, I was standing there with a smirk, thinking it was such a good idea, and I will spare that money (don’t get me wrong, I’m quite a poor student, so I have to be thrifty). So two Norwegian ladies came out and said to me in Norwegian something about pressing a button. So I was like “okay, I can press a button if it’s for free”.

It came out to be an automatic toilet. That washes itself shortly after someone has used it… so I became a little bit wet (on my clothes). I ran out, screaming, and my partner just looked at me with a poker face. “Well, here’s my karma”. And no, I didn’t find any button inside that could be helpful. I just paid normally and swallowed my pride (or flushed it in the toilet).

After that long walk around sculptures, we decided to head to the Oslo center (we had a car) to eat some food. Around Vigeland were some restaurants, but none of them looked appealing in my opinion. We were to only one, called Amundsen (Bryggeri & Spiseri, Stortingsgata 20), and it was in the center, with really nice, American-style food. This time we tried some steak place called Jensens Bøfhus, on Stortingsgata 2.

I ordered a burger as per usual (the safest and usually cheapest choice) and he has chosen some steak with bbq. The food was good, and our service was beyond kind, they even wished us “a nice evening”. Or maybe I just don’t go to restaurants so often, so I don’t see the difference between normal Savoir-Vivre and abnormal politeness.

Before heading home we decided to go to our favorite place to view the sunset, to the Oslo Opera House. Not only you can walk on some roof (yes, I’m not joking), but you get to see a nice view on the city, not mentioning how impressive it is when the sun goes down.

After 10pm streets of the capital are almost empty. It’s Sunday, so most of the people are already at home, sleeping before tough, working Monday. Here and there you can see lost folks, walking around with, seems like a purpose. Maybe they also want to experience city slowly falling asleep along with its residents? I guess I’ll never know.

I recommend visiting the Vigeland Park if you happen to be in Oslo. It’s quite far from the center, so it’s better to either arrive early to Oslo and walk there or just take a bus/drive a car.

I hope you guys liked this little post and see you soon with another one! Have a nice weekend everyone!