We decided this morning to make today an easy and relaxing day. Well, that didn’t happen!

We took the bus to an area that housed three different museums. The Fram Museum was the 1st one we visited.  Here, we saw a huge ship named The Fram, a three-masted schooner. It was the first ship specially built in Norway for polar research. It went on three expeditions between 1893 and 1912 and is now housed and exhibited in the Fram Museum.  We could go aboard the ship, walk the narrow halls below deck, and experience the close quarters once home to many men who had to prepare to be aboard for years.

Next door was the Kon-Tiki museum, which highlighted Thor Heyerdahl’s famous 8,000 km trek across the Pacific Ocean in a handmade balsa wood raft! It was a very interesting museum, but we didn’t need much time there.

The Norwegian Maritime Museum was our third stop, and we also found it interesting. It was very much geared toward explaining how the oceans have become so polluted and how they are trying to clean them up. Art installations abounded, all made with junk from careless garbage disposal into the sea. Jason took lots of pictures.

Next, we visited the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. It wasn’t nearly as interesting, so we left pretty soon. However, right next door was the outdoor Norsk Folkemuseum, where we wandered around for a while before boarding the bus again and heading to a small shopping area for a drink and more exploring. I was tired, so we took the fast train back to the hotel for a coffee and rest.

Then, before we knew it, we were back in the car and headed for all kinds of small stops around the city.  Some places we wanted to visit were easy to find, but parking was nearly impossible. We stopped at a lovely second-hand store called Fretex, where I got a small souvenir, and parking was free.  We tried visiting a distillery, but it was closed, so we moved on. We found a park called Lorenparken with many weird sculptures (a lot of those in this city), and right next door was a small neighbourhood hamburger joint, so we grabbed supper and ate it in the car––so glamorous! As we ate supper, Jason called LJ and the girls (as we do every day) and chatted with them before returning to our hotel.  

Tonight is for packing as we say goodbye to Oslo and head northwest tomorrow morning toward Lillehammer. There, we will meet up with Ottar and Tutti one last time so he can show us the sites where he grew up. More to come on that…