Saturday 8th & Sunday 9th December: Oslo, Norway

Oslo

Christmas tree in the square

The Palace

View down to the main square from the palace

Guards at the palace

Lou, I & Maud in the palace Gardens

Nobel Peace Prize Building

Christmas Markets

Harbour

Harbour - the boat we went on, on Sunday for the Christmas Cruise. Town Hall Pictures of the sunset from the castle

Photos from the sculpture park and the snow

View of ski jump from the top of the jump

Ski Jump View from the top of the ski jump - looking out over Oslo Pictures from the open air museum Open air museum Gol Stave Church

This weekend we went to Oslo with Mike and Lou. Before I tell you about the trip I must thank Mr Hawkins for another superb holiday, organised to the 'T'. Mr H organised flights, accomodation, top sights to see, metro routes to arrive at sights, places to buy tickets and all transfers! He even printed out information to read on each of the sights! So excellent and he does it every time. So thanks Mr H for yet another excellent weekend of sightseeing totally hassel free!

On Friday Josh sat his UK solicitors exam and went to his end of year work ball. After only a few hours sleep we got up at 3.30am Saturday morning, flew 2 hrs to Norway, the bussed for 2 hours to Oslo. On Saturday, we looked around the city, it was cold - 2 degrees! We went to the Royal palace - currently in use. We walked through the city and admired all the beautiful lights and Christmas trees. We went to some Christmas markets at the waterfront and had some mulled wine! very nice! We watched the sunset from the old castle on the hill and saw the Town Hall. We walked past the national theatre and paliament, both of which were closed, but in between was a lovely ice skating rink - it really felt like Christmas. Norway this time of year doeos not have a lot of sun, when we arrived it was dull and grey with the sun half risen, it remains this way from about 10am till about 3pm when it sets. We went to look at the Cathedral, which is supposed to be spectacular, but unfortunatly it is under rennovation and is all covered in scaffolding and sheets!

On Sunday we began the day at Vigeland Sculpture Park where it snowed on us! It was so exciting! The park contains 192 sculptures with more than 600 figures, all created by Gustav Vigeland. After the park we headed over to Holmenkollen Ski Jump Tower. It was still snowing on us there to - Josh enjoyoed throwing snow balls and lou made a snow angel, by lying down in the snow and flapping her arms and legs -it was hilarious! We then we back to the harbour and went on a 'Christmas Cruise' in an old style ship around some of the Islands and onto museum island where we looked around the Museum of Cultural History, and open air museum, where we saw traditional buildings and the Gol Stave Chruch from 1200 AD - the oldest church in Norway. At 6pm we headed back on our long journey home and got home by 1am! An exhausting but great weekend.