Cruising the Baltic's: Oslo, Norway

I've thought for a long time that I would love to do a trip to Norway. This cruise was a perfect time to get a little taste of Norway and see if I still felt the same way.  I definitely would love to take a trip back to Norway to experience more of the outdoors, hiking, fjords, etc.  Our short time there was a great introduction but just not long enough!

We started the morning off with a tour of Frognerparken Sculpture park.  The park was beautiful, green, and filled with naked sculptures.  All of the sculptures were done by Gustav Vigeland.  Every piece of work this man produced was naked.  Not sure what else there is to say about that!!

Our day in Oslo was completely planned by me so the whole day everyone followed me around wondering what the heck we were doing next. Well, occaisionally it's hard to handle the pressure and you get your family on the wrong train.  At least we had some time for Beau to get in some exercise and for Jake to watch in amazement.

Once we were back on the right track, I brought us up high over Oslo to the Olympic Ski museum.  The book said to get off at a certain train stop and then it was a short hike up hill to the museum.  Well, that walk turned out to not be so short and when you have two kids in strollers and two Dads pushing it was a LONG hike. If looks could kill.... Eventually we made it to the top!  The museum part may have been fascinating but honestly we didn't take much time to look at it.  We were more interested in the view of the massive ski jump and the city below.

 They had a huge zip-line set up going down the ski-jump and of course Micah and I had to do it.  It was so fun!! Notice that you can barely see the platform at the bottom from the top.

 Once we finished at the ski museum is what basically time for lunch.  I had a little place picked out but I'm pretty sure getting there made my family wonder if I was leading them into some scary movie.  We got off the train at the last stop at the top and then started walking down the mountain through the woods.  The only thing that kept me going was there was actually little signs with the restaurant name on it pointing us in the right direction.  The end result was a little cafe with ok food and an excellent view.

After refuelling, we headed off on our next adventure...getting back to a train station.  We didn't really want to hike back UP the mountain with our strollers so a waiter pointed us in a downhill direction.  There were times I wasn't sure how this route would end up but it worked out ok and we were on our way back into Oslo. 

Our time in Oslo was running out so for our last stop we hopped on a boat out to the Viking Ship museum.  By the time we made it we didn't have very much time in the museum but I think we had enough time to make the trip worthwhile.  I have a hard time understanding how vikings lived for months at a time on these ships in the open seas.

The last portion of Norway Micah and I wanted to see was the scenery while our boat left the area.  So we decided to feed Coleton and Jake on my parents balcony and that the adults would eat a late dinner kid free. It was amazing how close land was on both sides with a huge cruise ship going through.  We were waved at by many passing by boats. 

This was our last and final stop on an amazing cruise!  We had such a fantastic time.