Oslo, an interesting but sad day also....

Monday started out early as we were heading into Oslo for the day.  We were going to see several things throughout the city and Cathrine had planned the day very well.  Our first stop was at the Viking Ship Museum.  The Viking Ship that I talked about earlier in yesterdays blog that had been salvaged in Tonsberg had been transported to this museum.

The detail on these ships was truly something to see.

The things that had been salvaged off of the ships was also neat to see.  This a pair of old shoes and a chair that were found.

Once finished at the museum we headed up to Holmenkollen.  Holmenkollen is a ski park where they have a ski jump and a cross country ski track.  It was amazing to see.  I can't imagine how intense the feeling must be as they glide down the jump and take off considering they reach speeds of over 100 km/hr.  The ski park also had a museum in it that the kids enjoyed and they also took an elevator to the top of the jump.

 

This is the Ski Troll at Holmenkollen.  Trolls are very popular in Norway.

The amazing view of the city of Oslo from the top of the ski jump.

We headed down into the heart of the city once we finished at the ski hill.  Now, keep in mind that that the terrorist attack had just occurred on Friday and we were not sure what restrictions we would be met by.  Once we arrived at our parking spots we came to realize that life had pretty much resumed to normal other than in the direct vicinity of the parliament buildings.  Our first stop was at the castle of the Norwegian King and Queen, it is located right at the top of the main drag in Oslo.  It was not at all how I had pictured it.  I had pictured it to be surrounded by beautiful gardens but this was not so, the front yard of the castle is covered with the famous red sand of Norway.

This is the view from the front of the castle.  At 6:00 Monday evening this street filled up with over 200,000 people who paraded in memory of the victims of Friday's attack.

This is the parliament building, untouched yet from Friday's attack.  It was a so sad to see the damage done by one very disgusting individual.

After we saw the damage we walked to a church in the heart of the city where many people had come to pay their respects.  We too laid flowers to honour those who had been killed.

We enjoyed our time in the capitol city and were heading onto the Aagesen's cottage in the mountains next.  I never dreamt that I would be so close to the sight of both of Friday's attacks.  As were heading to the cottage we saw the very island and where the kids tried so desperately to swim across to the mainland to get away from their attacker.  It was heartwrenching to see the actual distance that these kids had to conquer to escape from the madman.  We knew of one boy who swam the entire distance with his wounded friend under his arm so that he could get the boy to safety.  On Monday when we passed the water was still being searched for victims.

We had another 2 hour drive past this point.  It was a very scenic drive, the mountain region is very picturesque.  And the view from the cottage was absolutely stunning, I can understand why people choose to live there.

This was the view that we enjoyed each morning as we woke up and each night before bed as we were given the room with the view!

Shelley