MariAnne Roppe, our tour guide, herded the group onto a bus to take to us to the Grand Hotel, but not before we grabbed some kroner from an ATM machine. 1 US dollar = about 6.15 Norwegian kroner.
The Grand Hotel. Courtesy Grand Hotel Oslo.
We got to the hotel, but our rooms weren't quite ready yet so we went across the street with Steve and Kathy to Ett Glass, a pub across the street, to have a couple of beers and some lunch while we waited. There we got our first taste of Norwegian beer and Norwegian prices ($10 a pint). Also the tax rate is 25%. Velkommen til Norge. We went back to the hotel and crashed for about three hours.
The Williams clan in the lobby of the Grand Hotel before dinner.
Courtesy of a kind stranger. (© 2006, Bacigalupo/Williams.)
Dinner was provided at the hotel. They had a great buffet which included fish and chicken (Junel had coppacola). It was delicious. Afterwards we decided to go for a little walk. We walked up KarlJohansgate to the Royal Palace where King Harald V and Queen Sonja live. It's about five blocks from the hotel.
Royal Palace, Oslo. (© 2006, M. Williams.)
There is a park across from the hotel and we walked along the street beside it. It had some beautiful fountains. We also saw the National Theater which was honoring the 100th anniversary of the death of Henrik Ibsen, the famous Norwegian playwright. Ibsen wrote A Doll's House, Peer Gynt, Hedda Gabler, The Wild Duck, et al. We walked down to the waterfront to see the Oslo fjord. Along the way we passed the building where they have the Nobel Peace Prize ceremonies.
Nobel Peace Center. (© 2006, M. Williams.)
When we got there, off to the left you could see Akershus Fortress. The castle inside the fortress was built around 1300 by King Håkon V.
Akershus Fortress in the background. (© 2006, M. Williams.)
From VisitOSLO.com:
After a disastrous fire in 1624, King Christian IV decided to rebuild the town within the walls of Akerhus Castle, enabling the modernised fortress to provide fortifications for the town. Brick-built buildings were also made compulsory to prevent the recurrence of a devastating urban fire. The king named the town after himself: Christiania.
It was not renamed Oslo until 1925. Junel also took a couple of nice shots of a "pirate ship" sailing out in the harbor.
"Pirate ship" sailing in the Oslofjord. (©2006, J. Bacigalupo.)
The scenery is quite beautiful, though I expect it will even get better. It was getting late and Dawn and Bob were expecting Heather, so we headed back to the hotel. They stayed down below and we went up to our rooms to go to bed. Unfortunately since it was Friday night and we were right downtown where the bars and clubs were, it was a little noisy to say the least and we had a little trouble getting to sleep. I think the jetlag was to blame as well.
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