Oslo, Norway day 1

 May 27, 2025

The day was rainy and cold so I don’t have many decent pictures of Oslo. We had a bus tour but it’s rather difficult to see a town by bus much less when it’s raining.  It is a nice city though, we loved it.

The city is very modern with interesting architecture.  Below is a shot of what is called “The Barcode” of buildings downtown.  To reduce traffic in the city center, huge traffic tunnels have been built - great idea!

New city:

Old city

As part of our tour we went to an amazing sculpture park - Vineland Park. Installed between 1940 - 49, there are over 200 sculptures in granite, bronze and wrought iron representing over 40 years of work.  

This one is known as “angry baby” who people have rubbed for good luck.  Not sure of that logic.

The bronze statues above are on a bridge as you approach the stairs with hundreds of sculptures.

The center totem pole is carved from a single piece of granite displaying a giant pile of bodies.

I couldn’t resist these darling toddlers who were of course discussing all the sculptures - well at least three of them were.

After lunch we took a taxi to the Munch museum which houses 1,200 paintings, 18,000 prints, six sculptures and 500 plates.

Munch titled this one “Angst” and is a self portrait

Below is one labeled as “The Vampire” though that was likely not the original title.

There are several versions of “The Scream”. The one most of us are familiar with is housed in another museum.  This version has pride of place.

Though much of his art is quite dark, this one, which is a giant mural is anything but.

Ed had his portrait painted by a shadowy Munch as the artist chatted away.

We left the museum, looking for a taxi and happened upon the opera house.

Those are bodies emanating from the wall!

The origin of this cruise was to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversaries - as we were married just weeks apart.  We did a cruise to Alaska to celebrate our 25th years ago.  Left to right: Larry Gilbert, Laura Gilbert (Ed’s sister), moi and Ed.