Oslo Day 2

Very comfortable with the transportation environment and the relative lack of a language barrier, we confidently went out for our adventures of the day: church and statues.  We wanted to walk more of Oslo, but I was particularly curious about the Vigeland Sculpture Garden. 

We wandered our way there...

This is Oslo Central station.

Main walking street from the station through downtown Oslo.

 

This is Oslo Cathedral.  Reminded of Konsvinger Church back in the states, J wanted to go inside to take pictures...

 

...so we did.

 

Rotary Club anyone?

 

I can't put all of the pictures in here, so I'll try to get the highlights.  It was a pretty cathedral inside.  Not ridiculous, but very pretty.

 

 

 

This is the box for the royalty...still used if I recall correctly.

 

This is the piece behind the altar.  It completely carved out of wood and is also completely three dimensional.  Hopefully, you can pick out the shadows brought out by the sculpture.

 

 

I figured this guy was upset because birds are crapping on his head, but I could be wrong.

 

Norway Parliament building.

 

The downtown pond.  It's all padded on the border because they use it for ice skating during the winter and as a pond in the summer.  How cool is that?

 

The palace...still occupied by royalty.

 

They had several guards on station too.

 

We finally made it to the sculpture garden.  In short, lots of naked sculptures, but all in very interesting postures and poses.  Vigeland, while clearly a talented sculpter and beloved by Oslo, he tried to focus on emotions people go through during various stages of life in this sculpture garden.  There are what feels like over 100 sculptures in a very large park.  Here are the highlights.  I highly recommend visiting it.

 

 

A little bit I have to share.  Notice the wear patterns on the bronze statues...where people typically touch the statues.  I was keen to notice the top three spots touched: the hands of baby sculptures, the legs of many of the sculptures, and the junk of ALL of the guys sculptures.  Nope, none of the lady sculptures had any touching at all.  I still haven't quite figured out why.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We then wandered our way back to Oslo via the swanky part of town (unintentionally).  We also bumped into a LOT of embassies.

 

Our next day we planned to visit a lot of the major museums.  We also had a surprise awaiting us!