Oslo :1

Oslo, the capital of Norway and most populated city of Norway, is on the land that forms an arc around the northernmost tip of Oslofjord. Again the islands. City limit has more than 30 islands and has around 340 lakes. So nature abounds around Oslo and so it is never ever dull, always lush green. Plus the city has so many gardens and parks spread over vast areas that you hardly find a road without an attached garden!

    Oslo in the native language, even in English, is not pronounced the way we pronounce it. In the Norwegian language, it's pronounced as ush-Lu with the last vowel stretched a bit, while in English too it is pronounced as Oz-Loh! Though essentially it's a Roman script, for that matter all the Nordic languages use the same, but the alphabets and their symbols are much modified to suit the local pronunciation that it gives you Deja Vu. You Know it? No, No you don't! So every Nordic language has so many new alphabets [ for Roman script users] that if you don't know the correct pronunciation, you may land up in totally a different soup.

    We were placed in Hotel named The Terminus which is bang next to Central railway station and in the heart of the city, so all the places of interests were easily approachable either by walking or by tram. And here we had Duplex apartment at our disposable. Parlour with bathroom and TV on the level one, while the bedroom on level two with a circular staircase, absolutely in  Bollywood family drama fashion, from where the father of heroine derides hero about the family pride, Khaandaanki Izzat! 
This was the only tour that was below expectations. But we had enough time on our hands so we could fill up the deficit in the next 2 days. I don't know why Sangeeta gave us an only half-day tour but as it covered places far away from the city centre so it did not matter much.

  The first stop was Frogner Park which houses Vigeland Installation. The story behind opening the park is very interesting. There was some altercation between Oslo municipality and the famous sculptor Mr.Gustav Vigeland so he was asked to donate all his work to the municipality. in exchange for land for his studio. He, then over next 20 years carved out these sculptures and donated them to the municipality to start an open exhibition., There are more than 200 sculptures, in number, either in bronze or granite, which end in Monolith at the centre of the park known as the circle of life. Incidentally, he is the one who designed the Nobel Peace Prize.

This is the most popular sculpture in bronze as it shows the emotions on the face of the child most realistically.

All the sculptures are stark naked but are not remotely obscene. On the contrary, the anatomy, the figure and the emotions on the face are so good, almost life-like.

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This central monolith has 121 figures trying to reach to the top. Situated at the centre of park it is encircled by the circle of life. Here the figures are all in granite and show the journey of life from childhood to old age. It is said that if you complete the round around the circle you get new lease of life. Gustav only knows! GOK!
















Did I get a new life after circling around? I must say yes, as we could finish our tour absolutely according to the plan up to last "T" and that too with a broken arm! 

      For want of space, it is well nigh impossible to take you to every nook and corner of the park. Here we wanted to spend more time to imbibe the beauty of all the figures but agenda was saying otherwise, so after a brief visit to park behind the main park with gradually increasing gradient, the fountain of life, the wheel of life, we had to take adieu! Oh so many monuments dedicated to the life, that's always so elusive!

This water fountain known as the fountain of life is far back in the interior parts, has naked human figures, of course, balancing the central plate most deftly and carved out majestically, while the water, the ultimate form of life flowed down, from whichever lacuna it found, so made many beautiful ribbons slowly slipping down. The fountains around, created a veil as if to protect their nudity from prying eyes! 

I could have spent an entire day at the park but as the schedule was tight, I abhor them, tight schedules, so had to rush to catch the bus, that would take us to Hollmenkollen. Ours being hot humid climate snow in any form is miles away from us. All the Scandinavia lies well beyond the tropic of cancer so practically half the year it is covered under snow. And so they have developed sports those can be played when it snows heavily.

The bus ride to Holmenkollen a ski tower is more than picturesque as it is situated in the hilly areas of Oslo. While spiralling up, the Oslofjords whose first impression was drab, made us realize that the book cover may not reveal the actual contents which too could be enchanting. Always accompanied by a small metro line on either side, reminds one of Matheran's toy train ride. They have used the natural slopes of the hill of Holmenkollbakken to build the tower. In fact, the first one built way back in 1901, but the skiing competitions were being held since 1879 on the original slopes of the hill. The present structure that stands today, is after demolishing and reconstructing it for 19 times!   

That's a summertime skier, in the mid-air after taking a giant leap from the top of skiing tower, on right. 








And that's the skiing tower below, with human figures looking like ants. No, they really are, Real humans in person, and not ants! 

After finishing the tour of Holmenkollen we realized, why Sangeeta had arranged for half a day tour on day one. Extremely tired after night's travel and jumping all over Oslo for more than 5 hours had taken its toll and we were just bogged down and so it was time to stretch out on our beds in Duplex...oh it was so inviting!

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