Full of Shenanigans...: Oslo

What a lovely day! After a little sleep last night (woke up at 4:30AM), I am feeling a bit more rested for the day ahead...which is Monday for us.

We took it easy and met up in the dining hall for breakfast at 9AM...the breakfasts that are included here with your hotel stay are very elaborate! We had lots of juices, coffee, eggs, meatballs, roasted potatoes, sausages, roasted veggies, pickles, beets, cold meats, cheeses, raw veggies, lox, breads...huge amounts and types to choose from.

This is a typical European hotel room, tiny single beds and great bed covers/quilts.

Seeing as our hotel is located in the downtown area of Oslo, walking to some of the shops is very convenient...after breakfast we visited some local shops, one of them was a sweater shop, featuring Norwegian sweaters of course! A short walk and we are upon various Historic sites and parks...one of which was the Royal Palace! The King is currently in residence there and we are trying to book a tour for Wednesday.

This is just a glimpse of it from the street...we walked through the park grounds surrounding the palace yesterday evening and they are quite lovely. The story behind the tours...the Norwegian government were not happy about supporting the current monarch's, King Harald V, desire to renovate and restore the palace. Due to the poor quality construction, originally started in 1824, extensive work needed to be done to bring it back to any original glory, so to help subsidize those costs the government negotiated allowing tours to generate some revenue!

As you can see today is quite overcast but while walking down one of the main streets, Karl Johan Gate, we are encountering many lovely old buildings, gardens, sculptures, store fronts, open restaurants and markets...

This photo below is the Oslo Cathedral that is located downtown. It was originally Our Savior's Church which was consecrated in 1697, in 1950 is was restored to its original baroque interior...very beautiful.

This is the ceiling in the church...it looks like it's a mosaic tile but it's actually wood panels that have been hand painted.

Today we have a 1 o'clock lunch date with my cousin Nancy's distant Norwegian relatives...Kjell and Kirsten. They prepared a beautiful traditional feast with some special dishes...lots of lovely food and company. We were very happy to have met them and grateful for their hospitality. I found their apartment to be very nice, filled with an assortment of interesting items from their life together.

We walked back to the hotel from our lunch date...took about ten minutes and we needed to walk off our food! We had a dinner reservation for 7PM at Engebret Cafe, which is THE oldest restaurant in Oslo!

We learnt that this spot was frequented by the actors and musicians and literary people of the day...there were many original receipts, sketches and documents from back in the day throughout the restaurant. It was also designed to accomodate different parties as I saw several private dining rooms within the space.

Last shot is of my dinner...I found a Bacalao dish...in Portugal, Bacalao is a salted codfish served with potatoes, onions, olive oil, pimento, olives and a vinegar style dressing...usually cold. In Norway, Bacalao is also a cod fish dish featuring all the same ingredients except it has a tomato base as a thicker sauce...very tasty and interesting to find a very similar traditional dish in Norway. Here they serve roasted new potatoes on the side and it's served warm.