There was a period of time about a decade ago when I packed a tripod into my luggage. The rationale for that was “just in case” for those singular occasions when I might decide to take after-sunset or before-sunrise set of pictures. Long-exposure photography would improve the output. Which, for…
This picture is of a small island of Torbjørnskjer near the mouth of Oslofjord where it joins with the North Sea. It represents a departure from my usual style of photo-processing. Taken at dawn from windswept upper deck of the overnight Copenhagen-Oslo ferry, it looked unremarkable in its original form.…
This picture of the Royal Palace in Oslo proves that sometimes you can get a postcard-quality shot with practically zero effort. When the skies are radiant and the colors are dazzling, all you have to do is press the shutter button. The palace offers timed limited-number-of-people guided tours, of…
For a city not widely acclaimed as a major tourist destination, Oslo does offer a number of impressive sights. The modern Opera House is near the top of the list for me. The building is huge and water surrounds it on three sides. When you are near it,…
Of hundreds fjords that pierce the landscape in Western Norway only two are explicitly recognized on the UNESCO World Heritage list, as a single site even though they are not near each other. Both represent the comparatively small appendages of the bigger parent fjords, and both are sited for their…
Our fjord exploration on the recent Scandinavian trip was facilitated by the popular itinerary called Norway in a Nutshell. If you are traveling in Norway independently of any tour operators and cannot set aside a couple of days of self-driving to and staying around the most scenic fjords, this itinerary…
Getting to the top of Mount Fløyen above Bergen is a special treat for two reasons. First, the funicular ride itself. Most other funiculars that I know take less than a minute to travel to their upper terminals which, coupled with 10-15 minutes wait to depart from the lower ground,…
This church is reasonably recommended but not exactly among the top sights even in a city like Bergen. It requires comparatively non-trivial time and effort to get to. It is actually not the original church, which was destroyed by arson just 20 years ago, but a replica rebuilt in a…
Bergen is one of those cities that is mostly known as a gateway to something (in this case, fjords). Most of the itineraries, even those that make the city a base for regional exploration, leave at best a single day for getting acquainted with Bergen. Although it is bigger in…
Bryggen is one of the most impressive recent additions to my growing collection of World Heritage sites. Picturesque, full of historic significance, and able to retain many of its original features, this old wharf is recognized by UNESCO for being the only remaining preserved outpost of Hanseatic League as well…
We left Oslo via train on Bergen Railway, which takes about 7 hours to reach its final destination in Bergen. It is a comfortable and superbly scenic ride, highly recommended if you can spare sufficient time in your itinerary. At the speed of about 200 km/h, through the glass window,…
Although I already reported on our exploration of Oslo here, here, and here, I am now taking a step back in time to talk about how we got to Oslo from Copenhagen. We took the overnight ferry that connects the two capitals. Although I use the word “ferry”, it is…
Oslo fjord is not a true fjord in geological sense – its creation was not owed to glacier erosion. Instead, it is what is known as a rift valley. As the result, it is not overly narrow, nor does it have steep cliffs flanking it – in other words, it…
As mentioned towards the end of the Oslo highlights essay, there is one attraction in Oslo that I rate as unique and utterly fascinating. It is the Vigeland installation in Frogner Park, which consists of over two hundred of bronze and granite sculptures by a single Norwegian artist, Gustav Vigeland.…
Oslo has one of the lowest “tourist attraction quotients” of all of Western Europe’s major cities. The reputation is, admittedly, mostly deserved. There is not much in terms of must-see in the Norwegian capital; not truly any significant historic monuments; not really any museums or art galleries of world renown;…