If you want to go exploring in Norway, why not start with the Capital?

By Georgiana Marinescu, University of Bergen, Norway

In November, me and my friends decided to rent a car and drive to Oslo from Bergen and stay for a few days so we could explore the capital. If you or any of the friends you make in Bergen have a drivers licence, I would highly recommend driving despite it being an 8h drive as the views are worth it.

They say it’s not about the destination but the journey and I will let these photos speak for themselves:

After a long 8h drive from Bergen to Oslo with a few stops along the way we arrived at our Airbnb and realised our host had given us the wrong code for the key. This is where I advise you to make sure you have a way to contact your host through email or a phone number as we only had our hosts Airbnb account and had to wait almost an hour outside for a response with the right key code. It was -8 degrees outside.
Shortly after that we set down all of our luggage and decided to get the train into the city centre to have a look around and go to the Christmas market.

The Christmas market was cosy and we got some Mulled wine and German sausages but there wasn’t a lot to do so shortly after we went exploring around the city. We discovered a beautiful university building near where the market was held and then we walked down to the parliament where one of my friends swears he was waved at by the king and queen of Norway.

The next day we decided to do as much exploring as we could. We returned to the Parliament to see it in the daytime and spoke to one of the guards outside. Unlike the guards outside Buckingham palace, these guards didn’t mind interacting with the public and had no issues with us having a look around and taking photos.

We then walked around the city and decided to visit the Munch museum where The Scream by Edvard Munch resides. Fun fact, there are three versions of the painting held by the museum: a black and white sketch, a coloured sketch and the painting itself. These are alternated and are shown in half an hour slots in order to protect the artwork.

By the time we were done we were all hungry and my friend Elias had done some research beforehand so we decided to stop at Koie Ramen for some of the best Ramen in Oslo:

On our last day we decided to explore the Vigeland Park and the Vigeland Museum which hold a collection of different statues alongside a huge monolith; meant to represent resurrection and longing for spirituality. If you make it to Oslo I would highly recommend going to see them as the artwork and the park itself are beautiful. There is also a really nice cafe with many delicacies to try called Anne på landet that I recommend.

Our last activity in Oslo was one of the most adrenaline fuelled. We decided to drive out to the Ski jump at the edge of the city; which was closed for the season so no skiing was involved, however, for £40 you could zip line from the top of the ski jump to the very bottom… and we did just that.

After we couldn’t resist the snow that was all around and we had a little snowball fight. We then returned to our Airbnb and prepared for our 8h drive back the next morning.
This was an experience I’ll never forget and I highly recommend visiting Oslo if you’re studying in Bergen.