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When joining any organized trip, I think it well worth the cost of one night in a hotel to arrive a day earlier than expected. I can travel to the "jumping off place" so much more relaxed. (I've created time to "play" with, if flights delayed, etc.)
For this trip, arriving a little late would have been very difficult to overcome. First I would need to get from Oslo to Svalbard 75 minutes by air, with not many flights to choose from. And then I would have to join the cruise ship.... next to impossible, and the interval between the group's scheduled arrival in Svalbard's main town, and departure from there was very short.
So...
Left home at a not terrible hour, and finally found myself in central Oslo (excellent public transport (train) from airport) in the early evening. But, while not as far north as Svalbard, Oslo is also blessed with very late light at this time of year. (Air travel is No Fun Any More!)
Thanks to advice from good friends (ML/DB) who'd been to Oslo ahead of me, and pre-planning, and good fine-tuning the helpful man at Oslo Tourism (right by the Oslo train terminus... I had to pop in to pick up my "Oslo Pass" (a good deal on transport and museum admissions))... I had a great day on the 12th. The weather was gorgeous, and I really liked Oslo. Working farms within 2 miles of the city center. The "edge of town" (where it stops pretty abruptly) is under 10 miles from the center.
At the splendid Viking boat museum.
And in case it amuses... the original of that photo, before some work with Serif's PhotoPlus... mainly cloning, apart from the obvious. I'm thinking I might remove the chains and props next. (If you haven't played with photo manipulation software, I would recommend it highly. Simple crops, and little tweaks to brightness, contrast, saturation can make a HUGE difference to the impact of an image. Even the free and very simple IrfanViewer (Windows) lets you do all sorts of things. Mac people, of course, have a vast array of excellent photo manipulation software... working with graphics is almost a reason to "go Apple". I fyou are feeling a bit more geekish and ambitious, give the free Lightzone a try. (Linux, Windows or Mac... whatever you are using now, you won't have to re-learn your photo manipulation software if you change.)
More on the sights of the day when I can get to it! I also visited the Fram museum... a bit more relevant to our trip. (The Fram was Nansen's vessel, and it also too Amundsen to the south pole, for his successful attempt to reach the pole. Bequtifully displayed. I have a copy of Nansen's book, was reading an ebook copy of it while on the trip.)
I hope you will forgive quite a large section devoted to "just" a park in Oslo. Only a few hours of my trip, but gave rise to some images I am proud of.
Gustav Vigeland (wp), 1869 - 1943, must have been an extraordinary man. He created some of the most impressive sculptures of the human form that I have ever seen, and he seems to have had a phenomenal capacity for work, and for organizing the workshop around him. His "workshop" must have been easy to mistake for an industrial site. Oh- and he must have been a pretty good mechanical engineer, too.
His scupltures so fascinate me because of the variety he incorporates. He shows people in a vast range of everyday moments.
Wikipedia (the link from his name will take you to the article, as I tried to suggest by the "(wp)") puts it well... "(exceptional...) both in the power of his creative imagination and in his productivity."
I count myself lucky, in that I happened to enter the park from the SW, and came to the museum about Vigeland first, before seeing the vast installation of plazas and sculpture.
One of the great influences in my life was the sculpture studio at my secondary school. In the museum, I enjoyed revisiting some of the craft of creating sculpture, and was able to look at sketches and models from Vigeland's career, and enjoy presentations about how the art was created. (His major works are in bronze and stone.)
This is a model for the fountain, which you can see in the museum. (I'll show you the finished fountain later.) If you look closely, about a third from the right hand edge, you can see the top of a visitor's head, to give you the scale. The final masterpiece is huge... the "tree" elements are probably 9 feet high. Or so.
If you think about what you see here, you will understand why I said Vigeland had to be, or be able to work with, a mechanical engineer to realize his concepts.
Details of three of the "trees", and on the wall behind some of the panels which decorated the sides of the fountain... there were dozens. Each depicting people of all ages, in a wondrous variety of everyday circumstances...
(He wasn't beyond going a bit past the "real" into some whimsical sur-real... note the "cluster" of babies "dangling" from the toddlers, in the tree on the left!)
A good copy of one of the trees would be a wonderful thing to grace any space. And yet, they are "just" the "supporting act" for the huge fountain. And the fountain with it's "trees", and the plaza designed to present, it are just one element of the sculpture installation in Frogner Park (wp)!
View to relate parts of Vigeland Park. (This, in fact, was my last view... I'd started at the top, and worked my way down to here. But it works better for this chronicle to put this photo here!)
The near foreground, above, is a much fore-shortened bridge with some wonderful pieces along it. Then you have the fountain, discussed previously. And the pillar behind is on the top of the hill the sculptures are arrayed across... more on it next...
Pillar on plaza at top of park. Note "scenes from life", all around the pillar... "real" people, everyday vignettes, not "models posing". I have to admit... after a few hours in the museum and park, when I left I had a curious sense of having been a long time in a locker room!
The fountain, already seen in overview, a little lower than plaza with pillar.
Remember I said that Vigeland captured people of all ages, in various circumstances. Can you imagine a better depiction of small boys scuffling?
In the early evening, there was a pleasant reception in very nice rooms at our hotel, for a first meeting with the expedition travellers and leaders.
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