Ireland day 1219. Wednesday 29 January 2025- Oslo Day 3

Today’s summary	Got up early and had a couple of hours in the spa before breakfast. Then caught the bus into town and visited the Vigelandsparken with its strange monumental sculptures. Had a look round the museum, which I enjoyed, then refreshments in a café. Took the bus back to the hotel then had a massage in the evening and spoke to Val later.
Today’s weather	Heavily overcast and drizzly. Hardly any wind. Appx 3c

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where I walked) (Click button below to download GPX of today’s walk as recorded, or see interactive map at bottom with elevations corrected): Vigelandsparken Oslo

Commentary

Last night I made a mistake. I ordered a decaffeinated coffee with my dinner. I was assured the thick black concoction that duly arrived was indeed without caffeine but I beg to differ. Because when I went to bed it must have taken me a good three hours to fall asleep and then at about 4am I woke up again, as bright as a button. There was no hope of going back to sleep, so I passed the rest of the early hours reading my book.

Anyway the cloud had a silver lining because it meant I could go into the hotel’s spa at 8am, practically before anyone else had arrived. I made best use of the time, and spent a couple of hours jacuzzi-ing and sauna-ing before calling it a day at ten o’clock and going for breakfast.

Once I’d eaten and got my things together, I decided to go back into Oslo to take a look at one of the other “must see” destinations. In this case, it was the Vigelandsparken – a large public park to the north west of the city centre. It contains a vast outdoor exhibition of monumental sculptures created by Gustav Vigeland in the 1930s and 40s.

I duly arrived there in just over an hour, on a convenient but then tram combination. It’s a curious place. The statues – mostly of the human form, are in turn fascinating and slightly disturbing. My visit today was made even more interesting by the hazardous layer of slush, ice and water that had formed over all the footpaths. It was almost impossible to stand up. Apparently Oslo has something of a reputation in Norway for being particularly inefficient at clearing snow and ice. Well, it certainly showed today.

I enjoyed looking round the park with its statues, and particularly liked the charming Vigeland museum, located just across the road from the park entrance. I was the only person in there – quite an unusual experience.

By this stage it was mid afternoon and feeling like a long time since breakfast. So I found a nice café in the middle of the park and got a cup of tea and a cake. By the way, it’s almost impossible to get “breakfast” tea here, so I had to make do with Earl Grey instead. Not really my thing, but desperate times demand desperate measures.

I lingered over my refreshments and pondered what to do next. In the end I decided to make use of the spa facilities back at the hotel, so I repeated the tram/bus shuttle and was in my room again by about 5pm.

Then, in a radical departure from the norm, I booked myself in for a massage. I’ve only ever had one once before, and I’m not sure if at the time I really liked it. But life’s too short and seeing as the service was right on my doorstep, it seemed like too good an opportunity to miss. It lasted about an hour and I quite liked it (but don’t even think about asking how much it cost – sufficient to say the cost-benefit analysis is hanging in the balance). It was so relaxing, I had to restrain myself from falling asleep at a couple of points. Must be the side effects of last night’s sleep deprivation!

Once I’d been kneaded like a loaf of bread, and turned into a hyperflexible blob of protoplasm, I retired into the spa proper and had a sauna. Finally, to finish off I had a quick video chat with Val – her holiday is going well and the snow is improving by the day – and got a room service club sandwich for dinner.

Anyway, I’m worn out by all the days developments, so I’m draw things to a close now and go to bed. Quite a day

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


My latest new mode of transport. The Oslo equivalent of the Luas	“The Angry Boy” – one of Vigeland’s most famous works

Looking back through the park, down the avenue lines with statues	Looking a bit pink (probably from all that time in the sauna) – or maybe it’s just the chill from the frozen lake behind

In the Vigeland Museum (which is actually in the artist’s old house-cum-workshop, and is just across the road from the park itself. The museum contains, among other things, plaster models used in the production of some of his monumental works	I didn’t go into the Museum of Oslo – though the café was very nice!

The Monolith. It took a team of three stonemasons thirteen years to make it. It’s a slightly dystopian creation of writhing intertwined bodies – but even Vigeland himself didn’t really know what it was supposed to represent. Perhaps the definition is just in the mind of the beholder