Hurtigruten Norway Family Day 1

Friday 7 November - Oslo

Started the day at 7am with an early breakfast, if you’re staying at the Clarion Hotel The Hub it pays to get to breakfast before 7.30am as it gets very busy due to it being a 800 room conference hotel.

We then did a panorama sightseeing bus tour driving through the city seeing various famous buildings and sights including the Royal Palace, the Opera House (designed to look like a glacier), Norway’s oldest university etc.

The most memorable being the 26th of November Square which is a commemoration of the 529 Norwegian Jewish people that were deported to Auschwitz. Sadly only 9 of these people returned home.  So they now have this site with 9 empty chairs to serve as a remembrance for those that were killed.

Next, we headed up Holmenkollen hill to visit the ski jump. Unfortunately, the weather was great so because of the low visibility we didn’t spend much time there. While we were up there though, we did try some famous Norwegian ‘brown cheese’. It was nice, creamy, and a little sweet, worth a try if you’re in Norway. Our tour guide had it with jam in his Norwegian waffle, he says you’ll only find this cheese in two places, Norway and Heaven.

After that we went back down the hill to the Vigeland Sculpture Park. This is a park created by Gustav Vigeland which features over 200 handcrafted sculptures made from granite, bronze, and cast iron. All the sculptures were made and the park thoughtfully designed to represent the circle of life. Quite a moving experience and something I would put at the top of the list to visit if you are in Oslo. Entry to the park is free and it is open 24/7.

Finally it was time to board the M.S Trollfjord.  Heres some pictures of my Polar Outside cabin: