A WEEKEND IN OSLO #2 | QUEENBEADY

The second full day with our weekend in Oslo at the end of May saw us head on a bit of a wild goose chase. We just couldn’t find anywhere like the Nighthawk Diner (if you click this link you will enter the world of the best breakfast I have EVER eaten!) for brunch that I had a (minor) paddy. We ended up sharing a Subway that was about 5 feet away from our hotel after a good hour or so of traipsing around finding somewhere to eat. Some of you may know when my levels reach “hangry” I am not to be messed with so the steak, cheese & chilli foot long was exactly what I needed to make sure we had a pleasant day seeing some more of the cities sights which were dotted around the city. The first stop was the Royal Palace and the view down to Karl Johans Gate which was only a five or ten minute walk from our hotel, HTL Grensen.

In amongst the aimless wandering trying to find breakfast we landed upon the famous Tiger Sculpture just outside the train station and Oslo Visitor Centre. You can’t come to Oslo and not have a photo with the famous sculpture, can you now? The reason for it’s being was that for Oslo’s 1000-year anniversary back in 2000, Eiendomsspar wanted to give the city a gift. And that gift was a 4.5-metre bronze tiger made by Elena Engelsen. It’s pretty fierce and it’s actually quite scary being stood next to it despite it not actually being a tiger! Hashtag SissyPants. On the way to get Subway #cultural I took the opportunity to get a photo of the Parliament Buildings near our hotels too. What a pretty building?

After we made it up to the top of Karl Johan’s gate and watched the guards parade around, we decided it wasn’t a very private Palace with access to the public walking around right on it’s doorstep and in and around the Palace gardens too. Eventually we had to take shelter under a tree as it started to begin to rain quite heavily. Trust us to book a weekend away where the rain falls and the sun is blazing back at home in the UK (jokes on us guys!)

Whilst we took out the map with singular raindrops dripping from both our foreheads on to it, I decided I really wanted to see the really oldy-worldy colourful, wooden houses on Damstradet, so we made a fifteen/twenty minute walk in the pouring rain to find them (because I like to do silly things like that!) Luckily Mr C was wearing a coat I however, was wearing a thin, satin-like bomber from New Look (which I thought would be hellish in the rain, in actual fact it was pretty waterproof!)

Damstredet is actually a very small area of Oslo & I expected it to be more like a little community like the Grunnerlokka area. However, if was small, tucked up houses that lead you down a steep, cobbled hill. Despite it being not as large as I thought, it definitely made up in cuteness. I couldn’t decide which little bricked house would be mine or would I prefer one of the colourful, wooden shack like houses? I would highly recommend you check this lane out, purely for the insta-worthyness of the street.

We worked our way back to a spot called Vulkan just near Grunnerlokka, this area was home to the Mathallen which is the popular food market. There were so many sights and smells to appetise the senses. We were a little overwhelmed with the busyness and choices that we didn’t quite know what to do with ourselves. The fresh smell of coffee beans (boy, do the Norwegians do coffee so right!) to Spanish tapas with big pans of it waiting to be devoured to the very smelly and very stinky cured meats and cheese deli’s. It was the perfect place to grab all your ingredients for an authentic dish to be made at home (or enjoyed on site!) I mean look at all those pretzels?! A wall of freaking pretzels, guys. A pretzel wall, if you will?!

Despite us normally wanting to experience something a little more traditional and cultural it was pretty hard to even hear yourself think, let a lone have a conversation across a trestle table (and they were filling up very quick) we dived in to Hendrix Ibsen a quirky and Instagram-worthy (always a plus!) café right next door. James grabbed a strong black coffee to wake himself up & I couldn’t resist a hot chocolate to warm up. As we sat and drank our drinks we browsed through the hoards of vinyls around the café (come-record store) and watched people play ludo on another large farm style table and benches. It was clear it was a popular meeting spot.

On our last day we had to drag our hand luggage around with us which can always prove a little bit of a task, but seriously, when you got a sexy backpack like this one that Amara kindly gifted to me, you know you’re at least looking pretty fine doing it?! (Ps. It’s in the sale here!) We decided to tackle the Opera House. A magnificent building, completely made out of Italian, white marble (be prepared and make sure you are wearing sunglasses as it’s blinding up there, especially on a sunny day!) You can walk on the roof of and walk all the way round it.

We then made our way over to the Castle for a little wander round and to say our final goodbyes to the city. It felt like something out of a movie or even Harry Potter. (Although, to be honest, I have no real facts about this place. It was heaving with Chinese cruise ship tourists so I could hardly get to any of the points of interest.) I’m always ever so slightly sad on our last day and yes, I did have a slight cry at the top of the Opera House (I’m an emotional person, okay?!) So by the time I reached the Castle I was starting to think about our flight home.