Oslo, November 2025

A couple friends and I went to Oslo as a second leg for a trip to Iceland on Icelandair. We wanted to see the Northern Lights and were using Oslo as a back up spot incase Iceland didn’t work out. None of us really knew what to expect from Oslo, just that we could catch a flight to Tromso if we needed to and that Oslo is in Norway. Certainly got that Oslo is in Norway part down.

Getting into Oslo

We got in from our flight without issue. It was early and we didn’t need to go through border control or anything since we were coming in from Iceland. Once we were at the airport, We each got a three-day Oslo City Pass with the plan of using it for transit and museum entries. It didn’t disappoint. It was a quick hop from the airport to the main city train station and then a fifteen minute walk to Grünerløkka, where we were staying just off of the Akerselva River.

First Day

We got into Oslo and grabbed lunch at an Italian place in the train station. It was pretty forgettable. I didn’t even catch the name of it.

From there, we settled into the apartment we were staying in. After napping some, we went out to grab some groceries. From there, we took to walking around in Grünerløkka, near the river. I was impressed with the large number of statues that we came upon throughout the walk.

We happened upon a group of people that were doing some sort of Viking fighting practice. They had shields and spears with them and were grouped up hanging out like they had just got done practicing their fighitng. We sat for a while hoping they would pick it back up, but to no avail.

After, we walked around some more and looked for somewhere to get dinner. It was midweek and around nine. On the way, we ducked in for a couple of beers at a bar whose name escapes me. We did eventually find a place to eat at Oslo Food Hall. The only thing really open was an empenada place, which were pretty good.

We walked across a bridge that had some really impressive statues on them. It was probably my favorite public art on the trip. I have a few pictures of it in the gallery.

Second Day

On the second day, we got up and walked out to the harbor area in order to go to the National Museum. Along, the way we walked around Akershus Fortress and checked out a couple of the tall ships in the area. One of my friends I went with works on a tall ship in the North East. He was pretty interested in the boats in the harbor, so we spent a decent amount of time there in the area.

We walked over to the Oslo Opera House. The building is pretty impressive. The interior wasn’t really open, but we got to see the lobby. We walked around the Opera House to get to the National Museum. In doing so, we got to walk by the costuming department and set design workshop. They both have windows open to the public to spy in on what they’re doing. That’s not shit I would generally be interested in, but it was pretty cool to see and I’m glad we got to see it.

We did get to the National Musuem and spent a while going through the museum. We kicked it off with grabbing some lunch at the museum before going through the various floors. I dug the museum. The biggest known painting there was Edward Munch’s ‘The Scream’. There were a bunch of paintings I liked there.

After the museum, we went next door to the Nobel Peace Center. There wasn’t a lot of time to spend at the Peace Center, but it was pretty neat. We were able to check out most of it in the thirty minutes we were there.

The whole area was speckled with statues. They’re everywhere in Oslo.

Dinner and Beers

We decided to grab some dinner and went to The Salmon. It was decent, I got the soup. It was soup. We also got a bottle of sparkling tea. That shit was fucking weird. Evidently, it gets paired with salmon. I don’t know, it is not my favorite by any means. Evidently, I thought it kind of sucked.

We headed back to where we were staying for a bit. After a while, we ducked back out to hit a couple of bars. The first was Rebell. It was playing good music and the beer was cold. We stayed for a couple of drinks before moving on.

After, we headed to Crow. It’s a brewery and bar. they were playing a Champion’s League match, so we ducked in for a couple of beers and to watch the game. The bar was pretty good. Beer is fucking expensive in Oslo though. Like ten bucks a beer. Even the kind of ho-hum beers. Crow had better beers than all of the other places we went on the trip, so take that as a strong endorsement.

Syng

After my team lost, we took off back to where we were staying. On the way, we took the path near the Akerselva River. There, we saw a bar and said fuck it, one last drink. The place was called Syng. Inside, there was a watch party for the season finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.

We grabbed a table and watched the episode. The dudes sitting next to us figured out that we weren’t from Oslo and asked us what we were doing in town. We explained that we were in Oslo as a back up plan to see the Northern Lights. This was amusing to them as both claimed to have never have seen the Northern Lights in Oslo. After poking some fun at us, we explained that Tromso had been our third option, but were able to see the lights in Iceland.

This was probably the most fun place we had beers at on the trip. The crowd was a ton of fun. There were a couple of queens hosting the watching party and people were way into it. It was good times.

Third Day

Bygdøy Pennisula

On the third day in town, we took a bus to get out to Bygdøy Pennisula to hit up a couple of the maritime museums on the pennisula. There, we saw even more statues.

We checked out the Fram Museum. It’s dedicated to the Fram, duh. The Fram was a polar exploration boat. It has a bunch of details about the voyages of the boat, the people that manned them, and rival polar explorations. My friend loved it and we spent a couple hours in the museum.

We also hit up the Norwegian Maritime Museum to check out their ongoing construction of a viking boat and to grab lunch. We didn’t get to go through the rest of the museum as we wanted ensure we had time for The Oslo Historical Museum. The Kon-Tiki Museum was closed, but it was one that my friend had had a lot of interest in.

Oslo Historical Museum and area

We got to The Oslo Historical Museum and checked out their viking exhibit. To be honest, the place was smaller than I had expected. The place was a bit underwhelming.

We walked around the palace after the museum. There were more statues there. Oslo fucking loves statues and ten dollar beers. We grabbed dinner and ten dollar beers at an Irish Bar.

Near by there was a Yule Celebration going on. I have always heard that European Christmas Markets were a thing. If this was the measure of European Christmas Markets, I think people have some explaining to do. Everything seemed to be kind of largely produced shit or were something like a Lego Store or a Coca-Cola Store. There was a big ass ferris wheel and more statues.

Our final stop for the night was back to the harbor and to Kok Sauna. There we rented a sauna for a couple hours and swapped between sweating profusely and jumping into the North Sea. The water was about forty degrees and a complete shock everytime we got in. The water though was the sole place we did not find statues in Oslo, but we were too busy hurrying to get out of the water to check too. So, who knows…

Last Full Day

For the last day in Oslo, we decided to get outside and go on a hike. We took the train out. Oslo has train stops to the park. I dig it, you can randomly decide to go walk around in nature and it is an easy ride on public transportation to do so. Good shit, Oslo.

The hike was a few miles long and up hill a good part of the way. We showed up and walked a bit around the park near Øyungen Lake and then up to Vettakollen Viewpoint. The hike was nice with lots of people jogging or walking dogs. At the top, we got a good view of Oslo from afar. Suprisingly, there were no statues on the hike. When we were done, we took the train from a different spot back into town.

Back in Oslo, we went to Frogner Park. In the park, there are a ton of status (because duh). In the park is The Vigeland installation. It is a collection of statues by Gustav Vigeland and was quite impressive. The park is really big and given that it was a Saturday, it was a bit crowded.

From there, we grabbed dinner again at Oslo Food Hall as we took our friend who did not go with us the first night we went. I got some really bad nachos and a burger that was kind of so-so.

Leaving Oslo

We took off in the morning and got up to find that it was snowing. There were a couple inches on the ground as we left and we made the twenty minute walk to the train station. On the way, we took a new route to the station. Unsurprisingly, we saw more statues.

We got on the train and headed to the airport. The flight back was fairly uneventful.

Overall Thoughts

Overall, we probably should have had four days in Iceland and three days in Oslo. They’re both expensive places, but Oslo may have been the most expensive place I’ve been. I liked walking around Oslo a lot and the hike we did was particularly fun. The time spent at Syng was probably the most fun on the trip, but the sauna and jumping into the North Sea was a close second.

The quantity of statues in Oslo is wild. They seemed to be everywhere and ran the scale from entirely impressive to pretty ho-hum. The amount of time and energy spent to public art is fucking cool. As much as I’ve bagged on statues being everywhere, it was pretty cool to see.

All in all, Oslo was fun but wasn’t really somewhere I would make a large attempt to back to. Everyone we met was nice though. It’s just that there other places I would rather go. Oslo lacked the magic of a city like Mexico City or Tokyo. I would probably head back to Oslo as a base camp to fly in and out to go see more of Norway though. Getting to see the fjords and glaciers are certainly something that holds interest for the future.