From Stockholm to Oslo

Oslo at 503 km

Not much comments on this post - we basically spent the whole day in the bus, travelling from Stockholm to Oslo. The journey took about 7-8 hours, with lunch and several photo stops.

Lunch stop

The restaurant

We had lunch in the middle of nowhere, but a beautiful place it was. It had a romantic, olden day feel to it - would make a great wedding venue in my opinion. Quiet enough to be personal and intimate and coupled with the beautiful surroundings, it was indeed gorgeous.

Lake Varnen

The biggest lake in Sweden. It looked really pretty, the photo does not do it any justice I tell you. *my poor photography skills are appalling*

Although the journey was for so many hours, I have to say that it wasn't all that boring. The sceneries kept me occupied. Being spring, driving through the country with green green lawns against clear blue skies and colourful houses are just so so so pretty.

:)

We finally made it to Oslo by late afternoon, and had the rest of the day at our leisure. We stayed at Thon Opera, which by the way is a wonderful wonderful place! Situated right across the opera house and the sea, the views were great, and the decos in the hotel were really interesting. Being an 'opera hotel', there were displays of dresses worn in plays, and certain rooms marked to stars.

Thon Opera Oslo

Oh oh, free internet too by the way :). Both wired and wireless. I think it's actually a prepaid service that you can buy a service card for, but if you ask at the reception, the card is given to hotel guests for free :).

Welcoming the guest *tee hee hee*

View from the hotel

The Oslo Opera House

I did wander across the street to have a look see and took multiple pictures but the quality's really bad, so I shall not post them up. The house has floors that slant towards the ocean, allowing people to lie on it and soak up the sun while enjoying the seabreeze. It was really quite a nice place to just hang out. What a pity that there wasn't a cafe at the area. Otherwise, it would have been an ideal location!

Isn't it just the cutest!?! :)

Stockholm

The Silja Serenade

Arrived in Stockholm about 8ish-9 a.m. Can't say that the stay in the boat was a bad one as the food were pretty good, despite the time limits. And of course, the windowless rooms. Anyhow, so long I got there in one piece :).

Silja's Stockholm Port

Started our day with a visit to the City Hall. Our guide was from Hong Kong but has lived in Sweden for a number of years. While her English wasn't great, it was good to have her as she could also speak in Mandarin which was fabulous for some of the tour members.

Stockholm City Hall

Located on the Kungsholmen Island in Stockholm, it not only functions as a plain city hall - it hold plenty of ceremonial events and of note, the Nobel Prize Banquet. There were pretty strict rules for visiting the hall, but generally they weren't too difficult to abide by. I wasn't sure if bookings need to be made to visit the hall, but it did seem to have group visits. Might be worth to check it out prior to turning up!

The Blue Hall

Not displaying at hint of blue in the hall (if you exclude the flags), it certainly didn't make sense to me when it was being introduced at the Blue Hall. The story was that, when the architect first designed the hall, he had wanted to paint the walls blue. However, when the walls were built he saw how beautiful the red bricks were and decided against on painting the walls blue. In order to have 'some blue' in the hall, the roofs were made transparent instead :). Interesting, isn't it?

Btw, it is this very same hall that the annual Nobel Prize Banquet is held :D.

*The Nobel Prize has been awarded since 1901, the ceremony held annually on the 10th of December which in on the date that Alfred Noble died. In accordance to his will, the Nobel Prize for Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Literature were awarded in Stockholm and the Peace Price in Oslo.In 1969, another prize was added to be awarded in Stockholm - the Bank of Sweden's Prize for Economic Sciences*

City Hall Council Chambers

Wall carvings along the Gallery of Prince

The other famous hall in here was the Golden Hall, named so as it had ~18,000,000 pieces of golden mosaics and glass.

The Golden Hall

Potrait at the end of the hall

I can no longer remember the significance of the person on the potrait. A queen would be my best guess, but I so have no idea. If I ever find out, I'll add it on at a later date. *But I remember the potrait to be something too masculine for a female or something*. Please feel free to enlighten me!

Overlooking the waters from City Hall's Garden

We left soon after as there was a few other places to head to and we didn't exactly had a lot of time. Not to mention the pouring rain!! *The rest of the trip were pretty much rainy.. I was so glad that I brought winter clothing for the european summer!*

Smallest island in Sweden
*It only has one building on it :D*

Next stop : Royal Palace

Front entrance

Once again, we only took photos from the outside. It was a 10 minute stop maximum. A disappointed me? Yes. An annoyed me? Definitely. The point about visiting another country is to learn about the place, it's history and the people. Not just photo stops!!!!!!!! :(

Photos photos - as that's all I can do :(

Well, while we were there, it also happened to be the time for changing of the guards. Which to me is an absolutely must see!!! Especially if we're already there. If you know me - I love to look at these processions.. it just is the most amazing and interesting AND entertaining thing to look at. I always try to time of visits to palaces, places of worships to observe the changing of guards it possible. Especially when this particular one takes 30 minutes. But NO! I was on a tour. A TOUR - that stops and makes no provision for you to see such things despite being there at the RIGHT TIME! I was honestly and utterly frustrated! But what can I do?

The bits that I managed to catch

Needless to say, there was a very unhappy me on the 4th of June 2009

The only Finnish church in Stockholm
*opposite the Royal Palace*

Headed off for lunch after that before the Vasa Museum.

The Vasa is almost as famous as the Titanic over here, due to her tragic history. The poor ship only sailed for minutes, before capsizing in front of the horrified nation. It was never a stable ship to start with, but when enquiries and concerns were made prior to it's maiden voyage - it was all pushed aside. One of the reasons thought to have contributed to it's sinking was the amount of cannons on the ship. *and there was heaps!!* The official reprts apparently said a gust of strong wind contributed to it's sinking, but plenty of other reports argued otherwise. It was simply a beautiful day and there as no gust of wind.

The original Vasa

The original ship was recovered in 1956 but took 5 years before it was finally lifted from the ocean. There was plenty of work that had needed to be done in order to have it lifted up safely and as preserved as possible. The original ship itself is on display in the museum which I felt was a pretty rare thing, but as one expects - it's not open for visitors. Replicas on decorations and interiors of the ships were made though, so that one can 'experience' the ship. When the ship was lifted, it was placed on a dry dock and construction of the museum was made to surround the ship. Pretty cool I thought :).

Side view of the Vasa

The tragic sink

Replicas of decorations on the ship

There is a 20-30 minute video about the history of the ship and it's recovery in the hall on the ground floor - it runs every hour. There is also guided tours in the museum in different languages, English included. It's free and there's no need to make bookings :).

We didn't really have much to do after the museum as we spent quite a while there - which suited me just fine! Finally, a visit to a museum that actually allowed me time to roam freely and read as much as I could!

On our way to dinner

Stockholm Heart Centre!! :)
*Yes yes - I just HAD to snap it :P. I'm nerdy in that way*

We headed back to the hotel to check in after that, which was quite away from the city centre but it suited me just fine. The rooms were spacious, the service great and best of all, all of the rooms had a separate lounge room! Finally, no more cramp hotel rooms! And free internet by the way :P.

We didn't have much to do in the evening, so I wondered across to the supermarket next door. I can't believe they actually sell the things below! I would have thought you can probably only find them in Asia.

Grey Bear collection chocolates!

Hello Kitty ice-creams
*I don't remember seeing them even in Japan!*

*Random picture*