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Friday 17th was Norway’s National day so we went into town and watched all the parades and bands marching past. What really made the day was over 50% of people made the effort to get dressed up in their national costume (puts Australia to shame). The men wear pantaloons with the long socks pulled up inside them, a pirate shirt and waistcoat or jacket. The ladies along embroidered skirt of felt or heavy linen, a white apron over the top, and a white shirt under the pinafore front of the dress.

We explored the Akershus castle grounds that overlooks the harbour and had a look in on the Resistance museum in one of the outbuildings. It is significant that this museum is here, as the castle was taken over for a Nazi HQ inWW2. Lots of old things and a really good English translation. Craig was surprisingly interested ! It is one of the few museums that held his attention for more than 5 mins!!

Tracey and I cooked a meal up that night in the tent foyer, can’t remember what now, something with tomatoes and rice I think. Anyway the point is we didn’t want to tell Craig about the ½ dozen hot plates in the communal kitchen, we wanted him to experience "roughing it". The next few nights however we relented and did everything the easy way,, for our sakes more than his as the novelty of sharing a confined space had worn off.

The next day we all invested in an "Oslo" card which gives you free admission into the sights and free transport. Our first stop was the Norwegian Folk Museum which was an outdoor collection of historical buildings. They were relocated from all around Norway and some of the old log cabins were 400 yrs old. They were gorgeous as all had turf roofs, some totally unkept
with flowers to fir trees sprouting out the top. It was so realistic the way it was arranged into farmyard settings from the same region, usually a couple of cottages, some barns, a cow/sheepshed or two and other misc. buildings. Some of them were furnished with the original wooden furniture. There was also an old stave church dated from 850AD.

Next was the Viking museum, the showpiece was 2 well preserved Viking ships. One was a royal funeral barge and one a warrior boat. While we were on boats we dropped in at the Fram museum, the name of the boat that first reached the South pole in 1911. It was great as you could go below decks and experience the claustrophobic conditions for yourself.

Next day we went to the Munch museum,,, famous artist of "The Scream", the one that Craig was impersonating all day.!! I loved the other works too, it’s just a pity that they weren’t available in poster size. He painted bright realistic paintings sort of an impressionist like Monet, and guess what……like many others he was a nutter too!!

What really got our attention was Frogner Park and in particular, the Vigeland Sculpture park contained within. Orchestrated by Gustav Vigeland, it took a few years to complete. Full of bigger than life human figures carved from granite in all possible postures and interactions, mostly depicting the family at different cycle stages.

Well on Monday 20th we arrived back into Stockholm feeling very accomplished and desperate for a comfortable bed!