(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)
Today’s flashback takes us to Oslo, Norway. In English, the name of this city is probably the least exciting of the northern European capitals. After visiting Bergen and the mighty fjords, we anticipated seeing a few major sights and then moving on to somewhere in Sweden or southern Norway with a better travel reputation. Oslo’s legendarily high costs also weighed heavily on our minds. Surely, we wouldn’t spend the entire remaining week of our vacation there?
But a funny thing happened on the way to somewhere else: Oslo grew on us!
The high costs were partially offset by the saving grace of Scandinavian tourism: because business travel basically shuts down during the summer, Oslo’s better hotels all compete mightily for the modest number of tourists that find their way to the city. The result: 4-star hotels at (almost) bargain prices. The unforgettable (and included) smorgasbord breakfasts remain the same year-round, so we were able to skip lunch most days…as long as we treated ourselves to some hitherto unheralded Norwegian gelato in the early afternoon!
Norwegians are sports-crazy and it is only fitting that two of our favourite Oslo experiences were sports-related…and yes, very exciting! The first was a journey to the legendary Holmenkollen ski jump facility (also known as Holmenkollbakken) in the northern part of the city. The Norwegians excel at ski jumping and this facility is the Mecca of ski jumping in Norway. The ski jumping events at the 1952 Winter Olympics were held here and it has continued to host prestigious meets ever since.
When we visited Holmenkollen, the structure was in the process of a complete rebuild. Nonetheless, we could still go to the top and look down from the top of the ski jump. I’ll cut to the chase: if you think flying off a ski jump is crazy, don’t go to the top of a ski jump and look down. It looks even crazier, with a steep, narrow path ending in absolute nothingness and seemingly certain death. It is definitely scary, even for someone who has spent on awful lot of time on skis.
The facility also has a ski museum that traces the development of skiing from its earliest cross-country roots to modern day alpine skiing, ski jumping and freestyle skiing. For a kitschy bonus, I decided to take a ride on the alpine skiing simulator set up there. Along with a handful of strangers, I got to experience a World Cup ski race…complete with chattering ice and every other unnerving effect you can imagine.
I once experienced a scary radar-gun-verified speed of 85 km/h on skis on a controlled slope in Switzerland and, after seeing a colleague take a bad spill at roughly that speed, it was something I resolved to never try again. However, that uneasy feeling was nothing compared to this terrifying simulation at roughly twice that speed. Ski racing is just as crazy as ski jumping!
The other sports experience in Oslo was seeing a professional soccer game at Ullevaal Stadion, home ground for Oslo’s legendary Vålerenga soccer team (wearing blue, in the photo at the top of this post) . As with our visit to an international match in Stockholm two years later, we had a great time at the game itself and really felt like we had experienced a “real” aspect of life in Oslo. There were few tourists here!
It was great to see a lot of goals, as Vålerenga romped to an 8-1 victory over IK Start from Kristiansand. Despite the one-sided result, fans of both teams were boisterous but well-behaved. We’ll never forget the fans from Kristiansand singing on the subway out to the game! We were also impressed with Vålerenga’s appreciation for their supporters. As with Feyenoord in the Netherlands, jersey #12 is reserved for the Vålerenga fans as the “12th player” and the players diligently saluted their fans when the game was over.
While these sporting expeditions were memorable, there is plenty more to see and do in Oslo. Stay tuned for details!