Sleep and breakfast, rinse and repeat.
After breakfast, around 9am, we headed out. We wandered down to the fortress, expecting to have to pay to go in and possibly you do to go in the buildings, but you can walk all around the grounds for free which was pretty cool. We wandered around for three quarters of an hour and there's some great views of the city.
Akershus Fortress
Akershus Fortress
Walls of Akershus Fortress
Akershus Fortress
Akershus Fortress
Akershus Fortress
Gate in Akershus Fortress
View of Oslo from Akershus Fortress
Vehicle ferries in Oslo
Gate in Akershus Fortress
Guard in Akershus Fortress
Akershus Fortress
Tower in Akershus Fortress
Akershus Fortress
Oslo from Akershus Fortress
Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art
Color Magic arriving in Oslo
Akershus Fortress
Cannons at Akershus Fortress
S/S Helena in Oslo
Akershus Fortress
Akershus Fortress
Akershus Fortress
Forsvarets materielltilsyn (Norwegian Defence Materiel Agency) building
Then we headed up to the Historical Museum, because our tickets for the viking ship museum covered it. Didn't really spend all that much time there.
Oslo Historical Museum (Museum of Cultural History)
Oval viking brooch
The Gjermundbu helmet
Medieval chainmail armour
Oslo Historical Museum
Flowers along Karl Johans Gate
Then back to the hotel to sort out our bags and get ourselves ready. We'd done 10000 steps before lunch time!
The hotel was in a super convenient location - right on top of the station. So getting to the trains was super easy. We went and got some tickets for the regular train, not the airport express, because it's like half the price to do it that way. The train got up to 200 km/h for most of the trip and took about the same amount of time as the airport express anyway. And it had free wifi :)
Air traffic control tower at Oslo Airport
Got to the airport and checked in. Check in and bag drop was all electronic and super easy, didn't have to interact with any humans at all. Oslo airport is generally quite user friendly. There's plenty of shops in the terminal too to look at while waiting. I finished up yesterday's photo sorting then grabbed a slice of pizza for lunch. Then Mum and I went through all of her childhood photos that I'd scanned recently and labelled what we could.
Our plane was about half an hour late leaving, I forget the reason why. Technical difficulties I think. Took off to the south and saw Oslo as we flew over it. Then over the Netherlands - pretty sure I saw Schipol and Rotterdam but really need to see the GPS track to be sure. Rain as we arrived in Brussels.
SAS Boeing 737-700 SE-RJX at Oslo Airport
View of Oslo from the air
Breezanddijk in the Netherlands from the air
Amsterdam Schipol Airport from the air
Rotterdam from the air
Brussels airport is *not* very user friendly. We wanted to see about our flights tomorrow, but we first had to try and figure out which terminal it would likely go from. After wandering around trying to find anything useful, but failing, we thought we'd just go check in to the hotel and dump our bags then come back and try again. Even trying to get out of the airport to get to the hotel (which is conveniently just across the road from the terminal we came out of) was a drama. I couldn't even see emergency exit signs anywhere. We ended up asking someone how to get out of the damned terminal! Fail fail fail.
Moon rocket from Tintin!!
So checked into the hotel (it was about 19:40 by this point and we were tired and hungry). Had a look at the restaurant downstairs, but it looked expensive and uninspiring, so we went back to the airport. Because of the bombings a while back, security is pretty intense. There's no car pickups/dropoffs outside the terminal anymore - people have to use the parking garages for that. Not even any taxis. They must go somewhere, but don't know where. So the road between the terminal and the hotel is pedestrian only, with a security tent setup for access to the terminal, and a *lot* of heavily armed soldiers and police. Apparently from tomorrow the split terminal checkins are merging back into the one. Or something. Also apparently only passengers are allowed into the terminals at the moment - no visitors or people saying goodbye. Not that they actually checked that when we went back in so whatevs.
Anyway, found something to eat (just some pasta), then back to the hotel.
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