WEEK 6 IN OSLO - ALEX

 

November 18 to November 26, 2024 – ‘Tis the Season

The Christmas season has arrived in Northern Europe. Without Thanksgiving to act as a buffer Christmas has gotten into full swing. Local markets are beginning to open up, lights are put up and on full display throughout the city and Christmas advertising is front and center. Neither one of us are big Christmas people, but we are a fan of the extra lights and excited to experience the festivities in a different way.

Oslo Christmas Market at Karl Johans Gate, a main street in downtown Oslo between Norway's parliament building and royal palace.

First Snowfall

On Tuesday, the city had its first real snowfall of the year. Excited to start skiing this made both of us very happy. Unfortunately, at the time of me writing this there has been a warm spell and everything has melted, including the man made snow that training areas were working on developing. With that said, the colder weather and Christmas lights have made it feel as if winter has properly arrived.

Alex Explores Oslo

With colder temperatures and light snow on the ground Alex spent his free time exploring Oslo a little differently. He went out to Nordmarka on his feet rather than bicycle to check out the Bjørnsjøhelvete, a suspension bridge tucked away in the forest and climbed Norway’s longest tower, Stovner, an underwhelming experience. He also utilized the public ferries and spent an afternoon relaxing and hiking around Gressholmen in the Oslofjord. The DNT key came in handy here, because he was able to eat lunch and read in a heated DNT cabin. Everything else on the island is closed, private, or a part of a nature preserve, so this was a nice retreat. Finally, he went up to a couple of the popular winter ski areas accessible by the city metro system including the ski jump at Holmenkollen. It’s quite an intimidating structure and standing in the arena looking up at the jump gives you a similar feeling as standing on an exposed edge.

From upper to lower photo: Stovner tower, the longest tower in Norway at 265 meters (the top is 15 meters off the ground), Alex enjoying the bridge at Bjørnsjøhelvete, awaiting the ferry at Gressholmen after a lovely afternoon relaxing and exploring on the island.

Clockwise from upper left: View from Frognersetern, one of the ski areas accessible by the local metro system, ski jump and snow making at the practice facility, Holmenkollen ski jump, which hosts world cup events.

Escape to Tromsø

The week was highlighted by an impromptu trip to Tromsø. Nicknamed “The Paris of the North”, Tromsø is the third largest city north of the Arctic Circle in the world. Its location, access to nature and temperate weather, thanks to the gulf stream, make it an international destination throughout the year. In winter its biggest draws are whale watching and seeing the northern lights. A quick two night trip from Sunday to Tuesday, we had the express goals of seeing whales (successful), observing the northern lights (not successful) and experiencing total darkness (sort of successful).

Naturally, when we arrived in Tromsø at 9:30 Sunday morning the sun was over an hour from rising. In fact 11/24 marked the first day that the sun would not be visible from the city, because the surrounding mountains obscure the view of the near horizon sun. We spent Sunday hiking to an overlook of the city where we had a nice lunch, watched the sun rise and set, and took a scenic cable car ride back down to town. We spent the rest of the day walking through downtown, shopping, and being underwhelmed by the local Christmas market.

From upper to lower: Restaurant and cable car station overlooking the city, Morgan and Alex taking an obligatory selfie from the overlook, Morgan hiking up in the snow.

On Monday, we went whale watching in the herring feeding grounds around Skjervøy, a small town 60 miles north of Tromsø as the crow flies. It took about 3.5 hours to get there by boat, and from firsthand experience we can say there are a lot worse places to go for a scenic boat ride. We were lucky enough to see two different pods of orcas and two humpbacks. Although the sun did not rise, Skjervøy is technically in complete darkness beginning 11/25, there was still a couple hours of ambient light in the sky making the whale watching possible.

Clockwise from upper left: Morgan enjoying a moment on the deck during our boat ride, Alex enjoying a coffee and kanelbolle, our fellow whale watchers on the lookout, Morgan on the lookout, view of the mountains surrounding Skjervøy.

A highlight, or lowlight if you will, was experiencing the total darkness of the Arctic in the winter. Both of us have experienced the opposite during the summer where the sun does not set, so observing total darkness was something new. It’s worth noting that there was more light than either one of us anticipated. Even when the sun does not rise, as was the case in Skjervøy starting on 11/25, there is still ambient light from the south that gives you an hour or two of light. It is bright enough that you wouldn’t need to turn the lights on your car and the twilight/dusk effect has everything filtered in a blue hue.

Much like Paris, Tromsø is a city of lights, the comparison ends there. Stargazing and aurora hunting is difficult from the city, although we were able to find a nearby park that didn’t have any lights. The light pollution combined with the overcast skies obscured any views we would have otherwise had of the northern lights. Oslo is far enough north where they would be visible from time to time, but generally speaking your odds are better the further north you go. If we come again within the next year, we will do a better job of planning an excursion outside the populated area to improve our odds.

Alex on the lookout for the northern lights in Tromsø