My wife and I are currently taking a replacement bus service instead of our scheduled train. The views outside the windows of mountains with huge fjords at their base are incredible.
Obviously we'd booked the entire train journey from Oslo to Bergen, but track problems after Voss meant we were forced to disembark there and scramble with our luggage for any of the six buses we were told were awaiting us train passengers.
As our full bus pulled away from the train station my wife and I both felt very fortunate. We watched as other passengers were still trying to board their bus, while others stood, confused expressions on their faces, waiting beside their luggage with crossed fingers for more buses to arrive soon. I think someone at the train company had calculated wrong as six buses weren't enough.
We even had a poor woman who explained to the driver she'd put her luggage under our bus only to find no spare seats as she boarded. It was a shamozzle. The kind of shamozzle that becomes a holiday story that will be repeated forever by every passenger on our train today.
Oslo was beautiful. We both found the city relaxing to explore, the buildings were interesting, the waterways very scenic, the art controversial... and unlike Sorrento, Paris or Nice, no one lit a cigarette or puffed a vape while we ate in a restaurant. In fact we saw few people smoking at all, which was an interesting phenomenon considering we were still in Europe.
Upon venturing from our hotel located near Central Station we came upon Bok & Media. A lovely book store that it turned out had no James Bond novels as it only sold religious books and items. The friendly guys behind the counter had already allowed me to take some photos so here they are anyway:
Next up was Norli Eldorado book store selling both Nordic and English language books. My wife loved this store. And the staff were great. They even disappeared for a couple of minutes to rummage through their store room before returning with an English language copy of "Casino Royale" their computer inventory said was supposed to be on the shelf.
At Central Station there was also Ark Bok Handel. This store had all the books required to accompany a person on a train journey to elsewhere in Norway, or perhaps even an adjoining country. As with most of the stores I visited on this holiday there was the obligatory copy of Anthony Horowitz's "With A Mind To Kill".
These were the three book stores we visited in Oslo. I'm sure there were plenty more we could have visited but we didn't want to spend all our time book hunting. Instead we located some record stores where I purchased CD's created by the Norwegian music artist who had inspired us to travel to this country: Susanne Sundfor.
If you've seen the film "Oblivion" starring Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman you've already heard Susanne's amazing voice as she sings the theme song in the closing credits. One day I hope she'll be offered the opportunity to sing a James Bond theme song, afterall another Norwegian band, A-ha, have already sung "The Living Daylights" back in 1987. Here's four of her albums:
Here's some more photos from Oslo:
The famous bronze tiger statue outside Central Station
The Royal Palace
Sculptures made of human figures in Frogner and Vigeland Park
