Scandinavia- 29th Oct (Sun)

We will be heading back to Oslo today. The initial plan was to do the scenic mountain roads but after the past few experiences, we decided that it might be wiser to steer clear of mountain roads with the probability of snow or ice. So we went back to Oslo on similar routes that we set out on.

We slept in late today and woke up slightly after 10am. We thought it was too late for breakfast and decided to just hit the road. Our car had frosted over through the night. We waited for a while to warm up the car. We saw other cars moving off around the same time and were surprised that everyone else was also starting off so late as it was nearly 11am before we moved off. From Lom, we went on R15 to Otta, got on the E6 heading south to Oslo and stopped at Lillehammer for lunch on the way.

We stopped at Lillehammer for lunch at nearly 2pm. We went to the same Italian restaurant we visited the last time we stopped here for lunch. The town was very quiet on a Sunday, most shops and cafes were closed. Luckily, the restaurant was open and as we sat down for lunch, we noticed that the time on the wall was 1pm. We realized that because of daylight savings, it has gone back an hour. We had been listening to the radio all morning and the English music was terrific but we didn’t understand the DJs as they spoke in Norwegian all the time. So we could have had breakfast this morning after all!

We drove right into Oslo. As we drove around in town, we realized that it might be a mistake driving into the city. There were tram lanes and we weren’t familiar at all with the roads. It was completely stressful for the both of us. But it was a huge relief for us of us to have survived the drive.

We first drove to Frogner Park to see Vigelandsparken. It contained the lifetime work of Gustav Vigeland, Norway’s greatest sculptor, on display in the 30-hectare Frigner Park. There are more than 200 sculptures in granite, bronze and iron. We managed to catch sight of his most celebrated work is the 16m monolith composed of 121 colossal figures, all carved into one piece of stone. It was indeed magnificent.

Next we headed for dinner at Aker Brygge where there was a wide selection of restaurants. Ross had thoughtfully found a Asian food restaurant called East Sushi and Wok on our guide book and wanted to check out the place. We had been eating a lot of Italian food and not much Asian at all. We had our dinner at East Sushi and Wok and desert “Oreo Madness” at FGI Friday’s.

We were staying in Gardermoen for tonight and the next to make it easier for us to return the car the next morning as well as to the airport early in the morning 2 mornings later. Gardermoen is 38km from Oslo and we managed to find a petrol station nearby, filling up the car before checking in at Norlandia hotel.

We drove a total of 438.6 km today.