June 12th Voss to Oslo

We woke to sunshine – 5am so back to sleep – still sunshine at 7am.  Pack, Brekkie check out and then off to the station to catch the train to Oslo. 

The train trip to Oslo is a much admired trip – and rightly so.  It passes little villages, farms, snow covered mountains, half frozen lakes and then slowly you start to see suburbia.  We left Voss at 9am and arrived in Oslo at 3pm.   There was a funny (now but at the time embarrassing) moment – I managed to walk along the rocking train to the ‘wash room’ and struggled to open the door.  Once inside I wasn’t sure how to lock it.  In the carriage the WC sign was green if vacant and red if occupied so – I could see a red button and a green button so I pushed the red button thinking I was locking the door – I was actually pushing the ‘emergency call for train staff’ .  When the alarm bell started beeping I realised and pushed the green button to cancel it.  There was a vast array of buttons above the taps and hand dryer – that was scary as I wondered what problem I could get into there.  The conductor greeted me as I emerged from the wash room – he smiled as I apologised – from his reaction I don’t think I was the first person to make that mistake.  We arrived at Oslo without any other problems – phew.

Oslo station was an experience with so many people rushing here, there and everywhere else.  We had taken a photo of the google map of where our Hotel was so off we set – about a 20 minute walk and there was the Bristol Hotel.

We off loaded our bags and headed out to see the sights of Oslo as we fly out in the morning.

A Kaffe Frappe was a good way to start our tour – we wandered into one shop and we thought we recognised a man – he seemed to know us too – I said Hobart? He nodded – and added that he busks as a one man band in Salamanca- small world.  We wandered through the town and on toward the wharf area – then back to a really nice area near one of the big churches for a pizza for tea.  Yep – a Pizza a glass of red Italian wine and along came a South American band – a real Norwegian experience!

So back to our Hotel to recover from today and get ready for our journey to St Petersburg tomorrow.