Despite tourist-office endeavours,
OSLO
retains a low profile among European
cities, and even comparisons with
other Scandinavian capitals are
usually a little less than
favourable. Inevitably, though,
you'll pass through - the main train
routes heading west to the fjords,
north to the Arctic, south to the
coast and east to Sweden are routed
through the city - but take heart:
Oslo is definitely worth seeing. The
city has some of Europe's best
museums, fields a street life that
surprises most first-time visitors,
and helps revive travellers weary of
the austere northern wilderness.
Oslo is the oldest of the
Scandinavian capital cities,
founded, according to the Norse
chronicler Snorre Sturlason, around
1048 by Harald Hardråde. Several
decimating fires and 600 years
later, Oslo upped sticks and shifted
west to its present site, abandoning
its old name in favour of
Christiania - after the
seventeenth-century Danish king
Christian IV responsible for the
move. The new city prospered and by
the time of the break with Denmark
(and union with Sweden) in 1814,
Christiania - indeed Norway as a
whole - was clamouring for
independence, something it finally
achieved in 1905, though the city
didn't revert to its original name
for another twenty years. Today's
city centre is largely the work of
the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, an era
reflected in the wide streets,
dignified parks and gardens, solid
buildings and long, consciously
classical vistas, which combine to
lend it a self-satisfied,
respectable air. Seeing the city
takes - and deserves - time. Its
half a million inhabitants have room
to spare in a city whose vast
boundaries encompass huge areas of
woods, sand and water, and much of
the time you're as likely to be
swimming or trail-walking as
strolling the city centre.
The City
Oslo's main street, Karl Johans gate
, leads west up the slope from Oslo
S train station. It begins
unpromisingly with a clutter of
tacky shops and hang-around junkies,
but steps away at the corner of
Dronningens gate is the curious ...
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