Ski slope and onwards to Tromsø

Holmenkollen ski jump

Another decent night’s sleep and we woke up to clear blue skies - yay.  First job was breakfast, it was as good as yesterday.  The boys both made themselves waffles whilst I pigged out on ham, cheese, salmon, potato salad and yogurt with all the toppings.  We were all happy.  Then back upstairs for a quick repack of everything before checking out and storing our luggage.  

As it was such a lovely day we decided to head to the huge ski jump at Holmenkollen.  It was a popular destination - the train was full of people mainly in sporty gear heading in the same direction, lots of mountain bikes too - you have to figure that an area which is good for skiing will also be good for mountain biking.  It was a very beautiful train ride - the train went up and round and round and up into the hills amongst the trees, showing us some very pretty suburbs of Oslo.  Oslo has a population of 700,000 but its area is way bigger than other cities of a similar population as it is very spread out.  Anyway, I think I would be more than happy living in a suburb of Oslo.  Certainly the prettiest train ride I have done in a while.  Matt said it reminded him of the train ride from Kobe up to Suzurandai.

View from the top

When we arrived at the station for the ski jump, loads of people disembarked, and made their way up to the jump - we just followed them.  It was pretty steep and quite hot so we were a little sweaty when we got to the top.  Tom, of course, was wearing Herburt and refused to say he was even the slightest bit hot!!!!

When we arrived we got to a viewing platform which we figured was the bottom of the ski jump where skiers land and stop.  It really doesn’t look big enough to fulfil this function and the only thing you can think is that they are all completely mad!

Zip wire. £60 for a 20 second buzz

The main attraction here is that you can get a lift to the top of the ski jump to see a great view of Oslo spread below.  We paid £15 for the privilege and then had to wait in a queue for an hour.  We slowly made our way up the slope and got out at the top.  It was steep, very steep, scarily steep.  They had rigged a zip wire to the top and you could zip wire all the way to the bottoTm if you wished to pay £60.  We didn’t wish to pay that much, so we stood and watched those who did.  It looked fun, but lasted about 20 seconds - that’s a lot of money for 20 seconds pleasure!

In the time that it took to get the lift to the top of the slope it had started to cloud over a bit, so the view wasn’t as clear as we were hoping, but all the same it was a great view.  We could see a cruise ship in the harbour and it totally engulfed the city - looked taller than some of the buildings in the city.  We spent a while at the top and then returned down (no queue) and into the ski museum - all very well if you are into skiing, but we aren’t so not all that interesting.  We did find a magical play area for children including a super speedy slide which Tom enjoyed. Matt couldn't resist, and had to have a go himself

Beautiful kids' play area

We then walked back down to the station and back to central Oslo.  Then back to the hotel, pick up our luggage and onto the airport express train to the airport. Tom seemed slightly disappointed that the train only managed 127 mph this time.  It was over 132 mph on the way in on Friday.  The rest of the day was spent hanging out at the airport - security took no time at all - they aren’t half as strict as in the UK (which always seems the norm!) and then we found a cafe for tea: half a cheese and ham toastie for Tom a ham and brie foccacia for me and a burger and chips for Matt - no drinks - guess how much…£45!  We were expecting Norway to be expensive so we weren’t surprised and knew we just had to do it - but I am curious why it is so expensive - is it because the £ is so weak at the moment, or is it just expensive.  If so, if you are Norwegian - is it expensive to live, or is it just expensive for foreigners?  Not sure what the answer is - maybe a bit of everything?

Arctic sunset

Getting to know the locals

Anyhow, we got our flight to Tromsø no problems - was longer than our flight from Manchester - same plane, so I’m guessing the distance was longer.  We are now in the world’s most northern city and officially inside the Arctic Circle.  Got outside the airport - straight onto the airport bus and into the city of Tromsø via a maze of tunnels (the journey included a roundabout in the tunnel!)  It was cloudy and a bit rainy but 18 degrees which we will take.  Checked into the Radisson Blu, they made us wait as the ‘system wasn’t working properly’ - we are now thinking that Tom isn’t appearing on their computer systems - anyway we didn’t have to wait too long this time.  We have a much bigger room than in Oslo which is good for packing / unpacking - seems a bit more upmarket than the Scandic in Oslo so we are very much looking forward to breakfast tomorrow.  We didn’t arrive here until after 9pm which means we won’t get to see much of Tromsø this time round (we are being picked up by the motorhome people at 10am tomorrow).  It does look interesting so we will have to make sure we get back in time to walk round it properly when we return the motorhome.