The Baltic Sea Cruise: Oslo Norway

Oslo, Norway was our first Baltic Sea cruise stop but technically it was our second stop. The cruise started at Copenhagen, Denmark.  We had made plans to visit Copenhagen initially but after 24 hours of flight in total, we were too tired to do anything let alone roaming around in Copenhagen – maybe next time.

Oslo is Scandinavia’s oldest capital city and has been a major trading port for over a millennium.  It is the least populous capital in Scandinavia and offers excellent theater, great cafes and quality shopping.  The city itself boasts a sophisticated, yet cozy charm, with a blend of 19th- and 20th-century buildings with public parks.

PORT TO CITY

You do not need to book an excursion or get a taxi from the port to the city.  You can visit the entire city with foot within a couple hours if you like to walk – and you may consider doing that given all the food you have consumed on the ship.  Although our cruise line offers a complimentary day camp for kids during seaport days we took our kids with us to enjoy the city.

DON’T MISS

If you do plan to visit Oslo, Norway, make sure to stop by the Natural Museum to see The Thinker and The Scream – it’s quite a treat and you won’t be disappointed.

The Nobel Peace Prize center is also located in Oslo and it is less than five minutes of walking distance from the cruise ship.

Although the Royal Palace is one of the recommended places to visit you cannot go inside until summer.  We were not able to go inside the palace but was able to watch the soldiers guarding the palace, especially one of them is a woman.  We were able to walk through the park. It was not spectacular like other parks we have visited but it was nice just to walk through.

The Vigeland Sculpture Park is supposedly gorgeous but we were not able to get to the park.  It’s a bit further away from the city and would require to take the train or taxi to get there.  Our kids got tired and hungry so we decided to skip this place.

WIFI

Not every cafe/restaurant provides free WIFI even if you are a paying customer.  But you can always count on Starbucks where the WIFI is free and the connection speed is so much better than the surrounding areas.

ORDER THIS

We always look for local foods to eat wherever we go.  Although we didn’t have a lot of time to visit most local restaurants there we really enjoyed our meal at Cafe Elias.  The food was great and the service was excellent.  It is behind the Natural History Museum.  You can also find a variety of restaurants along the pier.

Overall, Oslo is an extremely peaceful clean place to visit so it’s no surprise that Norway is consistently named the best place to live in the world by the United Nation’s Annual Human Development Report.  This is definitely a place to consider retiring to if the cost of living (equivalent to Los Angeles and NYC) is not an issue for you.

Next Port: Warnemunde/Rostock (Berlin), Germany