20260605 Friday, June 5, 2026 A Day in Oslo
As is common with jet lag, despite being extremely tired upon putting our heads down on the pillow, we both found ourselves wide awake at 3 a.m. Ben decided to hit the fitness center when it opened at 5 a.m.
Accessing the fitness center requires a fair bit of logistical finessing. The Radisson Blu Plaza has 37 floors, but the elevators are split so some only service the floors above 16, and others only below 16. The fitness center starts on the 32nd floor, where sauna rooms are located. Then you have to climb a series of narrow spiral stairs to access the pool area, which apparently is on floor 34.
The pool is narrow and long, and features a swimming current that can be activated with a button at the front of the pool, like an endless pool. There is no hot tub, and just a few lounging chairs and a small changing area with lockers next to the pool.
From there, you have to ascend more narrow spiral stairs to get to the gym, which is at the very top of the building, which is more of an enclosed catwalk, into which gym equipment has been jammed.
It is a very odd narrow and elongated space. It must get unbearably hot in there when the sun is shining because it is like a greenhouse. Fortunately, it was raining heavily outside when Ben was up there. At the time, there were 3 other guys working out at that hour.
As difficult as it was to get up to the gym, it was even trickier to get back down because the exit doors lock behind you and there is no access to any floors from the stairs until you get to floor 26, so you have to go down more than 10 flights of stairs to get access back to the elevators. And even if you get back into the elevators, you can only access the public areas such as the transfer floor 16, breakfast floor 2, and lobby 1. Even on the transfer floor 16, you cannot select any hotel room floors other than the breakfast floor 2 and lobby 1. Then you can access other room floors from the breakfast floor 2 or lobby 1 due to the computerized floor selection system.
The breakfast buffet at the Radisson Blu Plaza in Oslo is a typical business class hotel breakfast brunch with a broad selection of hot and cold menu items, including some international fare. They did have a waffle station right at the entrance to the breakfast area, which was quite remote from all the other food. There was a selection of jams and butter there, but the Norwegian brown cheese (brunost) was situated with other cheeses and cold cuts. There was also a featured Norwegian blue cheese and a bottle of cod liver oil. Espresso drinks were available via automated machines.
The weather did not appear favorable for our tours, as it was raining pretty steadily. There were a lot of tour groups meeting in the lobby. We got assigned a Viking bus that was about 60-75% full, so there was plenty of room to spread around on the bus, but with the rain, it was hardly worth it to try to take photos through the rain-soaked windows.
As the bus made its way through Oslo, our guide explained that Oslo is working on eliminating internal combustion engines within the city by 2030. About 80-90% of all new car sales in Oslo are now electric vehicles. Electric vehicles get privileged access to lanes and parking, although parking and private vehicle ownership is very expensive in general in Oslo. Consequently, the vast majority of residents use public transportation.
It is highly remarkable the lack of traffic or congestion within Oslo. The streets are largely empty aside from a fleet of electric taxis, street trams, and buses. e-Scooters are the biggest hazard to pedestrians in Oslo. There are dedicated lanes for bikes and scooters, but the scooters just seem to come out of nowhere and aren’t restricted to the bike and scooter lanes.
Our Viking Oslo tour started with a drive to the Bygdøy Peninsula, where the Norwegian Royal farm and stables are located, as well as several museums. When we were on a Princess Cruises Oslo excursion, we visited a Viking ship museum, which is now currently under remodeling and closed, and an outdoor museum of Norwegian country life.
On this Viking excursion, we were instead taken to a museum dedicated to the polar exploration vessel Fram, and the experimental balsa raft vessels Kon-Tiki and Ra, which were used to test hypotheses on whether it was possible for Polynesians to have originated from South America, or if early peoples of the Caribbean might have originated from Europe or Africa, riding on ocean currents and winds.
The Fram is completely enclosed within a cavernous building with museum exhibits around its periphery on 3 levels, and you can also explore within the ship itself, provided you can navigate your way through its narrow, irregular passageways and ladders. You could see that the forward lounge in Viking’s current expedition class ships bears some inspiration from the configuration of the bow in the Fram, with its shape and diagonal anchor chain passages.
The Fram was a wooden-hulled vessel equipped with both sails and a large diesel motor. The propeller and rudder were designed to be retractable so that the vessel could be intentionally frozen into polar sea ice and survive, acting as a base of operations for explorers. It pioneered shipboard use of a windmill for electrical generation.
While it is not an ancient Viking vessel, it was a very interesting vessel to explore and learn about.
Across the street from the Fram museum is the Kon-Tiki museum, featuring replicas of Moas from Easter Island (Rapanui) and replicas of the balsa rafts made famous by Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl, who sought to prove in 1947 that it was possible for people from Peru to have sailed to Polynesia. Similar balsa rafts were also used in the 1970s to explore other possible human marine migration routes.
It was certainly nice to be able to spend a few hours exploring these museums, especially since it was raining outside.
From the museums, we drove to the Vigeland Sculpture Park, which features innumerable sculptures by Gustav Vigeland in marble and bronze. We had visited this on our prior Princess Cruises excursion when the weather was perfect, but today, it was raining pretty much the whole time, so it was a pretty quick walk-through tour.
We returned to the hotel after 1 p.m. and were on our own for the rest of the afternoon.
We walked a bit into Oslo and found a kebab shop for lunch after walking through the train station and adjacent mall. We did find a very popular Los Tacos place that was just packed with locals, but couldn’t find any place to sit indoors and it was raining, so the outdoor seating was not suitable. We got our Kebab special to go and headed back to the hotel room to get out of the rain and dry off.
Our suitcases had to be put out by 9 p.m. for transport to the Viking Neptune. We need to meet in the hotel lobby at 5:40 a.m. to walk to the train station for our scenic rail trip to Bergen tomorrow. We’ll have to see what kind of take-out breakfast they manage to provide for us tomorrow.
