Catching Up - Part 3

We reached Oslo late in the evening of July 28th to start a lovely stay at Clarion's Hotel Bastion. Despite being in an area marked by transition, the hotel successfully created an anbience of timeless courtesy and comfort. We were duly impressed and enjoyed our time there. We only had a couple of days in Oslo, so we decided that our tourist activities would be limited to a trip to the Folk Museum,  some walks around key areas such as Karl Johans Gate and Akershus Festning (Fortress), and a little shopping. For those of you who aren't from this part of the world, Karl Johans Gate is Oslo's main street leading from the train station at one end, passing Stortinget (the National Parliament), to the Royal Palace at the other.  Part of the street is closed to traffic to increase its appeal to pedestrians. On much of that section, street performers are now aplenty in the tourist seasons. Sorry I don't have a picture to show you--the walk was unplanned and I didn't have my camera. Here are a few from the Folk Museum, though:

The church at the top is a Stave Church. This was an architectural style of wooden, Catholic church used only in Norway--mostly between 1350 and 1650--before the state church became Lutheran. The churches were actually named for the staves, or pillars, that supported them. There were three main shapes used, of which the one shown is the largest--Borgund style. Many were richly decorated on the inside as well as having elaborate carvings on the door lintels and pillars. Sadly, of the approximately 1000 of these beautiful buildings once dotting the Norwegian countryside, only a handful remain.

The middle picture is of a woman preparing lefse in the traditional way on a hot grill over coals she generated in the fire beside. Everyday lefse is generally made with potato and is not sweet, but the variety she was making were made solely with grain flour (probably wheat, by the taste) and sweet. These would only have been used for festival times. She served them hot with butter--they were delicious!

The horse-and-buggy in the last picture is being pulled by a Fjordhest (fjord horse), one of three horse varieties native to Norway. Although the Fjordhest is not very tall, it is considered to be a horse, rather than a pony on account of its strength. The neck muscles are impressive! The mane is almost always trimmed short to show off the dark strip in the centre. The other two horse varieties are the Norlandshest (Northern Mountain Horse), which is similar to the fjord horse, but smaller yet, and the Dølehest (Norwegian Workhorse), which is a larger (between 14.1 and 15.3 hands high) draft horse.

Finally, from our time in Oslo, is a picture of Akershus Festning from our evening walk on July 30th.