Oslo Stopover!

Before we headed to the beautiful Lofoten and Vesterålen Islands, we had a six-hour stopover in Oslo between our Frankfurt-Evenes flight. As we had fabulous weather conditions, we decided to use our time to see a little bit of the city.

Taking the train to the Central Station

The fastest way to the city is via Flytoget Airport Express Train. It departs any 10-20 minutes and takes around 20 minutes to the central station. We wouldn’t recommend this one as it is way more expensive (180 NOK per person per trip) and just a little bit faster than the NSB.

The NSB is the normal train (Norwegian State Railways). It costs 93 NOK (per person per trip), takes around 23 minutes and is definitely the cheaper version. You can easily get the tickets at the ticket automats.

If you need more detailed information on departure times and more, head to the Visit Norway Homepage. They offer the relevant links.

Oslo in fast mode

We had three hours in Oslo to see a little bit of the city. Of course, this isn’t enough for museums and details but no one expects that from a stopover.

We definitely saw the most important of the city easily and we’ll show you in the following what we did.

By the way: If you’re hungry and a little bit stingy like us (bad combo, I know), we’ll recommend you to get some sandwiches at the central station. There’s a variety of shops and prices are decent.

The Oslo Opera House/Den Norske Opera og Ballett

The beauty of Oslo for us was, we could see anything we wanted only a short walk from the central station. For example the famous Oslo Opera House. From the entrance of the main station, you just keep left and walk directly to the port.

We spend most of our time here. First of all, because it’s pretty and secondly because ‘Do as the Romans do’: The sun was shining and people were just sitting here enjoying the sun and the view.

Architecture is minimalistic and beautiful. The Opera reminds of an iceberg looking out of the water. From the rooftop, you have a great panoramic view over the city and the fjord. It’s also pretty from the inside. Thanks to the glass facade you can already see a lot from the outside.

There’s a café with interior and outdoor seats. Prices are of course not so pleasant (at least for Germans) but they also won’t ruin you.

Karl Johans Gate

From the main entrance of the central station, you step directly on the Karl Johans Gate, the beautiful main street of the city of Oslo. It’s quite long and leads directly to the King’s Palace. With a little less time of relaxing at the Opera, the three hours would have been enough to see this one, as well. But we didn’t. So it was also nice to see it from the distance.

Along the Karl Johans Gate you’ll find a few sights like the Oslo Cathedral and the Basarhallene (the Bazaar Halls). The latter were once used as butcheries. Today it’s a place with cafés, restaurants and little shops.

Somewhere between the cathedral and the palace along this street, there’s also the Norwegian Parliament called Stortinget. It looks great on pictures.