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Despite tourist-office endeavours, OSLO retains a low profile among European cities, and even comparisons with other Scandinavian capitals are usually a little less than favourable. Inevitably, though, you'll pass through - the main train routes heading west to the fjords, north to the Arctic, south to the coast and east to Sweden are routed through the city - but take heart: Oslo is definitely worth seeing. The city has some of Europe's best museums, fields a street life that surprises most first-time visitors, and helps revive travellers weary of the austere northern wilderness.
Oslo is the oldest of the Scandinavian capital cities, founded, according to the Norse chronicler Snorre Sturlason, around 1048 by Harald Hardråde. Several decimating fires and 600 years later, Oslo upped sticks and shifted west to its present site, abandoning its old name in favour of Christiania - after the seventeenth-century Danish king Christian IV responsible for the move. The new city prospered and by the time of the break with Denmark (and union with Sweden) in 1814, Christiania - indeed Norway as a whole - was clamouring for independence, something it finally achieved in 1905, though the city didn't revert to its original name for another twenty years. Today's city centre is largely the work of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, an era reflected in the wide streets, dignified parks and gardens, solid buildings and long, consciously classical vistas, which combine to lend it a self-satisfied, respectable air. Seeing the city takes - and deserves - time. Its half a million inhabitants have room to spare in a city whose vast boundaries encompass huge areas of woods, sand and water, and much of the time you're as likely to be swimming or trail-walking as strolling the city centre
Oslo's main street, Karl Johans gate , leads west up the slope from Oslo S train station. It begins unpromisingly with a clutter of tacky shops and hang-around junkies, but steps away at the corner of Dronningens gate is the curious Basarhallene , a circular building of two tiers, whose brick cloisters once housed the city's food market. The adjacent Domkirke (daily 10am-4pm; free) dates from the late seventeenth century, though its heavyweight tower was remodelled in 1850; plain and dour from the outside, the cathedral's elegantly restored interior is in delightful contrast, its homely, low-ceilinged nave and transepts awash with maroon, green and gold paintwork.
Continuing along Karl Johans gate, it's a brief stroll up to the Stortinget , the parliament building, an imposing chunk of neo-Romanesque architecture that was completed in 1866. It's open to the public, but the obligatory guided tour (July to mid-Aug Mon-Sat 10am, 11.30am & 1pm; mid-Sept to June Sat only 11am & 12.30pm; free) shows little more than can be gleaned from the outside. In front of the parliament, a narrow park-piazza flanks Karl Johans gate; in summer it teems with promenading city folk, while in winter people flock to its floodlit open-air skating rinks.
Lurking at the western end of the park is the neoclassical Nationaltheatret , built in 1899 and fronted by a stodgy statue of playwright Henrik Ibsen. Beyond, up the hill, is the Royal Palace , a monument to Norwegian openness; built between 1825 and 1848, when other monarchies were nervously counting their friends, it still stands without railings and walls and the grounds - Slottsparken - are open to the public. The daily changing of the guard (1.30pm) is a snappy affair, well worth a look. An equestrian statue of the king who built the palace, Karl XIV Johan, stands in front of the main facade inscribed with his motto, "The people's love is my reward".
Back on Karl Johans Gate, the nineteenth-century buildings of the University fit well in this monumental end of the city centre. Among them you will find Norway's largest and best collection of art at the National Gallery , Universitetsgata 13 (Mon, Wed & Fri 10am-6pm, Thurs 10am-8pm, Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 11am-4pm; free). An accessible collection, it may be short of internationally famous painters - with the notable exception of the Impressionists - but there is ample compensation in the museum's comprehensive display of Norwegian paintings. Highlights include some wonderfully romantic, nineteenth-century landscapes by the likes of Johan Christian Dahl and Thomas Fearnley, and two rooms devoted to Edvard Munch, featuring the original version of the famous Scream as well as The Sick Child , the first of an important series of depictions of Munch's dying sister.
Heading south from the University buildings, you can't miss the monolithic brickwork of the Rådhus (May-Aug Mon-Sat 9am-5pm, Sun noon-5pm; Sept-April Mon-Sat 9am-4pm, Sun noon-4pm; free), the massive City Hall, opened in 1950 to celebrate the city's 900th anniversary. Few people had a good word to say about the place when it was first built, but popular irritation has moved on to other, more modern targets, and the Rådhus has worn well, its twin towers a grandiose but somehow rather amiable statement of civic pride. The interior - best seen on one of the frequent free guided tours - celebrates all things Norwegian; the main hall or Rådhushallen is decorated with vast murals by several of the country's leading artists.
On the seaward side of the Rådhus is the central harbour, bordered to the west by the old, yellow Oslo V railway station - now the main tourist office - and Oslo's former shipyard, cleverly remodelled to hold the hi-tech shopping halls of the Aker Brygge development. In the opposite direction, running east from the Rådhus, is Rådhusgata , which leads to the city's other harbour, Vippetangen, the gridiron streets on either side of it a legacy of seventeenth-century Oslo - though sadly it's only the layout that survives. To the south of Rådhusgata is Akershus Castle (May to mid-Sept Mon-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 12.30-6pm; late April & mid-Sept to Oct Sun only 12.30-4pm; 20kr; free guided tours Mon-Sat 11am, 1pm & 3pm, Sun 1pm & 3pm), the most significant memorial to medieval Oslo. Built on a rocky knoll overlooking the harbour around 1300, it was modernized in the seventeenth century by Christian IV. A visit to the castle takes in the royal chapel and mausoleum, but it's all rather bland. Very much more diverting is the Resistance Museum , beside the castle entrance (daily 10/11am-3/4pm; 20kr), where excellent displays detail the history of the war in Norway, from defeat and occupation through resistance to final victory. Surrounding the castle are the sprawling earth and stone ramparts and bastions of the Akershus Festning fortress, which date from the seventeenth century and which were designed to resist artillery bombardment - the part of the fortress adjoining the castle offers fine views over the central harbour.
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