“Two beers please,” I told the waitress at Café Skansen, on a patio that spilled out opposite Akershus Fortress. To choose a brand, my husband and I looked back to our menus, still dappled – at 9 p.m. – with sunlight filtered through linden trees. But when we looked up again just a few seconds later, she was gone.
I’ve always giggled at those movies where the hero walks into a bar and orders “a beer” without qualification – as unlikely as hanging up the phone without saying goodbye. Yet in Oslo, where most pubs partner with a single brewery, there’s rarely much of a choice. A moment later we received our half-litre glasses of Aegir Rallar ale and toasted the summer sun while our daughters played tag on the Akershus Fortress grounds. It could not have been simpler.
The reputation of Norwegians is of a complicated, isolated, melancholy people. In a city whose most famous sons are Edvard Munch and Henrik Ibsen, so emotionally tormented at their creative peak, well, what madness must lurk. Except Oslo in summertime is as uncomplicated a city as you’ll find in Europe – filled with sociable, smartly dressed citizens who hang their heads out their car windows at stoplights to catch some of that 19-hour-a-day sun. If you’re jet-lagged, prone to insomnia or generally full of beans, you’ll have met your match. Oslo is the Big Apple of Europe from May through August, never truly asleep, always up for anything.
Where did the time go that evening? We landed at 4 p.m. in Sandefjord, a destination budget airlines equate with Oslo to lull passengers into a false sense of arrival. In fact, it is more than 90 minutes by train, but our journey was mitigated by the views en route: sun-bleached farmland punctuated by red wood barns on one side and turquoise fjords on the other.
“Enjoy it,” said the passenger who’d shifted aside so we could crane our necks. With the airport – and the Oslo outskirts – becoming more popular, he told us, this line will soon be buried, making the journey shorter, yet less scenic. “You caught it at the perfect time.”
When we headed out for supper at 8 p.m., the restaurants were heaving and the sidewalks around the old town square were humming with the “rhubarb rhubarb” of preweekend chatter. After we’d drained our beers at Skansen, hopped along the ruins of Kontraskjaeret green and watched over the clifftop as the sailboats cruised into port, it was barely dusk. By 11, as a procession of couples in formal wear began to swish out of a gala behind the fort’s walls, we decided it was time for the kids to turn in. The sky was still a cool, soft blue when my husband and I stood on our hotel balcony to watch the park benches fill with youngsters necking bottles of craft beer.
Oslo may be one of Europe’s most sprawling cities, but it is no concrete jungle. Two-thirds of its area is forested. It claims 343 lakes and 40 islands. And its focus is the Oslofjord, the serpentine bay that leads to the North Sea. The city’s historic architecture – the Royal Palace, the City Hall with its astounding modernist murals – was built to maximize the views. And its contemporary buildings – the delicate Astrup Fearnley Museum and the radiant marble Opera House – appear to slide offshore into the bay.
Summers revolve around the water. At 9 a.m. we nearly missed the fish market at Radhus Brygge; the few remaining fishermen tethered to the dock had hit the bottom of their buckets, scooping out shrimp for the stragglers. Our goal was to catch the ferry, anyway. The sun was anchored in solid blue and the temperature, at 25, was warmer than back home – ideal for sailing, watching the swimmers off Hovedoya beach and walking the genteel streets of Bygdoy.
A peninsula to the city’s west, Bygdoy is where the Royal Family summers and Norway’s finest folk art holds visitors in its thrall. The Folk Museum shows fashion, housewares and paraphernalia from the Sami people, known in English as Laplanders. The striking A-frame Fram Museum, named for a Norwegian polar-exploration vessel, has vestiges of Roald Amundsen’s adventures. Our kids pushed for the Viking Ship Museum, so we hiked past yacht clubs and pretty residential gardens to a charming white stucco sanctuary housing three immense ninth-century ships; we climbed up a pulpit to view the whalebone design from above.
Ferries to the islands wrap up at twilight, but Oslo’s engulfing parkland – from Bygdoy to Holmenkollen, with its iconic ski jump – is open 24/7. And trams run until 4 a.m. on weekends. Back on the mainland, we caught the No. 12 to Vigeland Park, a manicured greenscape centred on 200 bronzes by native modernist Gustav Vigeland. His output was impressive – even by the standards of our children, who clambered over the backs of bare figures, grabbed dangling privates and posed with a pouty bronze baby so popular his hand was buffed to a verdigris-free shine. As we following a mosaic maze out toward the elaborate iron gates, one local told us, “The gates are a formality. They never close.”
Oslo’s hardy, ruddy-cheeked citizens share an innate outdoorsiness. They may enjoy the nouveau wealth of a country discovered, in the 1970s, to be steeped in oil, but at heart they are farmers, fishermen and survivalists. The city lacks the ostentation of Copenhagen and the cutting edge of Stockholm, yet when a subtle afternoon sprinkling begins, causing broad rainbows to form across the hillside, we ducked into design shops with adorable stationery and boutiques with unaffordable denim.
Our evening spun out on the Tjuvholmen peninsula. The beach outside the Astrup Fearnley gallery is shallow and equipped with interactive modern sculpture for hanging off of. It’s the gallery itself we were warned against with the kids. We overheard one visitor emerge with the following review of the art: “Everyone was either naked or dead.” Slipping our shoes back on, we padded over to the glass-walled harbour restaurant Tjuvholmen Sjomagasin and ordered three courses of fish, including a chunky, salmon-flecked soup we were shocked to witness the girls devour. We rewarded them with ice cream at Paradis Gelateria. And when, after dashing around the alfresco bars on the pier, they fell asleep in our arms, we sneaked them up to the rooftop bar at the Thief boutique hotel. They were unmoved by the DJ beats. We were tempted – only just – to stay until the 6:30 a.m. afterparty breakfast.
Oslo has 24/7 charms aplenty. On the waterfront to the east of the city is the snowy-white ski slope of an opera house, built by Norwegian architects Snohetta with the intention of being walked up, over and through any time of day – or night. From its marble peak you can see ahead to Oslo’s bushy green islands, and behind to the Sentralstasjon, where volleyballers play on the concrete beach, and across to Ekebergparken, a hillside wood slashed with walking trails that reinvented itself recently as a sculpture park.
We passed an afternoon at Ekeberg, hiking between lookouts over the fjord, gazing up at two sculptural metallic figures by Louise Bourgeois, grabbing the hand of Sean Henry’s giant Walking Woman. And when we discovered a temporary exhibit by the pioneering light artist James Turrell, the girls had no qualms about waiting an hour for the staggered entry. Eventually, an English guide ushered them through as if they were the only two in the awe-inspiring space.
We had to run, practically, to our dinner reservation at Restaurant Festningen, tucked behind the fortress – arriving just as a colossal Royal Caribbean cruise ship was leaving port with a deep blow. We sipped “beer” there until sunset near midnight, wrapping ourselves in the cashmere throws on the backs of our chairs. Our new friends at the next table moved on to Sukkerbiten, a jumble of venues on an old loading dock that pops up in summertime with DJ tents, spit-roasted meat and a pizza oven. The staff were heading up to Parkteatret, an old cinema-cum-club in Grunerlokka. The night was still young for Oslo.
IF YOU GO
Finnair and British Airways fly from Toronto and Vancouver to Oslo via London Heathrow. Air Canada flies from Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal to Oslo via Newark.
Where to stay
Thon Hotels are central, (relatively) inexpensive and well designed. The Thon Hotel Panorama is walking distance from the central train station and most sights in downtown Oslo. Doubles from around $188, including breakfast, in summer. thonhotels.no
The Thief is the most fashionable boutique hotel in the centre, with king-sized beds, beautifully designed meeting places, a spa and a rooftop bar open May to September. Doubles from around $395, breakfast included. thethief.com
Where to eat
Restaurant Festningen has a privileged location on a cliff outside the city’s fortress, with a view of the sunset over the harbour. In summer, diners sit in a covered patio outside the old stone cottage, with pashminas on every chair. Dinner is focused on hearty, meaty fare. festningenrestaurant.no
In a glass house on Tjuvholmen peninsula, Tjuvholmen Sjomagasin is the obvious place for the seasonal seafood, from grilled lobster to scallop ceviche to arctic char with squid and caviar. A fishmonger on the premises sells fresh catch, including mussels by the netful. sjomagasinet.no
Lunch at the Ibsen favourite Grand Café is essential for anyone interested in travelling in the footsteps of the great playwright, or the artist Edvard Munch, also a regular. The passable all-you-can-eat Norwegian smorgasbord and brusque service is made up for by the dramatic, historic interior and the sheer size – there’s almost always a table available. grand.no
Some expenses were covered by Visit Norway. It did not review or approve this article.