Day 19 July 30th Oslo Norway.

Day 19 July 30th Oslo Norway.
I awoke at 5am half an hour before sunrise. When I looked out the window, Norwegian houses amongst pines lined the shore, about 100 meters away; we had reached the Oslojorden fjord; in fact were probably half way through it. This one differs from the great fjord on the west coast of Norway; the one that appears in all the picture books with its tall precipitous cliffs. At this point there were a few small houses dotted along the shore but as we got closer to Oslo they grew in number and became bigger. It was a pleasant sight. There were quite a few populated islands, their only access to the city being by ferry or personal boat; there were quite a few in small harbours. We reached the pier at seven o’clock and only a short walk into town. Beside the pier was a restored medieval fort.
After breakfast we went ashore to our waiting tour bus. The weather was slightly overcast and threatening to rain. It did rain but luckily elsewhere. We drove through the centre of town through many fine buildings, plenty of trees and lots of lush parks. Some of the streets were lined with brightly coloured flowers. It was a pleasant drive. Our first stop was at a park where hundreds of sculptured human figures was the theme of the park; all of them nude!.

One beautiful waterfall had a large saucer full of water supported by six huge broad shouldered men hewn from stone which overflowed cascading down over their bodies. The park had lots of pools, very green lawns, lovely rose gardens as well as other flowers. When we rejoined our bus the driver could not start the motor, it had an electrical fault so we had extra time at the park until the repair man arrived.
We next visited a man made steel ski jump on top of a small mountain: there was no snow to be seen but in the winter there would be plenty; we were at latitude of 60 degrees. We drove further up the mountain to about 450 meters before descending through some really upmarket ski resorts and private home nestled among pine forests. Our next stop was at their National Art Gallery where we viewed many large paintings many hundreds of years old.
We were back on board moments before the ship sailed at 1:45pm. Apparently we had to sail early in order to negotiate the narrow fjord in turn with other large cruise ships (I counted five) and to arrive back in Copenhagen by 5am; it would be a busy day for the ship in Copenhagen disembarking its present 2700 passengers restocking and readying the cabins for another 2700 new passengers before sailing at 6pm.
At around 3pm we cruised past an historic island which had a military fort complete with large guns guarding the narrow waterway which we were travelling through. It also had torpedo launching tubes below the surface of the water. At the outbreak of the last world war, the day Germany had just invaded their neighbour, Denmark two German ships sailed toward this fortified this Island, one a blue ship carrying high ranking Germans and troops followed by a gunship. Norway at this point in time was not officially at war with Germany. The commander of the fort had a difficult decision to make and had not received official orders from Oslo. There was little time for communication as it was night. If he opened fire he would be damned and damned if he did not so he did. The blue boat was damaged so badly it sank in 300 feet of water not much further on; the gunship was torpedoed and also sunk. As it turned out the troops and officials on the blue were to make a surprise attack on Oslo and take over control without much fighting. The sinking of these ships allowed the royal family and the government officials enough time to take all Norway’s gold bullion and major artworks and escape to Britain. 48 hours later Norway surrendered to the Germans.
The Norwegians as recognition of the event and Britain offering asylum have a statue in the main square of Oslo.
After leaving the sheltered waters of the fjord we encountered rough waters. I was amazed at how the huge ship could be thrown round. Fortunately we reached sheltered waters again before we went to bed.