Baltic Cruise: Day 10 – Oslo
Our excursion was scheduled to depart about 7am from the ship so we were up and off early. Oslo’s erratic summer weather decided to greet us with rain, the first of a non-sea day on the trip. Our diversion from Poland was due to wind and we did get some rain later in the day but by then the port had already been cancelled. It rained off and on throughout the day, with some periods of extremely heavy rain during our mountain road drive to a glassworks factory. The sun broke through at times but the rain clouds were never far away.
Note: This post is part of a series about a recent cruise in the Baltic Sea. They are [being] published in chronological order and if you haven’t read the introduction post I encourage you to do so. (I moved this piece here in case you feed some of the content.)
After exiting the ship, we boarded our tour bus and part of the introduction from our tour guide informed us it had been raining in southern Norway for the better part of a month. She also gave us some general history of Oslo and Norway, while pointing various sites as we drove through the city. The city itself was clean, relatively empty due to similar holiday practices as other Scandinavian countries and had a similar feel to Helsinki. There were quite a few boat yards on the outskirts to the city, most packed with pleasure boats. The city layout wasn’t as intertwined with water as Stockholm but I got the feeling that most city dwellers could be on the water not long after leaving home. We didn’t actually tour much of the city but from what I saw, Oslo wouldn’t be a bad place for a single destination vacation.
Our first stop, which is a bit of a misnomer because there was a 50 minute drive in both directions, was at Hadeland Glassverks in the Norwegian countryside. We saw craftsmen blowing glass for a custom order of artistic vases while someone explained the process. Seeing them melt, mold, stretch and cut the glass was very cool but I wasn’t convinced that I needed to travel all the way to Norway to see it. I’d actually seen it once before in the US, and the process was identical, but a lot of the people in our group hadn’t before. The tour itself was only about a half hour and we had to wait 20 minutes before that to see it because of groups before us. Probably the best thing to come of the two and a half hours this part of the trip took was breakfast. They gave us coffee and a danish after the glassworks tour and I’m not lying when I say it’s the best danish I’ve ever had. I’m not a big pastry person but if they were all like this I would be.
Our second and final stop on our short visit to Norway was at the Viking Ship Museum. This consisted of a converted church in the middle of what appeared to be a suburb of Oslo with three Viking ships and a bunch of artifacts. The ships themselves were interesting but as they weren’t more than 50 feet long, they paled in comparison to the Vasa in Stockholm. I’m sure the artifacts were interesting to a lot of the people that visit but living so close to the Smithsonian and other museums in downtown DC, it was a bit of a letdown. I think we all had visions of something on the scale of the Museum of American History, just with Vikings, and that it definitely was not.
The last night on the ship meant it was our last night to gamble. Again I’d been eyeing the craps table but having had such piss poor luck alone I was not about to go at it again by myself. After observing a bunch of table games and watching the wife win some money on slots I settled in at the Three Card Poker table. I had a few decent hands but when it was all said and done I’d lost $55 on the night. I admittedly stopped at a predetermined point because I knew I was up $53 over the course of the trip. I thought about folding the last hand and stopping down $50 but I had a decent chance to win it. Besides, I cannot complain about gambling 8 of the 10 nights on the boat and only losing $2.
Note: This post is part of a series about a recent cruise in the Baltic Sea. They are [being] published in chronological order and if you haven’t read the introduction post I encourage you to do so. (I moved this piece here in case you feed some of the content.)
After exiting the ship, we boarded our tour bus and part of the introduction from our tour guide informed us it had been raining in southern Norway for the better part of a month. She also gave us some general history of Oslo and Norway, while pointing various sites as we drove through the city. The city itself was clean, relatively empty due to similar holiday practices as other Scandinavian countries and had a similar feel to Helsinki. There were quite a few boat yards on the outskirts to the city, most packed with pleasure boats. The city layout wasn’t as intertwined with water as Stockholm but I got the feeling that most city dwellers could be on the water not long after leaving home. We didn’t actually tour much of the city but from what I saw, Oslo wouldn’t be a bad place for a single destination vacation.
Our first stop, which is a bit of a misnomer because there was a 50 minute drive in both directions, was at Hadeland Glassverks in the Norwegian countryside. We saw craftsmen blowing glass for a custom order of artistic vases while someone explained the process. Seeing them melt, mold, stretch and cut the glass was very cool but I wasn’t convinced that I needed to travel all the way to Norway to see it. I’d actually seen it once before in the US, and the process was identical, but a lot of the people in our group hadn’t before. The tour itself was only about a half hour and we had to wait 20 minutes before that to see it because of groups before us. Probably the best thing to come of the two and a half hours this part of the trip took was breakfast. They gave us coffee and a danish after the glassworks tour and I’m not lying when I say it’s the best danish I’ve ever had. I’m not a big pastry person but if they were all like this I would be.
Our second and final stop on our short visit to Norway was at the Viking Ship Museum. This consisted of a converted church in the middle of what appeared to be a suburb of Oslo with three Viking ships and a bunch of artifacts. The ships themselves were interesting but as they weren’t more than 50 feet long, they paled in comparison to the Vasa in Stockholm. I’m sure the artifacts were interesting to a lot of the people that visit but living so close to the Smithsonian and other museums in downtown DC, it was a bit of a letdown. I think we all had visions of something on the scale of the Museum of American History, just with Vikings, and that it definitely was not.
The last night on the ship meant it was our last night to gamble. Again I’d been eyeing the craps table but having had such piss poor luck alone I was not about to go at it again by myself. After observing a bunch of table games and watching the wife win some money on slots I settled in at the Three Card Poker table. I had a few decent hands but when it was all said and done I’d lost $55 on the night. I admittedly stopped at a predetermined point because I knew I was up $53 over the course of the trip. I thought about folding the last hand and stopping down $50 but I had a decent chance to win it. Besides, I cannot complain about gambling 8 of the 10 nights on the boat and only losing $2.
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