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The Reptile House
Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
Oslo has this wee card thing that tourists can buy, then spend the day going round town getting in free to all the various museums, galleries and other places deemed interesting enough for people on holiday to visit. Oslo being Oslo, these cards usually cost a months wages, but last Sunday the city decided to give them out for free to all and sundry. After spending all day Saturday indoors nursing hangovers and watching my new Mission dvds, Ollie, Matt and myself decided that getting out and doing the touristy thing was the thing to do.
We queued for our cards, then hung around in Rådhuset, wandering around the stalls and sifting through the myriad of leaflets trying to decide what to do. I fancied a boat trip, but the boats that would take us on a cruise around the new opera house were all fully booked, and it was starting to rain so the fjord cruise didn’t look too appealing either. Other options included the tourist tram (rejected due to the fact that it took the same line as I take every morning going to work - the fact that it looked dull as ditch water didn’t help either), the various museums on Bygdøy, the Ski museum, various art galleries including the Munch museum, and a reptile park. Ollie decided that she wouldn’t pay to go to the Munch museum (sacrilege!), so we might as well go while its free.
The Munch Museum has been in the news several times over the last 15 years due to people wandering in and stealing Munch’s most famous painting, The Scream. This has actually happened on two occasions - once in 1994 during the winter Olympics, and more recently in 2004. As a result, the security on entering the museum is worse than Heathrow Airport. While both the Scream and the Madonna stolen in 2004 have been recovered, they are currently being restored and so were not on public display.
Munch suffered from depression and anxiety, and much of his chosen subject matter reflects this, so a visit to the museum is not exactly what you call a happy affair. Instead I just got blown away by the emotional intensity that just drips off so many of his paintings. The Vampire was fantastic, as was The Kiss and Jealousy, but many of my favourites were missing: Separation, The Scream, Despair, Anxiety, Melancholy. There was also a room full of the many landscapes he painted once he had cheered up a bit. Forest and Towards the Forest were both excellent.
Suitably depressed, we wandered down to Grønland for a curry, before taking the bus to the Reptile Park. The Reptile Park was really just someones house with a few lizards in it, but it was free, very warm and full of the most fantastic creatures imaginable, from head-bobbing Iguanas to the fastest tortoise on the planet. It also turned out to be just around the corner from our flat, so we met Vibeke there then went back home for a cup of tea.
There were a million things we could have done on our free tourist card, which would almost make me think that paying for one would be a good idea. Problem I see is that there is only so much site seeing you can do in a day, and I’m not entirely sure I would have the energy or inclination to make the most of the card. Still, might end up grabbing one anyway for when Mum comes over to visit at the end of the month.
Hope all is well with you down…
