When we were planning this trip we were a little worried that we may have given ourselves a day too many in Oslo but as it turned out we have had a great last couple of days. This morning we set off for Akershus Fortress which was built around 1300, the same time as Oslo became Norway’s capital under Hakon V, it was remodelled in the 1600s by King Christian IV. It has been used as a military base and prison over the centuries. Unfortunately we got there before the visitor centre opened so we had a walk round and watched the police horses being exercised then picked up the fortress guide which gives information on all the different buildings and started our walk round. Some of the buildings are being restored at the moment but a lot are open. In 1652 Frederick III stated that all convicted of petty larceny should work on a chain gang in Akershus. Some time in the 1770s this acquired the name of Slavery. The penal theory was a mixture of detention and moral edification through hard work. Criminals were put to hard labour instead of being executed. The forced labourers could be set to a number of public works or even hired out to private parties. In 1842 there were around 530 prisoners and walking round it must have been really cramped conditions. It became the National Penitentiary in 1892 and was a detention facility from 1937 until it became a German military prison during the Second World War. It continued to be used as a prison until 1950. We went into the castle which is actually really interesting and quite a lot of it has been restored. We had a audio guide which helped understand each of the different rooms, apparently during the restoration in 1937 the current king was born and the workers put a crown in the brickwork of one of the rooms as this was the first King to be born on Norwegian soil for over 500 years. By the time we finished walking round the grounds we had spent almost three hours in the castle so we decided to walk to the metro and head over to Holmenkollen ski museum. We got the tube to the Holmenkollen station which you might expect to be near the ski jump but unfortunately they didn’t build it that close! We walked up the hill we finally reached the ski arena, this ski jump possibly isn’t as big as the one in Innsbruck but because there isn’t any snow on the ground it looks massive. This is the only steel ski jump in the world and it has permanent wind protection as an integrated part of the inrun, the new hill was opened in 2010 and is 96.95m in length with 250 steps to the top. We had a snack in the cafe then headed to the museum to see if we can go to the top of the jump, unfortunately they have a problem although it wasn’t clear what it might be so we could only go into the museum as the top of the ski jump was closed. We had a look round the museum and looked at various skis they had on display such as the skis and boots that Ole Einar Bjorndalen wore when he won the 2002 Olympics, with my very rudimentary measurement I would say that he has about the same size feet as me! We also saw the skis that Aksel Lund Svindal wore but we couldn’t see when because although he had signed them he hadn’t helpfully dated them like Bjorndalen had. Then as the jump still wasn’t open we went for a walk to the cross country and biathlon area, there were actually quite a few people out on roller skis although none of them were carrying guns so it was obviously just cross country they were practicing. We had a good look round then started walking back down to the station to return to the city. On the way back to the hotel we stopped to pick up a sandwich for the journey home tomorrow then went back and had a relax before heading out this evening.
