Our first port-of-call on the Royal Princess was none other than the capital city of the famous Viking land of Norway!
I always envisioned Norway to be like something of a cross between the Viking ship ride at Disney World and the Kingdom of Arendelle from the Frozen film - bitterly cold with towering cliffs and deep fjords. Incidentally, those vistas were not inspired by Oslo itself...
What we found was that Oslo (like the rest of northern Europe) is crisply cool during the summer, but also vividly green.
We opted to take the "Hop On, Hop Off" bus service, a service that seems to have branches in basically every port-of-call in Scandinavia which allows tourists to see major sights at their own pace.
Our first stop was the Vigeland Sculpture Park, the world's largest sculpture showcase of works by a single artist. The park finely showcased the beautiful summer weather of Scandinavia. The sculptures themselves were interesting as well, even if some of them were somewhat grotesque in nature:
Next, we stopped for some ice cream at a pier to the south of Oslo. The server behind the counter was a dead ringer for Elsa from Frozen! But then, so are about 50% of the women in Scandinavia!
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| Queen Elsa serving ice cream! |
While the green was a bit surprising, one thing that Norway really does have is their Viking heritage! So, we went to the Viking Ship Museum, which houses several Viking ships built over 1000 years ago!
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Before getting back on board, my mom and I visited the beautiful castle just across from the port:
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| The view of the port from the castle |
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| This was a pretty tricky shot - lighting from the front, and some bokeh! |
With that, we got on board and headed to our next stop - Gothenburg, Sweden!
The weather in Gothenburg was nowhere near as nice as what we'd experienced in Oslo. But it did give a very atmospheric vibe!
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| Pulling into the misty port |
The city itself is a pretty classic example of European architecture - with colorful buildings lining water's edges, city squares, and bronze statues:
Our main attraction of the day, however, as the Tradgardsoreningen garden, which we happened to chance upon while strolling the streets!
The key draw of this garden was the fun playground inside of it!
We wound down the day with a tour of the upper decks (sports deck) of the boat, another fabulous dinner, and an acrobatics show in the main atrium of the ship!
With that, we were on our way to our next destination - Berlin!
