We got up this morning and had a fabulous breakfast in the hotel and then took a 2 hour fjord boat cruise. Weather was perfect, views were stunning and the  sea breeze was refreshing.

We rode past a cute church on the waters edge.

And took a few of selfies…

Cat went exploring in the boat and found the room under the deck. The exposed hull wasn’t what I was expecting but was cool to see.

We sailed past Norweigan beaches which were mostly patches of grass. This one actually had a diving board that went into the fjord.

We got back to docks and had an  ice cream and a wander and came across this astronomical clock. I love my clocks!

We saw an Oslo fire truck which looked almost as spiffy as the Oslo fireman that drove it.

We grabbed some snacks and headed over to Akershus Fortress. It was originally built in the 1300’s but can be considered a patchwork of a fort for the different add ons and repairs it has had over the years.  It was originally built to protect the city of Oslo but has changed hands several times and changed from a castle and home to the king to a fort to a prison and now aside from the museums it holds, also still has social functions and mass/weddings/baptisms in the Fort church.

The fort church was part of our exploration. Howard and Cat had already moved on. I was still listening to the audio tour and as I was leaving an older gentleman belted out an acapella chorus in a language I am unsure of. The reverberation in the empty room was amazing. He just did the one chorus and seemed to only want to hear his echo. He was content with his performance and I appreciated being able to hear it.

In the picture of the church below, the King and Queen would sit in the box at the left. The alter was in the middle and the sermon was given  in the box on the right.

Below are some miscellaneous pics of the fort. One thing that never occurred to me was that some of the prisoner quarters were not only cold and wet but also angled. The floor on this cell was at about a 30 degree slant. (Bottom right picture)  How uncomfortable.

After the tour we headed back to the hotel, grabbed our packs and headed to the train station.

When we got to the airport we weighed our bags. H had been complaining that he had by far the heaviest pack of the group because he was carrying everyone’s dirty clothes. I had mine and Cat’s clean clothes, souvineers and other miscellaneous bits. Cat had all things we would need in the next 36 hours of travel. The scale was in Kilos but:

Nicole: 17.4/ 38.28 lbs

H: 14.5 / 31.9 lbs

Cat: 6.9/  15.8 lbs

H’s day pack: 5.6 / 12.32 lbs

To be fair, H’s combined packs were a bit heavier but not enough to qualify for the amount of complaining that took place….

We got to the airport early to find that our flight was delayed 2 hours. When we went to check our bags we found an iPad mini on the floor by the elevator. After we got rid of our bags we dropped it off at lost and found. On our way back to departures we came across a white faced teary eyed young girl who spoke to us in Norwegian. H asked her if she lost an iPad and her eyes lit up and the color on her face returned. We all walked back to the lost and found and retrieved it with her. From there she ran off and we watched her from afar as she held it up in victory to show her mom. Yay for the little girl!

All the airport restaurants were closed by the time we got to the gate so we had no choice but to break our “no American restaurants when you are outside of America” rule and ate Pizza Hut. As we sat there eating our pizza that was on par with what we got in Milan, it sank in that the end of this amazing trip was coming soon. We saw the hallway we walked down when we arrived to this airport 27 days ago. Our backpacks were overfilled and our minds were occupied with the knowledge that adventure was soon on our horizon.

Lucky for us we have a night layover in London and get to see Howard’s parents and the dogs. When we landed, we were greeted by them outside of customs and had a quick visit.

 We get to see them again in the morning and then it’s time for our long haul home.