After the boats, the bus took us up into the hills outside of Oslo proper to have lunch at Frognerseter...the oldest part of the building was completed in 1891 with a renovation in 1909 to what it looks like today...seems they do a big business with buffet meals for groups, receptions...the place has always been run as a restaurant with accommodations and is now owned by Oslo Municipality and has a reputation as one of the finest restaurants serving Norwegian cuisine.
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| their website says: The house was designed by architect Holm Munthe and is held in the time typical Dragon style...pretty sure it's a weird translation |
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| the buffet had a tasty selection of seafood, meats and vegetables... |
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| I wasn't thrilled to be watched over by stuffed creatures, but it probably suits the "hunting/ski lodge" atmosphere they were seriously attempting... |
Our lunch companions included Robb and Alison Watt from Canada...
And I can easily see why going up there is worth it, besides the delicious food...the view was wonderful!
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| an interesting view of Oslo...even if it was a little hazy... |
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| Dave with the Pro Heraldica team! David B. Appleton, Alexandra Rittner, Rolf Sutter, Harald Heimbach, Petra Heimbach, David E. Rencher and Greg Flores (I'm not sure who took the picture, but Pro Heraldica posted it on Facebook, which was great because we could grab a copy for our scrapbook!). |
But the real reason (I think) for picking that particular restaurant is to be able to show us the Holmenkollen. That means Olympic Ski Jump in every language...and the Norwegians are very proud of it...there has been a ski jump there since 1892. Since then there has been many extensions and renovations (~19) and the current hill was opened in 2010.
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| it is made of 8 steel sections and weighs more than 1,000 tons |
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| it is currently the only steel ski jump in the world and is considered an engineering feat |
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| those walls are permanent wind shields (the top portion is about 200 feet in the air) ...the dark grey portion is the jump/ski lane and the lighter grey on each side below the two openings are for the spectators...according to the guide book, the average speed for good jumps is around 90 kmph (~60 mph) and they fly for 4 seconds before landing... |
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| this is the view from the approach... |
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| and this picture was posted by JDS Architects, the jump's designers and shows the structure in winter...brrrr... |
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| from Wikipedia - showing spectators along the run... |
...It's from before the construction done for the 2011 World Ski Championship, but it's still an impressive shot.
To be honest, it took me a while to figure out at which point on the run the "jump" part begins...I had to look at a few more pictures on the internet showing jumpers to figure it out
It was difficult to see on the bare structure with no one actually making a jump... silly me...I've actually watched jumps from Oslo on television but I thought it was just some mountain they were skiing down after the jump; didn't realize the entire thing was a structure!
During events, no private vehicles are allowed (the parking lot where our bus stopped was pretty small) and transportation to the site is provided by the Oslo Metro...as for the road up there, it was quite a squeeze on some of the turns for our bus, I'm not sure why anyone would want to drive on that road during the Winter anyway...
next up - the infamous Vigeland Sculpture Park...
