My overnight train from my day-trip to the Flam Railway, the fjords, and Bergen, arrived back in Oslo at about 6:30 in the morning of my last day in Norway. I’d planned to spend the day visiting a few more of the sights in Oslo, and darn if I wasn’t going to try to go back to the hot dog kiosk that was closed two days ago.
After my last good bagel and smoked salmon for breakfast at my hotel, I started the day with a subway ride and a long uphill walk to Holmenkollbakken – the ski jump located about 7 1/2 miles outside the city that’s been there since 1892, with a few upgrades over the years (its apparently been rebuilt 19 times!), and that was used at the 1952 Olympics. There’s a fantastic ski museum (history of skiing, history of the jump) as well, and there is skiing open to the public nearby the base of the jump. On the subway I saw folks with skis heading to the ski jump, and I followed a few of them walking up the hill. After visiting the museum, you take an elevator ride to the top of the jump, which provides gorgeous views of the surrounding landscape and Oslo off in the distance.
Then it was a walk back down the hill, back to the subway, and then a bus ride to the hot dog kiosk – Syverkiosken. And you know what?!?!??! This time it was open. The owner – Erlend is his name and he’s worked there since hew as 13 – was there and he explained that he’d had an eye problem (you could see that it was still little screwed up), and he’d spent the day in the hospital on Monday. The kiosk has been there since at least 1939, and Erlend’s father has bought it from the Syversen family in 1979, which is what gives it its name.
As for the hot dog, I asked him what I should order and his only question to me was “sweet or spicy”; well, duh, who has a sweet hotdog, right? So I opted for the spicy. I was going to order more than one, but not knowing how big it’d be and also knowing I had more food in my future that afternoon, I opted for just one.
The hotdogs are boiled, but not in water; instead, in a broth (apparently a secret recipe that Erlend inherited from his father), then wrapped – one on top, one below – in sausage bread and a “lompe” – a traditional flatbread made from potatoes. The toppings for my spicy version were homemade ketchup and mustard, jalapeño salad, and crispy fried onions. Wicked good, and cheap too!
A great little snack, and I knew I’d be walking the rest of the day, so the energy boost was definitely needed!
My next mission was to walk to the Mathallen Oslo, an upscale food court in the Vulkan neighborhood. That stroll – mostly downhill on a beautiful sunny day – took me down some unpretty main drags – but where I ran into the dog in a harness at the top of this post – and then past a sweet small park and into a funky neighborhood with lots of fun graffiti. The hall itself had lots of restaurant stands – tapas, tacos, seafood, hamburgers, bao bao, Italian – and food stands – bakery, butchery, chocolate, gelato, and bars. I settled in for probably the best fish stew I’d ever had – and darn pretty too – along with a beer and some fresh bread.
The New York Times had done one of their “36 Hours in . . .” travel stories about Oslo in 2023; I always find those useful to figure out where to go and where to stay (in fact, I stayed, this trip, at one of the hotel recommendations in that article – the place with the “decent bagels”). But just as good as the stories can be, the comments are also great sources of information and – in this case – they pointed me in the direction of the Vigeland sculpture park – which is actually the Frogner Park that happens to have a massive installation of sculptures by the artist Gustav Vigeland. So – my next walk was about two miles to the Park.
The Vigeland sculptures there – made of bronze and granite and primarily circled around what is called the Monolith – are big, bountiful, gorgeous, composed primarily of thick human bodies covering the range of human experience – from birth to childhood to adulthood and parenthood to old age. You want to take them all in, going around the circle, looking at the bronze gates, thinking about what is being expressed in each. On a sunny and mostly warm spring day, this was a pleasure.
The last part of my walk for the day took me from Frogner Park through a neighborhood of embassies and diplomat homes – beautiful and big – and then through the central arts and shopping district. Of my time in Oslo, these two neighborhoods were clearly the most fun to see and enjoy and spend some time wandering around in. Once back at my hotel, I had some time to relax before dinner.
And the dinner joint was a Michelin-starred restaurant named Savage, which came with a prix-fixe menu. It was a very quiet night there – I was one of only four tables and maybe 10 or 12 guests tops. But the food was fantastic, the service was great, and the place was beautiful to look at. I even got to choose from a selection of knives for my Wagyu short ribs!
It was a super last day. I walked about 10 miles total and finished it up with a last vodka at my hotel before heading to bed for a very early wake-up and the flight home.
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