Akershus Fortress Complex. Botanical Gardens.

I mentioned in this morning’s post about the cruise I took on Oslo Fjord that I’d be visiting Akershus Fortress. It’s now afternoon. That’s what I did.

I also visited the local botanical garden before calling it a day. I know; I know. I should have called it “a botanical garden,” not “a day,” particularly after visiting it and seeing that it is indeed a botanical garden. Forgive me. I was tired. Very tired.

Akershus Fortress Complex

The Akershus Fortress stood guard over Oslo for a long time. It was built in 1299 and its defensive role didn’t start to decline until the 19th century. Declined, but not eliminated.

One of the guidebooks I’m using told me there’s still a military base at the fortress and warned me that I might have to dodge some military personnel and vehicles when I wandered around there.

That wasn’t necessary. I didn’t see any soldiers or any of their vehicles. In fact, I didn’t spot anything that looked like an active military base.

Then again, maybe the soldiers were on a clandestine operation and cleverly disguised as tourists. How would I know?

The grounds inside the fortress are ruggedly attractive and free for the public to stroll through. And Akershus’s ramparts provide good views of the fjord and the city at some points.

There are also some buildings in the complex. Three are open to the public for a fee: Akershus Castle, a building that now houses the Norway Resistance Museum, and a building that houses a military museum. I visited two of the three but I passed on the military museum. Neither of my guidebooks had anything to say about the latter.

Akershus Castle

A castle was built with the fortress, but the castle was torn down and rebuilt in the Renaissance style in the 17th century. A then-modern bastion was also built around the new castle.

That second castle fell into disrepair in the 18th and 19th centuries and has since been restored. However, some of the original design was unknown during the restoration. For example, they think that the hall that’s now named “The Hall of Olav V” was the location of the great hall of the Medieval castle, but nobody is sure. During the restoration, they constructed it as a hall that looked like a great hall would have looked like in that period, rather than duplicating a hall that was in either the Medieval or the Renaissance castles.

There are some handsome and/or beautiful halls in addition to The Hall of Olav V. They and the other rooms are decorated with period pieces. Beautiful tapestries and a few paintings hang on the walls of many of those rooms and halls.

There’s also an undecorated dungeon with some prison cells. Because what self-respecting castle owner would decorate his dungeon? And what else would they put in it other than prison cells? The dungeon is, obviously, less beautiful.

The castle also contains a Royal Mausoleum with two sarcophagi. One contains the remains of King Hookon VII (1872-1957) and Queen Maud (1869-1938). The other contains the remains of King Olav V (1903-1991) and crown princess Martha (1901-1954).

The above-mentioned “Hall of Olav V” was renamed from whatever it was called before (possibly just “The Great Hall,” I’m not sure) to honour the king after his death.

There is probably a great deal more I could say about the castle, but I haven’t been sleeping at all well here and I’m currently being hit with a thud of deep exhaustion, so I need to move on. However, I will add that I thought the castle was well worth the visit.

Norway’s Resistance Museum

In 1940, the Nazis took over Norway. The Resistance Museum tells the story of their capture of Norway, the German occupation, the resistance movement that grew to counter it, the activities of that resistance movement, and the freedom of Norway with the surrender of Germany in 1945.

Upon entering the exhibit area I faced a sculpture comprised of I don’t know how many German rifles pointing at me. Amid the rifles is a single bayonet that is spearing a German notice telling people that they will submit or die.

The other displays follow a mostly chronological order from 1940 to 1945 and include a series of small dioramas depicting war scenes, copies of war documents, some old radios that the resistance sheltered from the Germans who tried to confiscate all radios, war paraphernalia, and lots of text panels to provide relevant information.

I knew the word “quisling” before visiting the museum, but if I knew its derivation I’d forgotten it. Maybe I never knew, the depth of my ignorance is abysmal. I learned that derivation, or maybe relearned it, today.

You are probably much less ignorant than I am and know where the word “quisling” comes from. If so, you can skip the next couple of paragraphs.

When the Germans captured Norway, Vidkun Quisling, who had founded a fascist party in Norway in 1933, declared himself ruler of Norway. Germany didn’t allow it because they were still hoping to get the government of Norway to cooperate with them. They weren’t successful, and the King and government managed to flee to the United Kingdom before the Nazis seized them. Quisling then managed to form a government in 1942 that cooperated with Germany.

Quisling was seen as the traitor he was. His forming of the government spurred more support for the Norway resistance to fight against him and Germany. Now, because of Vidkun Quisling, the word quisling is a synonym for traitor. According to information in the museum, “Quisling” is to Norway what “Benedict Arnold” is to the United States.

I won’t say I enjoyed the museum. I can’t imagine anyone enjoying reading and seeing exhibits about war and, particularly, Nazis. But I did appreciate it.

Oslo Botanical Garden

The Botanical Garden is an adjunct to the University’s Natural History Museum. I went to the garden today, but not to the museum.

The Botanical Garden is large and divided into thematic sections. For example, there’s a Viking garden with the sort of plants the Vikings depended on for food. I imagine marauding, invading, and pillaging require a lot of energy and protein, but roughage is important for the diet too, I guess.

There is also a beautiful rock garden. A stream tumbles in a small waterfall over some rocks into a little lily pond. A variety of flowering plants grow among the rocks. It’s all very attractive.

There are also a lot of trees with pleasant walks through them and a variety of flowers. (Through the collection of trees, that is, not through individual trees. None of the trees had a circumference large enough to tunnel through them.)

A greenhouse, called the Victoria House, contains a variety of tropical plants including a waterlily pond. In it, I saw some weird-looking waterlilies with leaves that were almost perfect discs with an upturned rim. That is to say, they would have been weird had I not already seen a species very similar in the Adelaide Botanic Garden during my recent visit to Australia. In Adelaide, the botanic garden labelled their species “Amazon Water Lily.”

The Norwegian on signage in the Victoria House in the Oslo Botanical Garden was a lot longer than the English translation, so I’m not sure I got the full information. But the signage here said, “The Victoria genus belongs in the waterlily family (Nymphaeacwae). There are two species, V. amazonica and V. cruziana.” Not being a botanist, I don’t know if the V. amazonica is the same species I saw in Adelaide. Regardless, the specimens in both places were amazing.

The Oslo Botanical Garden is quite large and it has more sections than I described above. But the above-mentioned major exhaustion had already hit me at the garden so I did some wandering around, and saw as much as I could, but didn’t make any attempt to try to see absolutely everything. If you visit the link I provided at the top of this section, the garden’s website lists all of the thematic gardens.

If you’re in Oslo during the summer, you’ll probably enjoy a visit to the botanical garden. Because all of the gardens except the few small greenhouses are outdoors, and because Norway has cold winters, I don’t imagine it’s worth a visit in the winter.