Day 23, 5 July 2014, Oslo, Norway - Oh what a day... late December back in '63... Even by my standards, today was a big one. Huge. Massive. Five museums. And a public ferry ride out to the museum island. But first there was brekkie - nothing quite like Norwegian smoked salmon in Norway. With of course eggs and fruit and all sorts of other lovely, lovely eats. Quite a change after the budget diet so far. But time was a wastin' so it was down to the City Hall pier and into a queue with every one else waiting for the #91. Funnily enough this gorgeous, big modern catamaran came into view, heading for our pier... Nice. Very nice. Just not actually ours - it veered off and in it's place was a little tub that obviously had a choice between doing its job or looking flash. It decided to do its job and we motored away to Bygdoy Island smack on 10.25 am. (Coincidentally, that's pronounced more or less "Big Day"!) It's only a 10 minute trip and then it was up the road, round the corner, down the road and finally I made it to the Norwegian Folk Museum. This is one of the few open air museums I've been to - and certainly the largest. Basically back in the 1800s one of the kings decided it would be nice to have Norwegian buildings of various styles from various parts of the country "saved" for posterity - so cottages, farm buildings, lofts and cow houses have, over the years, been picked up and reconstructed in a rolling piece of country side. There's even an "old town" - lots of Christiana/Oslo's original buildings, reconstructed and furnished. Locals in folk dress mind the horses, do silversmithing, pottery, weaving etc, and naff as it sounds, there was a folk dancing and music demo at 12.30 pm. Given the heatwave sweeping the city (27 degrees) it was lovely to sit down and enjoy it. Especially since I had essentially hiked the length and breadth of Norway by then. Thankfully the next stop was just around the corner. I'd been in two minds about visiting the Viking Ship museum (with three actual viking ships from the 9th century) - but it was sooooo good. I means obviously the idea of sending people off to the underworld with lots of treasures, worldly goods and their pets wasn't new even in 830 AD (the Egyptians were at it in 2500 B.C) - but the quality of these finds was superb. The Oseberg ship was my favourite of the three - a highborn woman, possibly a viking queen and another woman were buried in this ship around 834 AD and it was in 1904 in Oseberg that a farmer hit something hard with a spade and voila! Amazing find. Pictured today is the other intact viking ship from Gokstad which was for a chief. We can't know what the Vikings were thinking in terms of their understanding of the afterlife - but I think it must have been reassuring for those left behind to think they had done everything possible to make their loved ones trip to Valhalla as comfortable as possible. Quite wowed by the ships, it was time to move on and I strolled to the other side of the island to visit the Kon-Tiki museum. Prior to this visit it would be safe to say I knew nothing about this legendary explorer and his achievements and theories about pre-Columbus world exploration. It literally blew my mind how a guy who was scared of water and could barely swim made it from Peru to the islands of Tahiti on a balsa wood raft in the 1940s. Then went on to become a household name in 1970 with the RA II reed boat, based on ancient designs from Egypt etc, travelling all the way from Morocco to Barbados, 6100 kms across the Atlantic. Incredible stuff - may have to watch the Oscar winning documentary of Kon-Tiki one day, but seeing the original boats and artefacts (not to mention a replica of an Easter Island statue) was superb. Must admit to struggling a bit by this point.. but the end was in sight - Bygdoy's final museum for the day was FRAM - the Polar Ship Museum. Vague memories from my school days of studying Roald Amundsen's voyage to the South Pole were the limit of my knowledge of Norwegian explorers. Fram is the polar ship that undertook voyages to the Arctic circle under the leadership of the man who inspired Amundsen - Fridtjof Nansen - absolutely top bloke. It's a word I use too often but it was amazing to stand in this massive A-frame hall, looking up at the actual ship that drifted in Arctic sea ice - and then walk all over it. Also saw a short film about these legends of Arctic/Antarctic exploration. Oslo has literally been a mind-blowing adventure so far. Foot-sore and weary with a very tired brain, it was back to the ferry and home to the city hall pier. With a tiny detour I managed a final visit for the day, the Nobel Peace Prize centre near City Hall. I learned about chemical weapons since the current major exhibit is about the 2013 Peace Prize winner - the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons - what's even more incredible than the work this group is doing to clean up Syria is that every year 150 tonnes of unexploded chemical ordnance is still being recovered from the WWI battlefields of Belgium. The hangover of mankind's dalliance with vicious destruction is still casting a very long shadow. Travel is such an education - so lucky to be seeing, doing and learning so much on a daily basis. On days like today, the ability to download my brain at the same time I download my photos would be the ultimate blessing - oh what a problem to have!