Charlie and Andrew go rambling again

The opportunities here are endless for man and dog to go walking in the woods. Firstly, the public transport system allowing dogs to travel makes it all feasible and secondly, the easy access to the outdoors and forests in outer suburbs is great.

This morning they headed off to Grorud, an outer northeastern suburb of Oslo.

Charlie was spoiled for choice as to where he could wander and sniff.

Note the lights up at the tree lines on the left hand side of the track.  These are for night skiing.

The entrance to the metro station at Romsas.  They had to walk about 200m down a tunnel to get into the metro itself.  Romsas is quite a flourishing suburb and there are big apartment blocks above the metro but the entrance to it out here is quite rural.

The next day's ramble started at Vestli, which like Romsas has huge blocks of apartments serviced by narrow lane ways and no regular traffic.  One wonders if these people own cars and where do they park them?  There is no underneath parking that Andrew could see.

Just north of Vestli is a huge quarry where they make concrete and asphalt as well as providing road base and large rocks for landscaping.  The route down from the quarry was through open forest which Charlie enjoyed, gallivanting in all directions.  Eventually, Andrew and Charlie found a way back to the tracks they were on yesterday and so to Grorud.

Meanwhile, back home in Skillebekk, just in our street, a piece of kitchen equipment is being delivered to an upper floor apartment.  You can see both the delivery van and also the big red truck with the crane.

In the afternoon, we all set off to go to Frognerseteren in the northwestern part of Oslo, past Holmenkollen.  Sitting on the metro train, we passed by another attractive lake, Bogstadvennet.

I took these photos from the train so they are a little hazy, but so pretty, that the lake deserves two photos.

We walked from the station to the Frognerseteren Restaurant which is a scenic 19th century dining venue serving Norwegian cuisine in a cafe, restaurant or in private rooms.

The view from the terrace of the establishment with a view towards Oslo and houses with traditional grass insulation on the roofs.

We did not sample the traditional Norwegian cuisine as we anticipate that we will get plenty of opportunity to do that on the Hurtigruten cruise from Bergen to Kirkenes that we start on Saturday.  We just basked in the unexpectedly warm afternoon sun and had coffee and indifferent pastries.  The setting and atmosphere was outstanding but the pastries and the coffee were not a patch on our favourite.






Today is almost our second to last day in Oslo.  Jane and Ofer return tomorrow and we take the train to Bergen.  I spent some of Monday and now this afternoon in the dental chair under the efficient care of this young dentist getting root canal treatment.

His name is Algirdas Karpauskas and he trained in Vilnius, Lithuania but lives here in Oslo.  His birthday is exactly the same date and month as mine but 44 years apart.  We were meant to meet :-) He is not only handsome but he is a very good therapist with an excellent chair side manner and he explained everything to me in flawless English.  And the treatment was long but painless.

I am not sure why I am smiling in the photo as the treatment was VERY expensive, as everything is in this country.  But I am very fortunate that I picked up signals in my mouth that trouble was afoot and I was able to get in to get treatment at a reliable surgery that was recommended.  I did not want to embark on a 12 day cruise up the Norwegian coast and face the possibility of either an abscess or the loss of a tooth.  With root canal therapy there needs to be a five day gap between treatment phases to allow any infection to pass before the tooth is refilled.  I had that time available, thank goodness.