On our first full day in Oslo, we booked a tour of the Royal Palace. We had to leave our phones and bags in lockers with palace security. After putting on some green plastic foot booties, we toured the palace and learned about its history.
The Danish and Swedes ruled Norway for quite a bit of time, but in 1905, Norway became an independent nation again and chose to maintain a monarchy.
Since then, they’ve had three kings, with the third ruling today.
We’ll later see the mausoleums of the first two kings at a different museum.
There’s a statue of King Carl Johan, who was King of Norway and Sweden from 1818 to 1844 and who originally commissioned the construction of the palace. He died in 1844 and never saw its completion.
Building activities began in 1824, and the foundation stone was laid by King Carl Johan on October 1, 1825. The palace was officially taken into use on July 26, 1849, by King Oscar I.
The palace is one of the smallest in Europe. The architect, Hans Linstow, designed the park around the palace with large trees on both sides of the road leading up to the palace to make it seem larger. The path through the 173 rooms also distorts your perception of its size.
After our tour of the palace, we tried to find the Oslo Starbucks mug but had no luck. We’ll have to wait until we get to the airport to potentially snag one. For dinner, we chose a restaurant called The Salmon, followed by sorbet along the pier.