Page 218 - WDT MAGAZINE PORTUGAL

NORWAY

FANTASTICFJORDS,HISTORICVILLAGES&SCRUMPTIOUSSEAFOOD
NORWAY

Thief, a bespoke hotel that opened in 2013 in an area
called Tjuvholmen, or Thieves’ Island, a former wharf
area that has been transformed in the last 15 years,
especially since 2012’s opening of the Astrup Fearnley
Museet, a modern art museum designed by Renzo Piano.
The hopping area’s hippest hotel, The Thief is a
cutting-edge getaway rendered by top Norwegian
designers that sits on a canal on the waterfront; guests in
the enclave have included Rihanna, Diana Krall and Elvis
Costello.
“Oslo is tiny; you can walk everywhere,” said Hilary
Sem, a licensed Oslo guide with Guideservice, whom we
hired to show us around.
Within a five-minute stroll from The Thief, we were
touring City Hall, the classic building constructed
between 1930 and 1950 where every element is
Norwegian, from the marble and wood to the wooden
carvings of Norwegian legends outside and the
monumental oil murals depicting Norwegian history
inside, where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held
every year on Dec. 10.
We wandered a few blocks to the National Gallery
which has a fine collection of paintings by Edvard Munch
(“The Scream”), as well as Monet and Cezanne.
We walked up tony Karl Johan avenue, Oslo’s main
street filled with shops and grand historic hotels, like The
Grand, where playwright Henrik Ibsen lunched everyday.
At the end of Karl Johan is the Royal Palace.
And we wandered over to the spectacularly stunning
Opera House designed by Snøhetta, the firm that also
designed Ground Zero in New York and the library in
Alexandria, Egypt.

WINEDINEANDTRAVEL.COM 217