To St. Petersburg round the Baltic Cruise - Oslo

I got up while the light was still sunrisey & took these panoramas. We went in by ourselves to Oslo. It was only a short walk from the ship to the city centre & we headed for the park up the middle.

In the Harbour

Nobel Peace Prize Building

National Theatre

We found a band of the Nurses Union celebrating their centenary & heard their drums in the distance later. Then, we walked up to the Palace, as it gave us a view back over the city.

Nurses Union drummers

Storting (Parliament)

Royal Palace

We went a bit round the back (Christian 4th Gate) & stopped for coffees (NK 6.90!!). On to the cathedral, we had a surprise, as the ceiling is painted & there is some good stained glass.

Cathedral from Christian 4th Gate	Very expensive market	Cathedral door
Towards the altar	Christ + Forex Dealers	Stained glass
Cathedral Organ	Town Hall	We were advised to go into the City Hall & that was full of paintings as well, with a huge entrance hall space. Upstairs, there were more paintings & some tapestries, all these quite recent. There were wood carvings from the sagas on the way in outside. Oslo, to which I had never hitherto been, was clearly, a delight.
Town Hall Entrance Hall

Town Hall 1st floor

Town Hall Clock

Oslo Castle

Saga Sapphire in the Harbour	Town Hall from the ship	Well pleased with the long morning, we returned to the ship for lunch. Sail away was at 1600, so I took photos from the quarter deck while the keyboard man from the Royal yacht Britannia played an amazing quodlibet of just about every well-known tune. It got colder (it was cool all day), so we went in for tea & the formal evening. We then had a day at sea on the way back to Dover, where I gave my show, "British Music of the Sea", as a lighter offering than the 'life & works' shows.
Unostentatious Royal Yacht	On the way out	Lighthouse on the way out

Added 20-10-2012. I had had every indication that my shows had been much appreciated from the reactions I received at the time, with one exception. Saga have a 'marking system' for their speakers, so imagine by astonishment when I was told later that insufficient passengers had commented favourably on my shows, so they would not be using me in future. Apart from the fact that only grumblers fill in questionnaires, I smelt a rat, as my shows were easily as good at the others & better in some respects. (I do not use silly slide transitions, white backgrounds or too small a type face). These were the same shows that a Fred Olsen Cruise Director described, five weeks before, as "wonderful".
My Cousin Patrick speaks of 'Saga Types', meaning lower middle class with plenty of money (& hence, full of themselves) but limited education & culture, so to get up to 200 out of 650 to classical music shows one would have thought was highly creditable. Who the rat turns out to be remains to be discovered. Thankfully, we will not be cruising on Saga again.