A walk in the woods

I love Oslo! Although we didn't spend much of today in the city. Instead we did what the Norwegians do on a sunny Saturday in September and went for a walk in the forest. We took the train to Sognsvann station which was two minutes walk from a lake. It was nice to see lots of families out cycling, walking, fishing and even swimming. We walked to Ullevålseter which was about 6 km along beautiful forest paths beside which passed several more lovely lakes. We heard and then saw a brightly coloured woodpecker pecking away high up on a pine tree. We arrived at an attractive wooden hostelry at Ullevålseter where we had a coffee sitting outside in the sunshine. It is used as a ski restaurant in the winter and there are photos inside it showing it surrounded by snow and skiers, which was hard to imagine today! Norway has lots of cross country skiing and as we continued our walk we passed lots of trails. Today however they were mainly being used by cyclists and walkers. We also saw several people on "roller skis" with cross country bindings toiling up the hill - the Norwegians are certainly keen on fitness. We walked another 6 km or so to Holmenkollen where we saw a couple of ski jumps; the biggest one was scarily huge and there were people zip-wiring down it. From here we saw gorgeous views across Oslo. We got a train back into town and then went to Viegelandsparken, an amazing park filled with really interesting statues of people some of which were quite disturbing but still somehow beautiful. It seemed to be all about the different stages of human life and experience. In the centre was a huge stone monolith made up of human bodies, it is stunning. The park also had fountains, elegant paths and a huge rose garden. I could have stayed there all day. We still haven't visited any of the city's plentiful museums yet but I feel we should make the most of the good weather because the next time we visit it will probably be winter.