When I first visited Oslo twenty years ago, I remember wondering if I’d made a mistake. The city was in the throes of reinvention, though at the time it looked less like a phoenix rising and more like a half-finished IKEA flat-pack.
Everywhere I turned: cranes, scaffolding, half-laid tram tracks. The main attractions seemed to be dust, traffic diversions, and eye-watering prices. As a student inter-railing around Europe for the first time, I found myself both culturally underwhelmed and financially traumatised. I left poorer in spirit and in wallet, convinced that Oslo was the one capital in Europe where you could be bankrupted by a sandwich.
In 2025 Oslo hasn’t grown any cheaper, but it has learned the vital art of giving you your money’s worth. This time I arrived armed with the Oslo Pass, a magic little card that gives you free access to more than thirty museums and galleries, plus unlimited travel on buses, trams, ferries, and even the metro.
It is, in short, the only thing standing between you and a diet of instant noodles while visiting Norway’s capital.
The Fjord Awakens: Oslo’s New Waterfront
With the pass in hand, I set out to see how much Oslo had changed. The answer, I discovered, is: completely. Where once there were warehouses and shipyards, there is now the sparkling Fjord City development, stretching along the waterfront like an architect’s fever dream.
Oslo waterefront
The Opera House, with its marble roof, you can stroll up for a fjord-side panorama, is both dazzling and surprisingly fun—half cultural landmark, half urban climbing frame. Nearby, the Barcode Project stands in regimented fashion, like a row of oversized dominoes. Love it or hate it, you can’t say Oslo hasn’t developed a skyline worth talking about.
A Cultural Binge: Museums for Days
The National Museum, home to Munch’s The Scream (yes, the real one, not the emoji), is a must-see. Just a short walk away, the towering MUNCH Museum feels like a shrine to Norway’s brooding genius. For balance, I wandered into the Deichman Bjørvika Library, which manages to feel both cutting-edge and cosy—like reading in a spaceship fitted with fireplaces.
On a sunny day, I hopped on a ferry to Bygdøy, Oslo’s museum island, where the open-air Norwegian Museum of Cultural History (or Folkemuseum) takes you through centuries of Norwegian life in a setting of wooden farmhouses, stave churches, and cobbled courtyards.
Soon, the Viking Ship Museum will reopen there too, promising an even deeper dive into Norway’s mythic past. With the Oslo Pass, I breezed through these cultural treasures like a kid in a pick-and-mix shop, and for once in Oslo, I didn’t feel broke.
Oslo,Norway
From Industrial Fjord to Urban Playground
One of the greatest joys of modern Oslo is how the fjord has been reclaimed for people rather than industry. On a sunny day you’ll find Norwegians plunging into the water from floating saunas or lounging on the harbour steps as if Oslo were some Nordic Riviera.
This is no small achievement: the fjord was once so polluted you wouldn’t have dipped a toe in it without updating your will.
Oslo on the waterfront
Green, Clean, and Moving Forward
The city’s green credentials are equally impressive. Named European Green Capital in 2019, Oslo has slashed emissions, electrified its buses and ferries, and generally made itself the sort of place Greta Thunberg might go for a quiet weekend break. Cycling, thanks to the city’s excellent bike-sharing scheme, is not only possible but positively pleasant—a sentence that would have been unthinkable twenty years ago.
The Future: A Cool Escape with a Catch
Looking ahead, Oslo and Norway may find themselves in an enviable yet complicated position. As Europe swelters, travellers are already seeking out Scandinavia as a “cool summer” destination—a refuge from the heatwaves of the south. It’s a double-edged sword: more visitors bring economic opportunity, but also the risk of overcrowding and environmental strain. Still, if any city has shown it can reinvent itself with grace, it’s Oslo.
Once the dullest and most expensive stop on my student rail odyssey, it has transformed into a city of art, culture, and clean living. It’s not cheap, but with an Oslo Pass and a bit of stamina, you can gorge on galleries, opera, architecture, and fjord views until you collapse, smug in the knowledge that you’ve wrung every krone’s worth of value out of the place.
And if the sandwiches remain ruinously priced, at least now they come with a view worth paying for.
Fact File:
Get there in time for Øya Festival review in August.
Stay: the Karl Johan Hotel
More information: Visit Oslo, and Visit Norway for all the practical details.
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