City Guide:
Oslo is a city that is set apart from other European destinations.
For striking museums tourists flock to London, for arts they go to Louvre in Paris, but when it comes to natural beauty, there is no city rivaling Oslo. This makes Oslo a far cry from your usual tourist location, but a gateway to Scandinavia's most scenic country.
You can see all the beautiful landscapes that Oslo offers if you rely on Booked.net to complete your hotel booking. From cheap hotels in Oslo to luxury offers all available with maps, photos and secure forms at Booked.net.
You can find Oslo at the far end of Oslofjord Bay in a green surrounding of lakes, mountains and green hills. Just imagine that Oslo has 343 lakes with the largest named Maridalsvannet that covers an area of 1.51sqmi.
Even though Oslo occupies 453sqkm of total land most of it is covered with forests. This resulted in a population much smaller than other European cities and this again sets Oslo apart. Oslo barely numbers 152,000 inhabitants living in one of the largest capitals in the world by area.
In addition, a half of the city's population was wiped out by plague in 1348 and after a fire burned Oslo to the ground. Thanks to King Christian IV, royal builder it was redesigned and gradually grew to prominence of the largest and most culturally significant city in Norway.
Today Oslo will entice you with more than natural scenery, but parks, museums, churches and so on. For instance, you can take a stroll along Karl Johans Gate right to the Royal Palace and famous Edvard Munch Museum and find more arts of great Norwegian painters at the National Gallery. Other attractions include;
- Oslo Cathedral dominates the downtown skyline
-City Hall - Radhuset features typical Nordic socialist themes
- Akershus Festning, a medieval castle built in 1299 in the city center
- Nobel Peace Centre offers exhibitions for every winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
- The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History, an open air museum with buildings from various periods in Norwegian history
But Oslo is not only for culture, but it is also influential economical hub that thrives on shipping with more than 980 shipping companies located in Oslo. This business has made Oslo one of the most expensive cities in the world by the Worldwide Cost of Living Survey provided by Mercer Human Resource Consulting.
To save some money, consider advance booking of a hotel in Oslo at Booked.net.
