[ May 2019 ] I continue talking about our river walking tour in Oslo, Norway.
One of the destinations of the tour was the area of many artists’ workshops called ‘Blå’.
We had heard that they hold a craft market on Sundays, so I was looking forward to visiting there, but when we arrived, we were taken aback seeing how small it was.
It is located in the area north east of the city centre called Grünerløkka along the Akerselva river.
There were some buildings which used to be factories or warehouses and the walls of them were full of murals.
The atmosphere was similar to that of Camden in London and many young creative people are gathering there making a special corner which is messy but full of energy.
There were craft stalls for sure selling accessories and miscellaneous goods, but in fact the market area was only on a short street from the bridge over the river to the crossroads.
Our tour broke up for a while for us to wander around for about 20 minutes, but we looked them all in no time.
We thought we must have missed something, so we asked people there, but that was it.
Well, the population in Oslo is only about 650000, while in London it is about 8 millions, so I suppose it is normal that the size of this kind of place is much smaller, too.
Anyway, the place was nice and colourful with interesting objets d’art, so we took many photos.
By the way, the name ‘Blå’ means ‘blue’ and the reason is that there used to be a textile factory here and they dyed the fabrics blue.
After the tour resumed, we walked further to a square where there was a tall tower.
According to our guide, Rihanna, this tower is an apartment block for students.
In the past, there used to be a mill started by some monks near here and this tower was a silo.
It seemed about 15 storeys high and she said that a semicircle is one room.
Around the tower, people were sitting around and enjoying the Sunday afternoon.
Apparently, poor working class people used to live around here, but because of the redevelopment, it is now the most trendy area and the property price is soaring.
We crossed the bridge here and on the other side of the river, there is a food hall which used to be a warehouse and some new apartment buildings and hotels were surrounding it.
The building with many solar panels was the headquarters of an eco promotion group.
There was also a hotel for unemployed people to try working there to see if they are suitable for the job.
Our tour ended here after walking for about 2 hours.
Now we went into the food hall to try the Norwegian foods that Rihanna told us that we could try small amount each, but they were not doing it on the day unfortunately.
So we moved to the main street to catch the bus No.54 to get back to the port area.
Later we learned that if you go a bit away from the river to the east from the food hall, you will see the centre of Grünerløkka where there are many trendy shops and restaurants.
