The ferry pulls away from the pier at Aker Brygge, and the city slides backwards, slowly, the way it does when you're leaving it on water. The Opera House shrinks to a white wedge, the Munch tower to a pale rib, and the sound of the city — the trams, the jackhammers, the summer crowds — gives way to the low, steady hum of the diesel engine and the cry of gulls circling the wake. I've been here a week, exactly a week, and tomorrow I take the train north. But this evening belongs to the fjord.
I booked this ferry ticket three days ago, on a whim, because I read about the Oscarsborg Opera festival and thought it sounded like the kind of thing you do when you have one last evening in a city you're not finished with yet. The festival runs for about nine days in early August, in the courtyard of the old fortress on Oscarsborg, which sits out in the Oslofjord about half an hour by boat from the city. The boats leave from the harbour, and the whole thing feels like a very Norwegian way to spend a summer evening — a military fortress, built in the 1850s to defend the capital from the sea, turned into a stage.
I should say, I'm not an opera person. I've never been one. I like the idea of it, the drama of it, the way a single voice can fill a stone courtyard, but I've never quite known how to listen. Still, there's something about the setting that pulled me in. The performance tonight is in the open air, in the fortress courtyard, and the sound carries across the water in a way that feels older than any theatre. I'm told there's also a children's opera on a sailing ship, the S/V Legends, which sounds magical, but I'm here for the grown-up version, whatever that turns out to be.
The ferry is crowded, mostly Norwegians, mostly older than me, some with picnic baskets, folding chairs, thermoses. This is the thing I'm learning about Norway — the evenings are for ritual. You bring your own food, your own coffee, your own blanket, and you make a ceremony out of sitting somewhere beautiful. I have none of that. I have a light jacket and a book I haven't opened, and I feel a little underdressed for the occasion, but no one seems to mind. The ticket cost about 300 kroner, maybe forty dollars, and I know the ferry ride is part of it, so I'm calling it a fair price for a night out.
We pass the islands as the city drops away. Hovedøya first, green and low, with its ruined monastery I haven't had time to visit, then Lindøya, then Nakholmen, little summer worlds with their red and yellow wooden houses and their docks full of small boats. The water is calm, a grey silk in the overcast light, and the air is warm enough that I can lean against the rail without shivering. I think about the swims I've taken this past week, at Sørenga, the cold shock of the fjord against my skin, and I realise I'll miss that more than I expected.
The ferry rounds the last island, and there it is — the fortress, low and grey on its rock, with the main tower rising out of the trees. It looks like something from a different century, which it is. I'm told that Oscarsborg was where the German cruiser Blücher was sunk in 1940, at the very start of the German invasion of Norway, when the old guns and torpedoes fired on a ship that outgunned the fortress by every measure and still managed to stop it. That history sits in the stone, under the flag, and I feel it as we approach the dock.
The courtyard is bigger than I expected, a wide open space ringed by low buildings and the old fortress walls, with the fjord visible over the ramparts. A stage is set up at one end, simple, with a painted backdrop and a row of lights, and rows of folding chairs face it, filling up fast. I find a seat at the side, near the wall, where I can see both the stage and the water, and I settle in as the light begins to soften toward evening.
The performance begins, and I stop worrying about whether I understand it. It's in Italian, I think, or maybe it doesn't matter — the voices carry, and the story is in the sound, the rise and fall of it, the way the music bends around the stone walls. I don't catch the name of the piece, and I'm not going to pretend I did. What I remember is the moment when a single voice, a soprano, holds a note that seems to hang in the air above the courtyard, above the fjord, above the whole evening, and for a few seconds I'm not in my seat at all.
During the interval, I stand near the ramparts and watch the light on the water. The sun is low now, hidden behind cloud, but the sky has that late-August quality, a kind of silver glow that makes the world look softly lit. I think about the week that's passed. The paperwork, the D-number that's still processing, the bank account at DNB that can't open until that number arrives, the neighbourhoods I've walked, the metro line that's been disrupted, the swims in the fjord. It hasn't been a glamorous week. It hasn't been a tourist week. It's been a week of settling, of learning how a city actually works, and that's exactly what I needed.
A man beside me offers a thermos of coffee, and I take a cup, and we stand there in silence, watching the water, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. I ask him about the fortress, and he tells me — in careful, friendly English — about the Blücher, about the torpedo battery at the southern end of the island, about how the old guns still point out across the fjord. I don't ask about the opera. I don't think he came for the opera either.
The second half is shorter, and when it ends, the applause rolls across the courtyard and out toward the water. I clap until my hands sting, and then I join the slow shuffle toward the ferry, past the stone walls, past the cannon that still points at the channel, past the flag that snaps in the evening breeze. The ferry leaves on a schedule, and I've checked it, so I know we have time, but I still walk quickly, not wanting to miss the last boat back.
The ferry ride back is different from the ride out. The light has gone from silver to a soft blue-grey, and the city lights are coming on across the fjord — a scatter of gold along the water's edge, the Opera House glowing white, the towers of the centre rising like a held breath. I sit on the upper deck, in the wind, and I let the evening settle into me.
I think about tomorrow. The train north, the Østerdalen valley, the timber towns and copper towns, the long climb into the mountains, and eventually the coast, Trondheim's fjord, and the road down to Ålesund's Art Nouveau harbour as summer fades into autumn. That's the plan. There's a shape to it, a line on the map, and I'm ready to follow it. But I'm also aware, sitting here on this ferry, that I'm saying goodbye to something. Not to a place, not to a city, but to a feeling — the feeling of arrival, of being new, of having nothing but time and nowhere to be.
The ferry docks at Aker Brygge, and I step back onto land, and the city is there, bright and noisy, the bars full, the restaurants spilling out onto the pavement. I walk past them, up the street, past the Radisson and the Thon, past a café I might have stopped at if I weren't already full of the evening. I pass the place where the Oslo Jewish Museum stands — I noticed earlier this week that it's closed for renovation, behind hoardings, not due to reopen until 2028, and I'm glad I saw the street before the work began. Someday I'll come back for what's inside.
Back at my hotel room, a modest room at the Citybox, I pack my bag for the morning. The room is quiet, minimal, no clutter, and I like it that way. I check my phone, and there's a notification from the tax office — the D-number application is still in progress. No decision yet. I smile, because there's nothing else to do, and I put the phone away.
I stand at the window for a long time, looking out at the city lights, and I think about what this week has taught me. Not about Oslo, though I've learned more than I can fit into a podcast episode. But about this way of travelling — of arriving, of settling, of letting a place reveal itself slowly, through errands and swims and ferry rides and cups of coffee. It's a slower way of seeing, and I'm not sure I'll ever want to travel any other way again.
Tomorrow, the train north. But tonight, I'll sleep to the sound of the fjord, still moving in me, and I'll dream of the fortress on its rock, the voices in the courtyard, and the long, light evening over the water. Hei, Oslo. I'll be back.
The alarm is set for an early hour, but I'm not worried. I'm ready for the valley. I'm ready for the mountains. And somewhere in the dark, on the water, the last ferry of the evening is already home.