My celebration of Costitution Day

Starting the morning with a quick post of this being the National Day of Norway, I thought I'd post some pictures of my celebration. Some of you have asked what it is we celebrate. In short I can say that in the beginning of the 19th Century Norway was under the Danish crown. Denmark had been on Napoleon's side in the European wars, and subsequently was a part of the loosing team. It was decided that as a penance for being on the wrong side, they would have to abstain Norway to Sweden (who was on the winning side). In the spring months the Norwegians started the planning of a constitution – a constitution officially signed 17. May 1814 at Eidsvoll, and giving the Norwegians a bit of freedom in the upcoming union (that lasted until 1905). And the signing of the constitution is what we are celebrating every year on this date.

My celebration started with meeting up with the children’s parade in central Oslo.


All in all 111 schools in the city participate in the parade, and they walk through the central part of the city, passing by the parliament where they are greeted by the parliament president, and then they walk to the castle where they greet the royal family.

I walked through the grounds of the medieval castle/fortress – where I ran into a group of “russ”, graduating high school students (I hope May Britt’s daughter isn't among these) – they looked like they had had a rough night.

I went down to The Town Hall and my friends met up with me at the pier...


...and we took the ferry out to the museum. This picture is the view from the ferry back to the city. The two towers are The Town Hall.


Unfortunately we missed some of the arrangements at the museum, but we still got to enjoy the atmosphere.

At two o’clock we went to service at the medieval stave church which is a part of the museum. The church was built c. 1200 at Gol and moved to the museum late in the 19th century. The service was lovely, with psalms and the national anthem, and a choir singing a medieval chant.

This is me outside the church in my “bunad” (national costume).

From the museum we walked down towards the King’s farm – neighbour to the museum – and in the field we held our pick-nick with loads of goodies! I was so full that I had trouble breathing at one point *lol*

Ending my picture show with an idyllic shot of the walk we had back to the buss home…

Hope everyone have had as good a day as me!
Sincerely, Anne