The Ride of the Valkyries in Oslo
Roger and Wendy Forsey are currently exploring Scandinavia. This is an account sent by Roger of one of their Oslo adventures!
On Sunday, after tea we caught the T-bane (Underground) to Oslo Central Station and walked down to the harbour to take some sunset pictures.
On the way back, we climbed up the “roof” of the Oslo Opera House.
This distinctive building is located at the head of the Oslofjord.
The angled exterior surfaces of the building are covered with Italian marble and white granite and make it appear to rise from the water.
You can climb the wide slopes on either side of the building from the waterline to the top of the building. The following pictures are from earlier in the week.
We were walking on the top deck on the land side of the Opera House when I noticed a person in a wheelchair appearing out of the darkness and traversing the top deck just above the downward slope. It made me very nervous – what would happen if they accidentally went over the edge – there was nothing to stop him until the wheelchair hit the water.
We were about half way down the slope, when I heard the sound of a wheelchair travelling at high speed down the slope of the Oslo Opera House roof towards the water in Oslofjord.
I glimpsed the rider holding onto the main wheels, jockey wheels high in the air as he rushed past in the darkness. I raised my camera and tried to take a shot – it was hopeless – too dark, no focus and too fast!
The rider slowed down at the bottom of the slope and wheeled across the front apron of the Opera House.
A few minutes later, we could see the silhouette of a rider in a wheelchair propelling himself up the seaward slope of the Opera House.
He was getting ready for another run!
I did take a picture of the rider on the top deck - there was something about how he was wheeling about up there. He was young, black African in a foreign country and trapped in a wheel chair.
Was it Alan Marshall's “I can Jump Puddles”?
No, it was a daredevil ride down the roof of the Oslo Opera House – it had to be “The Ride of the Valkyries”, by Richard Wagner! What a performance.
Later, we saw him sitting in his wheelchair on the underground platform of the T-bane. One of his mates went up to him and they exchanged “high fives” as we boarded out train back to Carl Berners plass.
