One of the nicest things about where we live is that we overlook the Akerselva river. This river has its origin in Lake Maridal (Maridalsvannet), 5 miles north of where we live. And it meanders through several Oslo neighborhoods before reaching the harbour. We’ve walked south along the Akerselva into the city-center and we had walked about half an hour north of where we are. But we’d never gone the whole way up to the lake. So, one sunny day, we decided to make the trip.
The trail itself was not quite what we imagined. Near our place and to the south, the river has a lovely path alongside it, so we assumed that the trip north would be more or less the same. But in fact, the path up to the lake is not continuous and occasionally we found ourselves on the street crossing over traffic or in wooded dead-ends on the wrong side. But – clever naturalists as we are – we stuck to the river and eventually made it. It was also crazy steep in parts! So we ended up a bit muddier and sweatier than anticipated
In spite of a few rough patches, the trip was absolutely delightful. To begin with, the river is punctuated with a series of absolutely fantastic waterfalls. Whether on the larger or smaller side, they are exceedingly picturesque (as we’ve tried to convey in our amateurish way). In addition, the river runs along many lovely eateries (the Mathallen is one of them). So it’s possible to pause for a snack while walking along if that’s your thing. Thirdly, there are a number of old and attractive bridges all along the way. Lastly, since the river was once used for industrial purposes, there are a lot of old factories along the route. Most of these have been wonderfully converted to new uses, whether galleries, schools, or cafés.
What we found particularly cool is that in several places along the way (partly thanks to clever damming), the Akerselva is placid and wide enough to accommodate swimmers. Some of these bathing spots were quite small, others fairly large. But all of them looked extremely inviting! And in one of these bathing places, at Nydalen, there was a whole complex of stores, apartments, and restaurants. Naturally, we had to stop there on our way back for a refreshing beverage.
As to our destination, the lake itself, that was the most disappointing part of the trip. From the way we’ve seen Norwegians interact with the environment, we expected that it would have shops and boats and a beach. Beautiful it was, but also unapproachable, as the photo below with the fences shows. There was also a surprising amount of construction. We realized that it was probably like this because the lake is the main supplier of drinking water for the city. So presumably they want to protect it from folks like us. (And yet, what about those people bathing downstream?)
Nonetheless, despite a couple of disappointments, the trip was well worth it. Though we probably won’t go all the way back to the lake, we will certainly make a few more excursions up the Akerselva, so stay tuned for additional reports!
