Smack bang in middle of city you’ll find Royal Palace. For those not used to kind of freedom enjoyed by Norwegian royals, palace can be quite a surprise. There are no fences surrounding it and gardens are open to public at all times. You’ll find families picnicking there, people walking their dogs, but unfortunately, you’ll also find that it attracts hard drug users. Luckily, they tend to keep themselves to themselves and there’s rarely any trouble from them. Used needles don't appear to be too much of a problem either, maybe because park's regularly maintained. There are guards but they generally leave you alone. As late King Olav once said, who needs bodyguards when you have entire population of your country protecting you?

From Palace, Karl Johans Gate leads down towards parliament buildings. The road is divided in two, with open-air cafes and gardens in middle. People of all ages congregate here, but it’s especially popular with younger people enjoying a half litre of lager (pils). Karl Johan is also main shopping street of Oslo but be warned, prices in Norway are higher than you're probably used to. Make sure you've taken enough of your hard earned cash with you.

Example prices:

½ Litre of lager: kr 45 (about £3.80) Loaf of bread: kr 16 (about £1.30) 20 cigarettes: kr 70 (about £6.00) 3-course meal in a good restaurant: kr 700 (about £60) Lunch in a nice café: kr 150 (about £12.70)

Norwegian enjoy a high standard of living even if they too complain about prices. Lager and cigarette prices are what peeve them most.

Most people associate Norway with snow, ice and extremely cold temperatures, tending to forget that they also enjoy warm, humid summers. Although Oslo is alive and kicking all year round, it’s during summer that average tourist who isn’t particularly interested in winter sports, can enjoy maximum benefits of a visit to city. In fact, variation in temperature and magnificence of surrounding countryside offer Oslo benefit of a plethora of outdoor activities that cannot be competed with by any other capital city.

Hold on. Affectionately? Does anybody actually hold any affection for network of tunnels that run beneath surface of our capital, or rolling stock that runs through them?

They’re over-crowded, far too warm and stuffy (the temperature in tunnels is about 10 C higher than at ground level), and views are pretty dire. In central London, all you’re likely to see is dark walls of tunnels, although if you’re lucky, you might just get a glimpse of another train passing in another tunnel through one of gaps between them. Funnily enough, contrary to popular belief, majority of The Tube is actually over ground. Not that there’s much scenic stimulation along those stretches either. You might see some fascinating factories, some interesting piles of rubbish that have mysteriously grown along sidings and a few back gardens, but nothing much else.

Anybody who’s ever regularly used The Tube during peak hours will tell you that using this particular form of transport can take great courage and will power. The platforms are crowded to point where those at front, closest to lines, can find themselves fearing for their lives. We’re warned to stand behind line, which is painted about three feet away from platform edge, but with all those people behind you, all wanting to get forward and have a chance of getting on next arriving train, platform edge can quickly become dangerously close.

Having a position at front doesn’t necessarily guarantee you a place on next train though. Oh, no. Whether or not you’ll actually get on it will depend largely upon where on platform you’re positioned and whether or not carriage doors will be in front of you when train stops. If you happen to be standing between two doors, then you’re very unlucky indeed. One way around this is to look at those ‘stand behind’ lines. As rolling stock on each line of underground are generally of same type (the trains differ from line to line) and stop at more or less same point (note: more or less… this isn’t an exact science), ‘stand behind’ lines will be more worn where doors are likely to be. Find those spots and you’ll have a better change of boarding next one, unless of course lines are freshly painted, in which case, bad luck.

This next point should be obvious to everybody but unfortunately, my experience tells me that this isn’t case. When train stops, even if you’re lucky enough to be standing in front of doors, LET PASSENGERS OFF THE TRAIN FIRST! Don’t just push your way on, even if others are doing so. It’s bad manners and can cause nasty accidents.

Once on train, you’ll no doubt have to stand as there are few seats compared with amount of passengers being transported during peak hours. It’s standard etiquette to offer your seat to elderly passengers and those carrying small children, whether still in comfortable confines of womb or otherwise. Anybody else will have little chance of finding a seat. The more experienced underground travellers have their strategies though; they'll target a seat. Those reading are unlikely to be travelling just a few stops, and although they could have been travelling for ages already, they rarely make good targets. Study people’s faces. If they look bored, they’ve probably already been there a while so maybe they’ll be alighting soon? Mind you, people do get very bored very quickly on The Tube, so they could just as easily have joined train at station before yours.

When it comes to seats that are vacated during journey, there’s a general unwritten rule. Whoever is standing closest to a seat that becomes available has greatest claim to seat. He/she can choose to offer it to a fellow passenger, but it’s against etiquette to make a dash for a seat where privilege of sitting obviously belongs to another.