We continued our hike along the Akerselva River and eventually reached the Vulkan neighborhood. This area was originally a ship building area according to our guide. Vulkan comes from the steel work that was done here years ago. In Greek mythology, Vulcan is the god of fire and handicraft, including metalworking. But even five to ten years ago, our guide said that this area had damaged buildings, broken glass windows, lots of graffiti, drug addicts hanging around. It was not a nice area. But the area is back and again, Oslo has re-used and refurbished the area instead of just tearing it all down. Between the government and very community minded developers, it has turned into a nice area and a very interesting area too. Vulkan now has mixed-use buildings, shopping, dining, apartments with rooftop terraces that overlook the city, a former silver mine, historic houses, the city’s oldest church (circa the Middle Ages), and is the home to the Michelin starred restaurant, Kontrast, which harvests some of its herbs from a rooftop garden.

The first photo is a good example of what they’ve done in Vulkan. The building was built in 1908 and look at it today. Today, it’s virtually a modern building with heating from deep in the earth and all sorts of modern conveniences. You should also notice that, on purpose, Vulkan has kept lots of steel in sight to remind people of the heritage of this area. You can see steel garbage cans, steel planters, and a steel art work in the front of the photo. The building itself is now mostly a food hall with lots of different restaurants, food vendors, etc. but more on that in a bit.

The second photo shows very new buildings but again, you see lots of steel. They didn’t have to keep all the steel, it’s a tribute to the history of the area.

Eighteen grain silos are in the third photo, only today, they are all university student apartments. I don’t know how many apartments but it’s fifteen stories high. This area is near to central Oslo, transportation, everything a neighborhood needs plus it sits right on the Akerselva River.

The building in the first photo was where we ate lunch on this day. As we were on our way in, I noticed this dog-parking structure. Dogs are evidently not allowed inside and it would be chaotic if they were. I have never seen a dog-parking place before where you evidently can ‘park’ your dog while you go and have lunch. It is interesting and creative to say the least!

The food hall has all sorts of restaurants, food vendors and international foods from all over the planet. While the building was built in 1908, it doesn’t look that way once you are inside. You can see one of the food vendors in the last photo. Nora and I had some fresh cooked pasta at one place while Vicky and Peter got some fish and chips at another place. Everything was good. The food hall employs 200 people today which is more than the number of people who worked here when the area was full of steelworkers, according to the locals.