1936 On the Continent

oil upon the natural colour of the pinewood, they imprint the landscape with a cheerfully fresh and homely aspect. And one does not fully realise the style and variation possible in timber architecture until the villas of such places as the outskirts of Oslo reveal it.
Theatres
    Oslo has four leading theatres, and several smaller ones. At the National Theatre, just off the Karl Johansgate, leading European plays are produced, and the works of Björnson and Ibsen frequently performed. These two great figures of Norwegian literature and drama stand as statues on either side of the entrance to the theatre, proud and aloof from the courting couples who whisper beneath the trees a few yards away.
    At the Centralteatret, in the Akersgate, comedies and operettas are mostly staged. There is a very attractive modern theatre—Det Nye Teater—in the Rosenkrantzgate, which specialises in contemporary drama, and in summer stages lively, light-hearted revues. The Chat Noir is a cabaret-variety house, where refreshments are served during the performances.
    One of the high-spots of Oslo amusement life is the Röde Mölle—in the Tivoli garden. Here there is a large dance floor, and the cabaret turns are among the best in Europe.
Cafés, Restaurants
    The Grand and the Bristol, near to each other and in the centre of the city, are the élite hostelries of Oslo. But bothare entirely democratic. Democracy, hospitality and genuine friendliness are notable traits of the Norwegian character, and this is communicated to the restaurant life of Norwegian cities.
    You will never be haughtily refused evening admittance to these places because you are not arrayed in evening dress. That form of meretricious snobbery, so lamentably prevalent in some restaurant quarters of London, is wholesomely absent from Oslo.
    The Grand Café, if it were situated in a similar position in London—that is to say in the best part of the main shopping and promenading thoroughfare—would be unapproachable for the traveller of average purse. Its service and table appointments are faultless. Its food is on an equally high level. Yet you can get an excellent meal for 2 kroner, and the most expensive item on the à la carte menu is not more than 4 kroner, and that consists of a large helping of caviare, with adorning etceteras in the form of
knekkebröd
(a delicious crisp rye cake) and slices of carrots, mushrooms and other cold vegetables.
Dagens Kost
    A feature of the Grand, and of all the Oslo restaurants, is the Dish of the Day—Dagens Kost. This consists of a choice of various appetising and nourishing confections at prices running from 60 öre to 2 kroner—(6d. to 2s.).
    In the Mauriske Sal (the Moorish Hall) of the Bristol, Oslo youth and beauty—and there is a lot of beauty—meets to dance and drink tea and flirt gracefully.
    How
do
the girls get their wonderful sun-tanned tint, bronze beneath the corn-yellow of their hair. Is it natural, or does dope from a bottle do it? It’s natural. In summer the sun shines for eighteen hours a day in the height of the season in Oslo; and further north, beyond the Arctic Circle, the Midnight Sun gives perpetual daylight between the middle of May and the end of June.
    One of the most cheerful and Bohemian restaurants of Oslo is Blom, a resort of writers and artists and actors, but equally open and welcoming to the general public. Its tables are lit by candles in black wrought-iron stands of different design. There again you can get a good dinnerfor 2 kroner, or dally the evening away in conversation over
smörrebröd
and beer.
    A popular lunch restaurant is the Teaterkafeen, across the street from the National Theatre.
    In the leading cafés the orchestras are of very high standard, and in the lesser places there is always good music to be heard in the evenings. Sometimes the players may consist only of a pianist and a fiddler. But they can play, and they are at their best in the folk-songs of the country—those wistful, plaintive melodies that bring the air of mountains and the scent of forests and the simple life of the peasant farms into the modern rush and clamour of the city.
    Of lesser restaurants of the cheery-beery kind, Humlen and the Nürnberger Hof may be named. They are essentially popular in tone. Students frequent them to celebrate an examination success, jovial parties of comrades make them a rendezvous.
    There is another cabaret-dance-variety resort that must also be noted. The Dovrehallen. If your