Ekebergparken Sculpture Park and the Viewpoint of The Scream

Rising sharply behind the medieval ruins of Old Oslo just south-east of the Opera House and MUNCH, the wooded plateau of Ekeberg has been inhabited since the Stone Age (leaving behind 5,000-year-old rock carvings of elk near Kongshavn). In 2013, following a gift from art collector Christian Ringnes, 25 hectares of the historic hillside forest were opened as Ekebergparken Sculpture Park, a 24-hour, completely free outdoor trail of more than forty international sculptures interwoven with sweeping cliffside viewpoints over the city.

How to get there and the "Scream" Viewpoint (Utsikten)

Take Tram 13 or 19 (towards Ljabru) from Jernbanetorget right outside Oslo S. In just eight minutes the tram climbs a curving ledge cut into the hillside; hop off at Ekebergparken stop right beside the white functionalist 1929 pavilion of Ekebergrestauranten.

Before entering the deeper forest trails, walk five minutes further up Valhallveien along the cliff edge to the bend known as Utsikten ("The View"). It was while walking along this exact hillside road at sunset in January 1892 with two friends, looking down over the dark water of the fjord toward the ships and the central city as the clouds turned blood red, that Edvard Munch experienced the existential shudder of "a great, unending scream piercing through nature" that he painted in The Scream (Skrik), Despair and Anxiety.

Highlights on the Forest Sculpture Loop (90 minutes)

Pick up a free trail map near the tram stop and wind along the well-gravelled paths under oak, beech and pine trees:

• Louise Bourgeois, Salvador Dalí and Auguste Rodin: encounter Bourgeois's suspended aluminium The Couple hanging high between forest tree trunks, Dalí's surrealist bronze Venus de Milo aux tiroirs, Aristide Maillol's bronzes and Rodin's Eva.
• Damien Hirst, Tony Oursler and Fujiko Nakaya: watch Nakaya's Nordic Fog periodically envelop a woodland clearing in cool white mist and see Hirst's anatomical bronze Anatomy of an Angel perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking the harbour.
• James Turrell's Ganzfeld and Skyspace (inside an old water reservoir): on Sundays (or by pre-booked guided tour), step inside an underground historic stone water basin transformed by American light artist James Turrell into two immersive chambers of pure colour and open sky.