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Stockholm also- grey skies, and despite being built on several islands, riddled with endless highways, train tracks, concrete bridges, blank modernity and emptied streets that disfigures what would have been an otherwise elegant and historic place. The surviving Gamle Stan (Old Town) is way too small for what once was, and too taken over by the tourist and chain brand buck. Every gorgeous edifice is fronted by double the space of roaring traffic, or islanded in a park rather than forming part of the urban fabric.
I agree with you on the traffic part. Some parts of Stockholm are a complete mess. If you remember visiting Gamla Stan you might remember the Slussen area, connecting the island to Södermalm. That is the worst part of Stockholm when it comes to traffic. This area https://www.google.se/maps/@59.32131...RqL90ZRwoA!2e0
^fantastic news, what an upgrade, and long overdue. Slussen is such a pivotal area that if it wasn't effectively built on bridges over water it would be the defacto new centre of the city chock a block with shops and businesses, connecting up the Old City, commercial heart, transport nexus and 19th Century waterfronts.
I'd still prefer they bury the roads (rather than the shops) though, but that would be expensive and possibly dangerous.
in my native land - Hatfield, UK, famed for its gorgeous Tudor palace, but surrounded by zombie hell on earth that is the much dreaded 'New Town'/ 'Garden City'. Leafy suburban nightmare, cultureless desert, on suicide watch. Window twitching nirvana of postwar tweeness - the perfect combo of cold modernity with aspirations to car culture, and small-minded faux brick kitsch. Winner of Britain in Bloom year in year out. The main street is a roundabout, the town centre and all its shops are housed in one single room - a 1970s hangar-like shopping mall. There's a big university filled with unlucky, unwitting Chinese students drifting around the perfectly clipped lawns in doomed groups, and who resort to catching the train to St Albans for any semblance of nightlife (or life in general). Last bus home and last drinks 9pm! Needless to say all the other inhabitants who live there ****ing love it, and their polished white Ford Escorts and suburban wife-swap parties. Gimme the estates of Peckham anyday.
Actually I would have to say where I am now. Tucson. Other than the beautiful mountains, and the sunny weather. This is without a doubt the most poverty prone, I don't give a damn kind of place I have been to in this country. Really very sad that a city, would allow itself to get in such poor shape.
Oslo was a bit of a letdown too, constantly under construction as it rebuilds its roads after every winter, twee, modern, surprisingly dirty, a small city (in a bad way) and chokingly smelly by the dock (I think it's a fish processing factory - you see it coming before it hits you, wondering why people are running and belching between buildings like a terrorist attack, then being hit by a sensation of rotting fish combined with a blast of raw sewage being poured into your eyes, and the first time you smell something so overpowering it makes you vomit), where one catches ferries to the underwhelming, slightly boring Oslofjord. It's saving grace being its good looking inhabitants, but other than that as unassuming and neutral as a clear glass of glacial water. Great looking new Opera house though
There is a lot of construction going on in Oslo, especially in the Bjørvika area (Opera house). It is part of the extensive Fjord City project. Roads are not rebuild every year . The winter is not that harsh and it would be way too costly. The Oslofjord is very nice during the summer months. Just visit one of the many islands. The coastline is far superior to the boring and ugly, dirty rivers of London (the Thames is basically an open sewage in comparison) and Berlin. The city center and typical tourist areas are small. There is no fish processing factory at the harbor but I guess some fishermen process and clean fish there. I have spent many evenings at the harbor during the summer months, usually drinking beer. Still, I would not recommend Oslo for foreign tourists. The Opera house is ok but it is just a building. Just go straight to Bergen, the Fjords and Lofoten. That is what you came for...
While every city is beautiful/good in its own way, the worst city I've been to has to be Detroit. And, yes, I've traveled quite a bit, both in the USA and outside of the USA.
There is a lot of construction going on in Oslo, especially in the Bjørvika area (Opera house). It is part of the extensive Fjord City project. Roads are not rebuild every year . The winter is not that harsh and it would be way too costly. The Oslofjord is very nice during the summer months. Just visit one of the many islands. The coastline is far superior to the boring and ugly, dirty rivers of London (the Thames is basically an open sewage in comparison) and Berlin. The city center and typical tourist areas are small. There is no fish processing factory at the harbor but I guess some fishermen process and clean fish there. I have spent many evenings at the harbor during the summer months, usually drinking beer. Still, I would not recommend Oslo for foreign tourists. The Opera house is ok but it is just a building. Just go straight to Bergen, the Fjords and Lofoten. That is what you came for...
Dont get me wrong Norway, mile for mile, probably has the most spectacular scenery in the world. I visited about ten years ago in April when everywhere seemed to be resurfacing their roads en masse, even by the busy rail station and shopping areas. At the jetty to the islands there was a building belching a stench Ive never come across before or again. Ive no idea what it was but it was so strong it made your eyes water, and people run while covering their faces. I think tear gas works in a similar way. -A combination as I mentioned of the smells of rotting fish and sewage (no idea what it actually was), but much, much stronger. - I imagine it would be closed down by now considering it's right next to a tourist jetty; my Norwegian friends knew it well and laughed at our stories anyhoo.
The islands I weren't so impressed by - very rocky and every inch of coastline dotted in 'seagull paint'. The interior was gorgeous with little cottages and stands of trees, but a bit boring overall.
What I did like was:
pretty much everything outside Oslo
Oslo's inhabitants
food (everything organic)
Opera house
the boho quarter, although a little empty
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From 1:20, you can see the changes: 
. The winter is not that harsh and it would be way too costly. The Oslofjord is very nice during the summer months. Just visit one of the many islands. The coastline is far superior to the boring and ugly, dirty rivers of London (the Thames is basically an open sewage in comparison) and Berlin. The city center and typical tourist areas are small. There is no fish processing factory at the harbor but I guess some fishermen process and clean fish there. I have spent many evenings at the harbor during the summer months, usually drinking beer. Still, I would not recommend Oslo for foreign tourists. The Opera house is ok but it is just a building. Just go straight to Bergen, the Fjords and Lofoten. That is what you came for...
