3 min
15 min
22 min
1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 11 · 12 · 13 · 18 · 19
23.2 / km²
13
4
174
+15% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Mixed after dark
Jernbanetorget, Vaterland and the Skippergata-Tollbugata blocks below Karl Johan draw street drinking and dealing after dark. It is intimidating rather than dangerous, but book above Karl Johan if that matters to you.
Staying in Sentrum
Sentrum is the core inside Ring 1: Karl Johans gate from the Central Station up to the Royal Palace, the Kvadraturen grid below it, the City Hall and Akershus Fortress on the water. Book here and you walk to almost everything a short trip is for, and you never work out which tram is which.
What you are buying is proximity, not a neighbourhood. This is an office and shopping district with about a thousand residents, so the streets empty on Sunday and the restaurants that stay open are the ones aimed at you. Rates are the highest in the city per star, and a room facing Karl Johan will hear the street until closing time.
The two ends of the borough are not the same place. The upper end by the Palace is quiet and safe at any hour. The lower end - Jernbanetorget, Vaterland, the Skippergata and Tollbugata blocks below Karl Johan - carries Oslo's most visible street drinking and dealing, and it is where the cheapest central rooms are advertised. Read the street name before you book the bargain.
What works
- Every metro line and most trams stop inside the borough
- Karl Johans gate, the Palace, the fortress and the harbour on foot
- Flytoget from Oslo S puts Gardermoen airport 20 minutes away
- The only district where you need no transport at all for two days
What does not
- About a thousand residents: dead on Sundays and after 22:00
- Highest room rates in Oslo for the same star rating
- Restaurants on Karl Johan are priced and cooked for tourists
- The cheap rooms are down by the station, and that is why they are cheap
Only about 1000 people live in the centre, including the royal family.