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Henrik Ibsen was, by all accounts, a frugal old goat. This year, as Norway hosts a major cultural celebration of its best-known dramatist to mark the centenary of his death, the author of A Doll’s House would have been, no doubt, grumpier than usual to learn that the Norwegian capital Oslo has been named as the world’s most expensive city. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which compares the cost of goods and services in the 130 cities (in US dollars) as part of its annual Worldwide Cost of Living Survey, Tokyo has been toppled from its top spot after 14 years.

But is there a budget Oslo just waiting to be discovered? To find out I headed to Stansted Airport armed only with modest amount of spending money and a keen eye for a bargain.
The challenge: to take a weekend break in Oslo without breaking the bank.

The secret to saving money is to make friends with Oslo’s highly efficient public transport system. A 24-hour pass for the network costs approximately 60 Norwegian Kroner (£5). Otherwise invest in an Oslo Pass and, after taking a hit of 300NK (or £26 for a 48-hour pass), you then have the run of the network and open access to all the museums in the city for the duration of its validity.

Eating and drinking out is, however, always a guaranteed way to splash the cash. I used my first night to get my bearings with a free dusk stroll along the harbour at Aker Brygge before, taking a tip off from local web magazine, Use It (http://use-it.unginfo.oslo.no/sider/) and heading to the Palace Grill for dinner. This local institution is split into three sections: a bar with a garden area for summer sundowners, a tiny but gloriously charismatic gourmet restaurant serving a daily-changing 10-course menu for 850NK/£73 and an adjoining grill.

Budget conscious as ever, I opted for the latter and found it to be a funky joint with candles, velvet drapes and a 250NK (£21) sampling menu, which sprawled tapas-like across the table, taking in cold meats to start, cod and muscles in ginger to follow and three delicate slices of meat, beef, pork and ox, to finish, all washed down with a pint of the local brew, Frydenlund, for a total of 300NK (£26). Yes, I know. Friendly service and relaxed the surroundings, but it was a little on the pricey side.

The next day then, I set off in search of the cheap, the good value and, better still, the downright gratis. It was a sunny winter morning and the streets were awash with urbanites sporting Day-Glo salopettes and toting skis en route to the ski fields close to the Holmenkollen ski jump in the city’s northwest. I instead opted to run the gauntlet of Nordic baby strollers with a cost-free, blow-away-the-cobwebs stroll through the Vigelands Sculpture Park, home to 200-plus bronze and granite monoliths by the artist, Gustav Vigeland.

The park is packed with families and musicians gather for alfresco, free performances. In one corner a chilly Peruvian in a red Parka plays pan pipes to an Andean backing track, while in another a brass-monkeys Frenchman squeezes La Vie En Rose from his accordion. In the background a symphony of nude figures, all life-sized and interwoven around each other with the complexities of life, lend their stoic support. The view is gloriously clear and the air gloriously fresh. Best of all, it’s completely free.

After lunch on the run of a coffee and a sandwich, (total cost 100NK/£8.50) from a simple café close to the transport interchange at Majorstua, I head for the museums. Many of the city’s cultural powerhouse institutions have free entry year round, notably the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, currently home to Damian Hirst’s half-cow, and the National Museum of Art, where original versions of Edvard Munch’s two most famous works, The Scream and The Madonna, are displayed.

Also free to visit is the City Hall, where on December 10th each year dignitaries gather for the Nobel Prize awards ceremony. There are free tours of the building throughout the day, while the murals on the walls of the main hall depict the history of Norway through the ages.

Close by, and hugging the fjord that runs right into Oslo harbour, the Nobel Peace Prize Centre, which opened in 2005, is only free to Oslo Card holders (60NK/£5 otherwise), but worth it for its mix of high-tech displays and excellent use of English-language signage, particularly in The Nobel Field, where the previous Peace Prize winners are displayed atop fibre-optic cables with touch-screen presentations.

Free until March 31st, and free year-round to Oslo Card holders (65NK/£5.50 otherwise), is the museum dedicated to Norway’s most famously troubled artist, Edvard Munch. Recently, the museum has become better known as the ‘Munch Fortress’ since a group of art thieves casually pulled up outside the museum in August 2004, strolled in and breezed out again with his best-known works under their arms. Today the famous pictures are kept behind glass and an airport-like security system greets everyone with a cautious welcome.

By night the best place to take the city’s pulse is the Grunerlokke district to the city’s more ethnically diverse east. Originally a working-class area, the vital signs of budget Oslo are most apparent here with ethnic eateries, second-hand clothes shops and student bars grouped around the streets Markveien and Thorvald Meyers Gate.

Amongst them, café bar Fru Hagen has an embarrassment of impossibly blond locals seeking cheap eats. On a Sunday evening, when much of the city appears almost post-apocalyptic deserted, Fru Hagen is heaving to the sound off clattering cutlery and a lounge music soundtrack. Better still, prices are more than reasonable with unlimited tap water and bread to complement decent-sized portions.

But still I was still convinced I could eat cheaper. The skin-flint Ibsen would have been proud of me, therefore, as I braced myself and strode into a bar that, from the outside, looked ostensibly for locals only. Fire Brodre Pub Bar turned out, however, to be the budget Shangri-La I had dreamed of. Simple but friendly, the set supper menu was a bargain 96NK/£8 and a pint of Hahn lager just 43NK/£3.70, while the friendly locals didn’t even bat an eyelid at a stranger in their midst.

Proud of my moneysaving efforts, I rounded off the night at Café Le Rustique amid comfy sofas, leather chairs and picture for sale by local artists adorning the walls. A café cortado was a reasonable 21NK/£1.80 and wireless internet access is free, if you happen to have brought your laptop along for the ride.

Over coffee I started chatting to sibling students Ingrid and Espen Oyslebo. “Oslo can be expensive like any big city such as Reykjavik (the third-place listed city according to the EIU), Copenhagen (sixth place) or London (ranked seven). You just have to learn how to live cheaply,” says Espen.

Ingrid agrees: “If we want to drink, we drink at home and go out late. If we want to watch a movie, we don’t go to the cinema, but use the free wireless internet around town to download it.”

Such ingenuity from the young. Ibsen, no doubt, would have been proud of her.

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