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One extremely bright and sunny day I headed out to the Vigeland Sculpture Park, the world’s largest sculpture park made by a single artist. Gustav Vigeland was an important Norwegian sculptor and the designer of the Nobel Peace Prize medal. The sculpture park was his life’s work and has over 200 sculptures made from bronze, granite and wrought iron.
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I’d heard good things about the Fram Museum so it was one of the museums I definitely wanted to visit. The highlight is of course the Fram itself – which among other voyages lead Roald Amundsen to become the first person to reach the South Pole. Being able to actually climb on board the ship and go down into the rooms below makes it a very special museum.
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The Viking Ship museum was, as I’d suspected, a fairly small museum given the large crowds it attracts. It does however contain the world’s best preserved Viking ship that makes quite an impressive spectacle on entering the building. I also liked the viewing platforms which meant you could get a better overview of the ships (and better pictures not distorted by crowds).
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The Norwegian Folk Museum showcases life in Norway from 1500 to the present. Although I was aware that this is largely an open air museum with historic buildings that have been relocated here (160) I was struck by how vast the place is and the amount of information on display. As well as exhibits in the main building you can enter many of the historical buildings and explore further exhibitions.
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The Flam Railway Museum is a free museum in Flam that explains just what went into the making of the Flam Railway line. I’d deliberately given myself a bit of time in Flam before I had to get the train back which I would recommend doing, if only to stretch your legs!
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The Flam Railway is a mountain railway line with a vertical drop of 865.5 metres, making it one of the steepest railway lines in Europe and it has been described as one of the world’s most beautiful train journeys. I did some research and booked all of my tickets for this journey before I left the UK and I would recommend this – the NSB (Norway’s rail system) is easy to navigate and tickets do sell out fast. My journey started early with an extremely comfy 4 1/2 hour train journey from Oslo to Myrdal, then joining the Flam Railway on the scenic route to Flam, with some time in Flam itself, before going all the way back again. A long day, but absolutely worth it.
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When I visited the Ibsen Museum I’d read A Doll’s House and seen Hedda Gabler on stage but otherwise wasn’t that familiar with Henrik Ibsen (I’ve since sought out a few more productions of his plays in London which have been really interesting). The museum is in the apartment he lived in with his wife from 1895 to his death in 1906 and gave a very good primer into his life.
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The Museum of Cultural History in Oslo consists of early Norwegian artefacts, classical antiquities from ancient Egypt and other areas of Africa, as well as Asia. It opened in 1904 and is in a rather lovely Art Deco building.
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The Munch Museum in Oslo has the largest collection of Edvard Munch’s work in the world and when I visited their exhibition focused on the parallels between Munch’s work and that of Vincent van Gogh.
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I’m putting these two together because the Natural History Museum is in the grounds of the Botanical Gardens and also the fire alarm went off whilst I was at the museum so although I went back in to finish looking around there, it did mean that I didn’t spend as much time in the gardens as I would have done if I hadn’t been interrupted.
Louise Jayne's Blog 