The Nordic people are known for many things – and the Vikings are likely to be found at the top of this list. Their emblem, in turn, is their ships. Those interested in them will find what they are looking for on the Bygdøy peninsula in Norway’s capital, Oslo. There are four museums here dedicated to this topic.
The Fram Museum owes its name to its main attraction: the research ship Fram, with which, among others, polar explorer Fridtjoj Nansen travelled. No wooden ship has ever travelled further north or south on earth. This museum provides information about the Fram and the history of Norwegian polar expeditions. The Kon-Tiki Museum has a similar story to tell: Kon-Tiki is the name of a simple raft that Thor Heyerdahl used to sail from Lima across the Pacific Ocean in 1947. With this crazy experiment, he wanted to show that the Peruvian peoples could have settled the islands of Polynesia before the Incas, using the technical means available to them. If these museums go into too much detail for your taste, you might find what you are looking for at the Norwegian Seafaring Museum: here the focus is more on coastal culture and the maritime history of Norway.
The Vikings and their ships are the subject of the Viking Ship Museum, the ‘Vikingskipshuset’. However, it is currently being rebuilt and will reopen in 2025/2026 as the ‘Museum of the Viking Age’.
Frammuseum website: https://frammuseum.no
Kon-Tiki Museum website: https://www.kon-tiki.no/en/home
Norwegian Maritime Museum website: https://marmuseum.no/
Photo: Ancient wooden ship’s hull. Credits: Unsplash/Patrick Robert Doyle.
