My Holiday To Norway-Viking Ships & Norwegian Culture

On our second day in Oslo and our final day in Norway, we started with breakfast in our hotel.

Breakfast was included with our room price and we was impressed. There was a tonne of options, healthy foods, fresh bread and more.

I had beans on toast and garlic potatoes, which was delicious and filling.

After fuelling up for the day, we got a taxi to The Viking Ship Museum which is in a scenic and green part of Oslo.

The Viking Ship Museum is one of Oslo’s must-see attractions in my opinion. To stand so close to amazingly preserved Viking ships is pretty special.

The first and the oldest ship in the museum is the Oseberg Ship.

Up close.

The Oseberg ship was built in Western Norway around AD 820 and was used for several years, before being used as a burial boat for two important women in AD 834.

The women’s bodies were buried in the middle of the ship with lots of important posessions and goods. The boat was then buried in Oseberg Farm, where it was found in 1903.

The ship is made of oak and as it is more lavishly decorated, it’s thought it wasn’t used for long sea voyages.

The second oldest boat in the museum is the Gokstad Ship.

The Gokstad Ship was built in AD 890 and was in use until AD 900, when a chieftain was buried in the boat with gifts including beds, boats and animals. However, his burial gifts weren’t quite as grand as those in the Oseberg Ship.

The Gokstad Ship was found buried at Gokstad Farm in 1880. Again it is made of oak and it’s the largest and sturdiest of the three ships in the museum.

Due to its build, Gokstad could sail as far as Iceland.

The third and final ship is The Tune Ship.

The Tune Ship was built in Oslo around AD 910 and was used to bury a chieftain just a few years later.

The ship is the last recorded burial ship in Norway and wasn’t excavated until 1867, but it had been previously uncovered several times before.

In the museum there was wooden carvings that would have been attached to the ships.

Viking cooking pots.

And incredibly well preserved leather boots.

And a video about Viking Ships.

After the Viking Ship Museum, we stopped off for some well deserved lemon sorbet a few doors down.

Before going into the Norsk Folkemuseum (also referred to as the Norwegian Museum of Cultural History).

The museum is a mostly outdoor, open air museum with different buildings and farmland to represent different areas of Norway and life in the country from the Middle Ages to the 20th Century.

Us at the Norsk Folkemuseum.

The buildings at the site are mostly original buildings transported from different parts of Norway to the museum. The houses, shops and church are not replicas, but real buildings.

Me giving a tooth extraction to my partner in the old dentists.

Old shops.

A traditional, Oslo house from 1920.

Wood chopping.

Traditional dancing.

Farm buildings.

And the famous Gol Stave Church, built in 1212.

The Norsk Folkemuseum is a great day and you could easily spend a day there. If we had more time, we would have spent more time exploring the buildings as we didn’t see everything.

As it was getting late, we took a taxi back into the centre of Oslo.

We grabbed a Subway each to eat.

Before heading back to the hotel to pack up our things. Sunday is a 6pm, late check-out at the Comfort Hotel Karl Johan, so we grabbed our things and waited for a taxi to Oslo airport.

A rainbow at Oslo airport.

And an unusual sculpture.

And then it was time to fly home.

After an amazing time in Norway, it was time to say goodbye, at least for now.