#fram museum

Home to some of Oslo’s most popular museums, I’ve visited Bygdøy Peninsula three times, in the mid 1990s, in 2010, and 2023. Almost nothing seemed to have changed between my first two visits, but plenty by the time of my third visit, particularly the introduction of digital screens everywhere, and far more tourists it seemed. The peninsula can be reached by bus or more scenically by ferry from…

This is what I bought in the fantastic shop. Unlike most gift shops, the books/souvenirs are actually reasonably priced and there were a lot of books that I'd never seen before.

I'd never heard of the de Bray book before, at least. There are a lot of other interesting Franklin and polar expedition books there, but I only have so much room in my case 😭. All of this totalled 355NOK (about £29.00), btw.

Norway, Fram Museum, Gjøa, 2021

Gjøa was the first vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. With a crew of six, Roald Amundsen traversed the passage in a three-year journey, finishing in 1906.

Our first stop was the Viking Ship Museum! This was probably one of my favorite places. I mean don’t get me wrong, I loved that Stave Church, but there’s something about fancy boats that really floats MY boat.

The first ship was the Oseberg Viking Ship. It was found in a large burial mound at the Oseberg farm, and was highly decorated and contained the remains of two wealthy women. It was 21.58 meters (70.8 feet) long, 5.10 meters (16.7 feet) broad, had a mast of 9–10 meters (29.5-32.8 feet), and was built almost entirely out of oak. It had the potential the reach up to 10 knots.

Oseberg Viking Ship

The Gokstad Viking Ship was a 9th century ship also found in a burial mound, and is the largest ship in the museum, measuring at 23.80 meters (78.1 feet) long and 5.10 meters (16.7 feet) wide.

Gokstad Viking Ship

The Tune Viking Ship was also from the 9th century, and although it is fragmented, it may have been 22 meters (72 feet) long. It is 4.35 meters (14.3 feet) wide.

The Tune Viking Ship

Aboard the Oseberg ship, two women were given an honorable burial. One was between 70 to 80 years old and may have died from cancer, and the other woman was in her 50’s, cause of death unknown. No one knows who they were in society, but they were of great importance to the community to be given such a burial.

The remains of one of the two wealthy women

Michael facing off with history

After we had our fill of Viking culture, we went to the Fram Museum (the Polar Ship Fram), which tells the history of Norwegian polar exploration. The ship was “designed and built by the Scottish-Norwegian shipwright Colin Archer for Fridtjof Nansen’s 1893 Arctic expedition in which the plan was to freeze Fram into the Arctic ice sheet and float with it over the North Pole.”1 Many thought him to be crazy, since the Arctic water temperatures claimed so many ships before the Fram.

The Fram ship

On the deck of the Fram ship

Michael exploring the (poop) deck! Heehee

For their exploration, they utilized dog sleds! Fun fact, they had to make sure that the material the harnesses were made out of tasted awful to the dogs. Otherwise, om nom noms would be initiated!

A big puppy sled for winter pups!

Model of what an exploration mission looked like

Finally, we ended our museum tour at the Historical Museum. Entrance was FREE with the Viking Ship Museum tickets!

Afterwards, we took a walk towards the Royal Palace! And yes, it was all uphill! I guess you could say it was a…walk in the park! (Somewhere, Michael is cringing and he doesn’t know why!)

The Royal Palace

If you ever get the chance to visit Oslo, it’s definitely worth your time and energy to go to as many museums and historical landmarks as you can. It was a challenge to visit all three of these before they closed, but it was worth it. Norway has such a rich and fascinating history, we embraced our inner tourist!

References: 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fram