Fjords and Museums in Norway

Dan and I visited Norway over the August bank holiday long weekend in the UK. Being a Scandinavian country, our first thought was that it was going to be cold, but we had clear blue skies and warm sunny days whilst we were there. It was warmer than Britain!!

Saturday - Norway in a Nutshell

Our first day was spent on 14.5 hours of transport! We chose to catch a few trains, a boat ride and a bus ride to see Aurlandsfjord that joins Sognefjord, the largest fjord in Norway, and to see the surrounding countryside. The scenery was beautiful, but it was such a long day sitting around moving from one mode of transport to another, herded like a bunch of cattle. We didn't go with a tour group, but there were so many people doing the exact same thing as us, it felt like it.

Sunday - Day of visiting museums

We were looking forward to a better day on Sunday and we were not disappointed. We caught the ferry to Bygdoy (pronounced Big-day) island, just off Olso (Norway's capital city). We visited the Viking museum, the Open air folk museum, the Kon-tiki museum, and the Fram museum. Dan thought a day of museums would be boring, but it was completely the opposite.

Viking Museum

The viking museum had real viking ships, that had been used in the burials of important people. It was incredible how well they were preserved and all the things that were preserved inside them, like snow sleds, a horse cart, fighting shields and the like.

The ships of the Vikings were seaworthy vessels, capable of taking the Norsemen wherever they wished to sail. They were light and shallow and could be easily beached. This allowed the Vikings to attack without warning and make their retreat before their foes could gather their forces. So the viking fleets were great at hit and runs!

Norwegian Folk Museum

The open-air folk museum had 150 different buildings from around Norway from different periods of time. We saw old storage, farm, commercial and residential buildings from the Norwegians and the Sami people (the indigenous, like eskimos, from the North). There were actors walking around in period costume, who were very informative when asked a question. We saw folk dancing from a group of young dancers and ate Lefse, a sugary, buttered flat bread that was cooked in the old style over a flat plate on a fire within one of the old houses.

Kon-tiki Museum

The Kon-tiki museum displayed artefacts and information about the Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. The Kon-tiki is a raft used by Thor in his 1947 expedition. He believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Colombian times and his aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. When you see the boat that was used, you understand how tough the journey must have been. I think it took them 101 days to make the journey, proving all other scientists wrong in this matter.

In 1969 and 1970, Heyerdahl built two boats from papyrus and attempted to cross the Atlantic from Morocco in Africa. We were able to see one of the reed boats used and see how incredible his journey must have been. It was like seeing real life Indiana Jones exploration by hard core explorers of the time.

Fram Museum

Fram ("Forward") is a ship that was used in expeditions in the Arctic and Antarctic regions by Norwegian explorers between 1893 and 1912. Fram was probably the strongest wooden ship ever built. It was designed for the 1893 Arctic expedition in which Fram was supposed to freeze into the Arctic ice sheet and float with it over the North Pole. We were able to walk onto the ship and see how life would have been like on board. We saw the animal skin clothing and boots that they wore and how small their cabins were. There was a huge Mammoth tooth on display that they had found among other things.

Monday - Oslo

The Monday was spent exploring Oslo. We went to the Vigeland Park to wonder around and ponder at the many statues there. The monolith in the centre of the park has the principal theme of the cycle of life in which Man is depicted in a variety of typical human situations and relationships. It must sound boring, but it really was interesting wandering around and guessing the nature of each statue, because there was so many of them. Afterwards, we visited the medieval castle, viewing the dungeons, chapel, crypt (where the coffins of a king and queen lay), and other old rooms with old furnishings. Interesting but not much to it.

The Norwegian restaurants that we wanted to visit were closed, so we missed out on eating reindeer, whale and other Norwegian delicacies, not that we probably would have eaten everything anyway, it is always interesting to see what's on the menu!

Rae

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