Museums of Oslo

Norway’s most famous artist, Edvard Munch, was raised and studied in Oslo at the end of the 19th century. It’s here that that the painter, most famous for his work The Scream, decided to move beyond the then fashionable style of...

You can’t go to Oslo in the winter without checking out the Holmenkollen Ski Jump. It just so happens that the FIS World Cup occurred the weekend I was there. The ski jump is 60 meters/197 feet high! This is a popular place for not only ski...

The once seedy Tjuvholmen, or “Thief Island,” is the city’s newest arts district. Its showpiece is the Astrup Fearnley Museum, which reopened last September in an elegant, sail-shaped complex designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. The open...

This museum houses three large viking ships and two smaller ones. My boyfriend loves the viking era, and he's gotten me interested in it too, so it was very cool to get to see such ancient artifacts. I can hardly believe the carvings were done by...

The museum of cultural history is managed by the Univeristy of Oslo and features many interesting exhibits, with a plethora of artefacts from all over the world. Working its way up from prehistory, there is much focus on the Viking Age and...

This museum is dedicated to Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl (1914-2002), who gained worldwide fame when he crossed the Pacific Ocean on Kon-Tiki (a raft made from balsa wood) in 1947. After his return, Heyerdahl worked on a documentary of the...

Established in 1837, Nasjonalgalleriet (The National Gallery) houses the country’s largest public collection of paintings, drawings, and sculptures. The focus is mainly on Norwegian art, featuring works by Munch (his perhaps most famous work, The...

This 700 year old fortress lies nestled by the Oslo fjord, still quite imposing even though lots of modern buildings have shot up all around it. The remains of the Medieval Akershus Castle lies within the fortress walls, once home to Norwegian...