The weather forecast for today was for rain until mid-late afternoon and unfortunately it was correct so after a quick adjustment of what we planned to do we set off for the ferry across to Bygdoy. This is a peninsula on the west side of Oslo which is mainly a residential area but has a number of museums. You can get their either by ferry or bus so we decided to go by ferry as that leaves from the end of the road and they are fairly regular. The ferry has two stops, Dronningen and Bygdoynes. We got off at Dronningen which is the first stop and also closest to the Folk Museum which was our first stop. The Folk museum is a living history museum and has houses from different parts of Norway that date from 1500 to the almost present day – the most modern was a selection of houses from the post war housing boom. It was a shame it was raining but it probably helped a little as it meant that it wasn’t too busy so we were free to wonder as much as we like. There are about 160 houses although most you can only look at from the outside and they are broadly divided into four categories. The countryside which shows typical farms from many districts and time periods, all of which seem to have incredibly low door frames regardless of when they were built! These were obviously early adopters of environmentally friendly building as all of the roofs were covered in grass. The insides differed depending on the period but mostly they followed the same layout all with fireplaces in the corner rather than the centre of the room as was normal in farm houses of the period in england. The next area we visited was where the Stave Church was, the one they have dates from around 1200 and was originally from Hallingdal, it was very dark inside but very ornately decorated. Apparently there was once over 1000 stave churches in Norway but now only 28 of these wooden buildings remain. In this area there was also a ‘guest’ house, these are buildings where celebrations took place such as weddings, funerals, and general parties. In this one there was a woman playing the fiddle, she also played a strange thing that was a bit of metal that she held against her teeth and it had something like a spring that she pinged which sounds strange but was actually very tuneful. The third area was a farmstead that they had been ‘modernised’ and showed how it would have looked in 1959, most of the rooms had been updated with electricity and modern furniture but one room hadn’t really changed. They also had the farmyard area with pigs, cows and chickens which I assume in summer is very popular. Around this area was also a section that covered the post war building, apparently although people quite liked these houses they didn’t like the fact that they were not built with logs as they felt these were drafty. They also complained that the kitchens were far too small as Norwegian houses all had massive kitchens and very few people use the dinning rooms. The final area was called the old town which had a number of houses and shops from around the 1930s these were quite different from the village houses. We had spent about 3 hours walking round so decided to have some lunch before heading to the Viking Ship Museum. This is home to four Viking burial ships, they were once used as ocean going vessels and later used as burial ships. It would seem that the Vikings didn’t actually set the ships alight and float them off to sea but they brought them ashore and were used to assist powerful people on their final journey to the realm of the dead. They have four ships the Oseberg from 834 AD used as a burial ship for two women, the women were given a rich collection of burial gifts including sleighs, a wooden cart and among other things dogs, cows and horses! The Gokstad was built around 900 AD and 10 years later became a burial ship for a powerful man, this was a seaworthy ship well suited for voyages across the open sea, as well as other items this one also had two peacocks as well as bed posts and several small boats. The Tune Ship was probably a fast ocean going vessel which has also been dated to approximately 900 AD. This ship had the remnants of weapons and mail armour, the final boat was the Borre Find, which unfortunately had been completely destroyed. By the time we finished walking round this museum we decided to head back to the ferry as it was almost 4pm, we stopped for a drink on the quayside then went back to the hotel for a relax before heading out for something to eat. Hopefully the weather tomorrow will be nicer so we can do our planned walk around Oslo.
