Strolling Further Through Olso to the Viking Ship Museum

From Vigeland Sculpture Park, we continue walking through Oslo toward the Viking Ship Museum, located in a complex of museums across the harbor from downtown Oslo.  We see more grand Oslo residences as we walk around the harbor.

Living spaces

And, for serious hauling in this bicycle-oriented community, a shop offers large carriers on the front of bicycles.

Bicycle shop

We're only a short distance from the center of Oslo, but we're passing through fields and farms just across the harbor from the center of town.  The city's population of around 670 thousand people apparently hasn't grown in this direction.

 Across the harbor

The Viking Ship Museum is part of the University of Oslo (along with the Museum of Cultural History which holds a collection of over one and one half million objects dating from the Stone Age to recent times).  The Viking Ship Museum has the world's best-preserved Viking ships, once used as ocean-going vessels and later drawn up on land to be used as burial ships.  The museum holds three burial ships and the unique artifacts retrieved from the sites where the ships were found.

 The Oseberg Ship

 The Gokstad Ship

The Tune Ship

The Oseberg Ship was built around 820 and in 834 was used as a burial ship for two powerful women, with a rich collection of burial gifts, including elaborate sleighs, a wooden cart, carved animal head posts, beds, and the skeletons of 15 horses, six dogs, and two cows.  The Gokstad and Tune Ships were built around 900 and used as burial ships approximately 10 years later.

 Burial gifts in the ships

The road outside the museum leads us to the ferry terminal that will carry us across the harbor, back toward the center of town.  This part of Oslo contains incredible homes lining the street leading to the ferry.

 Grand houses

The short ferry ride to the terminal near city hall drops us by the Akershus Fortress, a medieval castle completed around 1300 to protect Oslo and to serve as the royal residence from the 16th century to the turn of the 19th century (at which time, the royal family moved to the new Royal Palace).

 Akershus Fortress

 View from the fortress

Leaving Oslo by ship, we get great views of summer and weekend cottages on the islands in the Oslo Fjord outside the city, in addition to a beautiful sunset.

 Island homes

 The day winds down