SUPPORT OUR JOURNALISM: Please consider donating to keep our website running and free for all - thank you!

Norway

King Harald and Queen Sonja visited the Viking Museum

On Tuesday afternoon, King Harald and Queen Sonja visited the Norwegian Viking Ship Museum at Bygdøy just outside Oslo.

The reason for this visit was because the King and Queen wanted to hear more about the plans to build the new museum. The new museum will be completed in a few years and be three times as large as the current museum. The King and Queen saw the various ships, the new film the museum made and got a longer introduction to how the new museum and exhibition will be.

In connection of the visit of the King and Queen, the museum was closed to the public for a few hours, in return, the museum kept open for extended periods after the royals ended their visit. The tourists who had come to see the Viking ships therefore also saw the Norwegian king and queen, which most people were very pleased with.

The king and the queen arrive at the museum. Photo: Oskar Aanmoen.

King and Queen in front of the Oseberg ship. The largest Viking ship in the museum. Photo: Oskar Aanmoen.

The Norwegian royals have visited the museum many times before as the museum takes care of many of Norway’s most important artefacts from the Viking Age that were more than 1000 years ago. This was nevertheless the first time the royal visited the museum since the museum got its last major attraction.

Last year, the museum got its first “adventure-experience-movie” that appears several times an hour on the roof of the museum. The museum describes this as a unique visual journey into the Viking era. From the Viking ship is built until it sails on fjords and seas, and ends up as a grave ship for a Norwegian king. It is projected in the roof at the Viking museum.

This carved head from the Viking era was given a gift to the Queen of the museum when she was 80 years old. Photo: Oskar Aanmoen.

The King and Queen departs from the museum. Photo: Oskar Aanmoen.

The Viking Ship Museum at Bygdøy in Oslo houses archaeological finds from Viking graves and includes the three autunitic Viking-ships named Oseberg, Gokstad and Tune. Additionally, the Viking museum displays sledges, beds, a horse cart, wood carving, tent components, buckets and other grave goods from Norwegian Viking-graves.

The museum is one of Norway’s most visited museums with half a million guests annually.

About author

Senior Europe Correspondent Oskar Aanmoen has a master in military and political history of the Nordic countries. He has written six books on historical subjects and more than 1.500 articles for Royal Central. He has also interview both Serbian and Norwegian royals. Aanmoen is based in Oslo, Norway.