Old Ship, New Ship, Brown Ship, Blue Ship.
After indulging in folding yogurt this morning we headed out across town…
…towards the docks so we could catch a boat to the Viking Museum. While waiting for the boat we walked up…
…to Akershus Fortress…
…to check out the view of the museum from across the bay. But, there happened to be an absolutely massive cruise ship obstructing our view!
So we tried to sink it with our canons…
But we were taking on some heavy fire…
So we charted a new course, and tried to sink them with a mine…
When that failed, we gave up and walked to the Viking Museum. Well, no, actually we walked past the Viking Museum. So far past it that we ended up at the Kon-Tiki Musuem and the Maratime Museum. Not where we wanted to be. But we made the best of it and took a few photographs…
…before walking the 2km back to the Viking Museum. This time however we were armed with a map! Yet we still somehow managed to walk right past it again. I tell ya, our Norwegian navigation skills aren’t what they used to be! Ya know, back when we were both vikings!
When we finally found the museum (in our defense it looked like a church from the outside) it was quite worth the extra 4km hike. There were three separate viking boats inside, the Oseberg ship, Gokstad ship & Tune ship. The ships are some of the most well preserved relics from the days of the vikings. Once used to plunder and pillage throughout Scandinavia, these three boats were later converted and used in the burials of some vikings. The ships were excavated from their tombs in 1880, and housed in a nearby university, then later transported to where they now sit. It was pretty amazing to see these ancient artifacts first hand. When you see the amount of detail that went into the carvings in the boats (especially the burial pieces) you kind of gain a new found respect for the vikings who always seem to get such a bad rap.
One thing’s for sure, they sure knew how to build some boats!