Sights in Northern Norway
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Nidaros Cathedral
Nidaros Cathedral, constructed in the late 11th century, is Scandinavia’s largest medieval building. Outside, the ornately embellished west wall has top-to-bottom statues of biblical characters and Norwegian bishops and kings, sculpted in the early 20th century. Within, the cathedral is subtly lit (just see how the vibrantly coloured, modern stained-glass glows, especially in the rose window at the west end), so let your eyes attune to the gloom.
The altar sits over the original grave of St Olav, the Viking king who replaced the Nordic pagan religion with Christianity. The original cathedral was built in 1153, when Norway became a separate archbishopric. The current tra…
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Folk Museum
West of the centre, the Folk Museum is one of the best of its kind in Norway. The indoor exhibition, Livsbilder (Images of Life) in the main building, displays artefacts in use over the last 150 years – from clothing to school supplies to bicycles – and has a short multimedia presentation. The rest of the museum, with over 60 period buildings, is open air, adjoining the ruins of King Sverre’s castle and giving fine hilltop views of the city. Houses, the post office, the dentist’s and other shops splay around the central market square in the urban section. There are farm buildings from rural Trøndelag, the tiny 12th-century Haltdalen stave church and a couple of small m…
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Trondenes Church
Trondenes Church, just north of the historical centre, was built by King Øystein around 1150, after Viking chieftains lost the battle against the unification of Norway under a Christian regime. For ages it was the northernmost church in Christendom – and still lays claim to being Norway’s northernmost stone church. Originally of wood, the current stone structure replaced it around 1250 and quickly came to double as a fortification against Russian aggression. Its jewels are the three finely wrought altars at the east end, all venerating Mary. Most interesting is the central one of the Virgin surrounded by her extended family with infants in arms and children tugging …
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VEFSN Museum
A combined ticket (Nkr30) gives entry to both branches of Mosjøen’s museum. In Sjøgata, the Jakobsensbrygga warehouse is an excellent small museum that portrays, via some particularly evocative photo blow-ups, the history of Mosjøen from the early 19th century onwards. There’s an English guide-pamphlet for each section. Northeast of the centre, the rural building collection features 12 farmhouses, shops and the like from the 18th and 19th centuries, which you can view from the exterior. It too has a pamphlet in English. Adjacent is the Dolstad Kirke (1735), built on the site of a medieval church dedicated to St Michael. If it’s closed, ask for the key at the …
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Røros Museum
Housed in old smelting works, which were central to Røros’ raison d’être from 1646 until 1953, this museum is a town highlight. The building was reconstructed in 1988 according to the original 17th-century plan. Upstairs you’ll find geological and conservation displays, while downstairs are a large balance used for weighing ore, some well-illustrated early mining statistics, and brilliant working models of the mines and the water- and horse-powered smelting processes. Displays of copper smelting are held at 3pm from Tuesday to Friday from early July to early August.
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Norwegian Telecommunications Museum
Alongside the E10 in Sørvågen and south of Moskenes, the Norwegian Telecommunications Museum presents itself as a study in ‘cod and communications’. Granted, it’s not an immediately winning combination but in fact this small museum commemorates a huge advance in fishing techniques. In 1906, what was Norway’s second wireless telephone station was established in this tiny hamlet. From that day on, weather warnings could be speedily passed on and fishing vessels could communicate with each other, pass on news about where the shoals were moving and call up the bait boats.
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Norwegian Fishing Village Museum
Fourteen of Å’s 19th-century boathouses, storehouses, fishing cottages, farmhouses and commercial buildings constitute the Norwegian Fishing Village Museum. Highlights (pick up a pamphlet in English at reception) are Europe’s oldest cod-liver oil factory, where you’ll be treated to a taste of the wares and can pick up a bottle (Nkr40) to stave off those winter sniffles; the smithy, who still makes cod-liver oil lamps; the still-functioning bakery, established in 1844; the old rorbuer with period furnishings; and a couple of traditional Lofoten fishing boats.
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Fishery Museum
This fishery museum lies 3km south of the bridge linking Flakstadøy and Moskenesøy. In one dim shack, there’s an astounding clutter of boats, ropes and floats while within another is an unlabelled yet fascinating jumble of pots, pans, skis, old valve radios and the like. All this to the throb and fumes curling from the collection of permanently beached ships’ diesel engines. Tor-Vegard Mørkved, the young resident blacksmith, bashes out cormorants in iron (the cheapest, around Nkr300 but Nkr1700 for something you’d be proud to have on your mantelpiece).
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Ofoten Museum
The Ofoten Museum tells of Narvik’s farming, fishing, railway-building and ore trans-shipment heritage. There’s a rolling film about the Ofotbanen Railway and children will enjoy pressing the button that activates the model train. Linger too over the display case of Sami costumes and artefacts and the collection of historic photos, contrasted with modern shots taken from the same angles. To reach the museum, take the minor road beside the restored building that served as Narvik’s post office from 1888 to 1898.
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Mack Brewery
OK, this brewery isn’t really the world’s northernmost – a microbrewery in Honningsvåg takes that title – but it’s still a venerable institution that merits a pilgrimage. Established in 1877, it nowadays produces 18 kinds of beer, including the very quaffable Macks Pilsner, Isbjørn, Haakon and several dark beers. At 1pm year-round – plus 3pm, June to August – tours (Nkr130, including a beer mug, pin and pint) leave from the brewery’s own Ølhallen Pub, Monday to Thursday.
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Archbishop's Palace
Admission to the cathedral also includes the complex of the adjacent 12th-century Archbishop's Palace, commissioned around 1160 and Scandinavia's oldest secular building. In the west wing, Norway's crown jewels shimmer and flash. Its museum is in the same compound. After visiting the well-displayed statues, gargoyles and carvings from the cathedral, drop to the lower level, where only a selection of the myriad artefacts revealed during the museum's construction in the late 1990s are on show.
Take in too its enjoyable 15-minute audiovisual programme.
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Museum of Natural History & Archaeology
The Museum of Natural History & Archaeology belongs to the Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU). There’s a hotchpotch of exhibits on the natural and human history of the Trondheim area: streetscapes and homes, ecclesiastical history, archaeological excavations and southern Sami culture. More ordered is the small, alluring section in a side building devoted to church history and the fascinating everyday artefacts in the medieval section, covering Trondheim’s history up to the great fire of 1681.
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Kongensgate
Bodø's striking cathedral, completed in 1956, has a soaring, freestanding tower and spire. Shaped like an inverted ship's hull, the walls of its nave are clad with tufty, multicoloured rugs and there's a fine stained glass window.
The charming little onion-domed Bodin Kirke stone church at Gamle Riksvei 68 dates from around 1240. The Lutheran Reformation brought about substantial changes to the exterior, including the addition of a tower. A host of lively baroque elements - especially the elaborately carved altar - grace the interior.
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Sami Parliament
The Sami Parliament was established in 1989. In 2000 it moved into a glorious new building, encased in mellow Siberian wood, with a birch, pine and oak interior. The main assembly hall is shaped like a Sami tent, and the Sami library, lit with tiny lights like stars, houses over 35,000 volumes, plus other media. From late June to mid-August, there are 30-minute tours leaving hourly between 8.30am and 2.30pm (except 11.30am), Monday to Friday. The rest of the year, tours are at 1.30pm on weekdays.
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Bodøsjøen Friluftsmuseum
The Nordland Museum has an open-air component, the Bodøsjøen Friluftsmuseum, 3km from town near Bodøsjøen Camping. Here you'll find four hectares of historic homes, farm buildings, boat sheds, WWII German bunkers and the square-rigged sloop Anna Karoline af Hopen. You can wander the grounds for free but admission to the buildings is by appointment. Here too is the start of a walking track up the river Bodøgårdselva, which eventually leads to the wild, scenic Bodømarka woods.
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Sami National Museum
The Sami National Museum is also called the Sami Collection. Smaller and more serious, it’s been rather upstaged by the genial razzmatazz down the road. Devoted to Sami history and culture, it has displays of colourful, traditional Sami clothing, a bewildering array of tools and artefacts and works by contemporary Sami artists. Outdoors, a homestead reveals the simplicity of traditional Sami life. Signing is only in Norwegian and Sami and the English guide sheet is difficult to follow.
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Lofoten Stockfish Museum
At the Lofoten Stockfish Museum, in a former fish warehouse, you’ll be bowled over by Steinar Larsen, its enthusiastic, polyglot owner, who meets and greets every visitor. This personal collection, a passionate hobby of his, illustrates well Lofoten’s traditional mainstay: the catching and drying of cod for export, particularly to Italy. Displays, artefacts and a DVD programme take you through the process, from hauling the fish out of the sea through drying, grading and sorting to despatch.
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Nyksund
Nyksund, on Langøya, is a former abandoned fishing village that's now re-emerging as an artists' colony. From the crumbling and collapsing old structures to the faithfully renovated commercial buildings, every scene is a photo opportunity, and the lively youthful atmosphere belies the fact that only recently Nyksund was considered a ghost village. There's a great walk over the headland from Nyksund to Stø (three hours return), at the northernmost tip of Langøya.
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Theme Park
Sami culture is big business here, and it was only a matter of time before it was consolidated into a theme park. There’s a wistful, high-tech multimedia introduction to the Sami in the ‘Magic Theatre’, plus Sami winter and summer camps and other dwellings in the grounds, and of course, a gift shop and café. It’s actually very good and presents the Sami as the normal fellow human beings they are rather than as exotic anachronisms.
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Ringve Museum
The Ringve Museum is Norway’s national museum for music and musical instruments. The Russian-born owner is a devoted collector of rare and antique musical instruments, which music students demonstrate. You can also browse the old barn with its rich collection of instruments from around the world. The botanic gardens, set within the surrounding 18th-century estate, are a quiet green setting for a stroll. Take bus 3 or 4 and walk up the hill.
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Polar Museum
The 1st floor of this harbourside museum, in a restored early 19th-century customs house near the colourful Skansen docks, illustrates early polar research, especially the ventures of Nansen and Amundsen. Downstairs there’s a well-mounted exhibition about the hunting and trapping of fuzzy Arctic creatures on Svalbard before coal became king there. Note the nasty exploding harpoons outside; the whale didn’t stand much of a chance.
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Arctic Cathedral
The 11 arching triangles of the Arctic Cathedral, as the Tromsdalen Church is styled, suggest glacial crevasses and auroral curtains. The magnificent glowing stained-glass window that occupies almost the whole of the east end depicts Christ redescending to earth. Look back toward the west end and the contemporary organ, a work of steely art in itself, then up high to take in the lamps of Czech crystal, hanging in space like icicles.
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Adolf Kanonen
The formidable WWII weapon known as the Adolf Kanonen is the world's largest land-based big gun, with a calibre of 40.6cm and a recoil force of 635 tonnes. Because it lies in a military area, you're obliged to take a guided tour of the site and to have your own vehicle. Just turn up 10 minutes before departure. The bunker also contains a collection of artillery, military equipment and instruments used by Nazi coastal batteries during WWII.
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Røros Kirke
Røros’ Lutheran church is one of Norway’s largest with a seating capacity of 1640. Constructed in 1650, it had fallen into disrepair by the mid-18th century and from 1780 a new baroque-style church was built just behind the original at a cost of 23,000 riksdaler (one riksdaler is the equivalent of Nkr4, and at the time miners earned about 50 riksdaler per year).
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Tromsø Forsvarsmuseum
The southern end of Tromsø’s mainland was first developed by the Nazis in 1940 as a coastal artillery battery, complete with six big guns. The cannons have been restored as the basis of the Tromsø Forsvarsmuseum, which also includes a restored commando bunker and an exhibition on the giant German battleship Tirpitz, sunk at Tromsø on 12 November 1944. Take bus 12 or 28.
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