While I’ve enjoyed a lot of adventurous travel, nothing in my journals would rival the adventure my grandparents had as they sailed away from their Norwegian homeland—poor and without even a phrasebook to deal with the language barrier—to homestead in Alberta. And every time I return to Norway, I recall the Viking spirit that egged them on and—I like to think—keeps me running out of pages to stamp in my passport.
Anyone with Viking ancestry (or victim-of-Viking ancestry) can enjoy a shiver of adrenaline sailing across the Oslofjord to Bygdøy where the seafaring heritage of Norway is proudly on display. This exciting cluster of sights is on a park-like peninsula that’s reached, appropriately, by ferry from downtown Oslo. The Bygdøy sights, all within a 15-minute walk of each other and the ferry landing, provide the best day out for anyone visiting Norway’s capital city.
