Oslo Highlights
A tour through central Oslo's royal, civic, and cultural landmarks, extending out to the ski-jump hill and the museum peninsula of Bygdøy.
Trip Stops
- 1
Built in the 1820s–40s for King Charles III John, this 173-room neoclassical palace remains the working residence of Norway's monarch. Every day at 1:30 pm, crowds gather to watch the changing of the King's Guard, complete with a marching band.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 2
Oslo's grand ceremonial avenue runs from the Royal Palace down to Central Station, lined with the Storting (Parliament), the National Theatre, and the Grand Hotel, where Nobel Peace Prize laureates traditionally stay. On Norway's Constitution Day, over 100,000 people crowd this street for the country's famous children's parade.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 3
This red-brick landmark, completed in 1950 for the city's 900th anniversary, is best known as the venue where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded each December. Its cavernous main hall is covered floor to ceiling in murals depicting Norwegian life, work, and culture.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 4
A medieval castle begun in the 1290s to guard Oslo's harbor, Akershus has never been successfully captured by a foreign army in over 700 years. Its grounds now hold the mausoleum of several Norwegian kings and queens, alongside the Norwegian Resistance Museum documenting the World War II occupation.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 5
Norway's national opera and ballet house was designed to look like an iceberg rising from the fjord, with a sloped marble roof that visitors are free to walk right up onto. The roof doubles as a public plaza, offering one of the best free viewpoints over Oslo's harbor.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 6
This striking 13-floor building in Bjørvika holds the world's largest collection of Edvard Munch's work, including several versions of his iconic painting 'The Scream.' Munch bequeathed nearly his entire estate — some 28,000 works — to the city of Oslo upon his death in 1944.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 7
The centerpiece of Oslo's largest park is the Vigeland installation, over 200 bronze, granite, and wrought-iron sculptures created single-handedly by Gustav Vigeland over two decades. The park's most photographed figure, the bronze 'Angry Boy' (Sinnataggen), has had his clenched fist polished shiny by decades of visitors rubbing it for luck.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 8
Overlooking the city from a forested hillside, this ski jump has hosted competitions since 1892 and remains Norway's most-visited attraction, drawing about a million people a year. An elevator and 114 steps lead to the top viewing platform, with panoramic views over Oslo and the fjord.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 9
This triangular museum on the Bygdøy peninsula is built around the Fram, the strongest wooden ship ever constructed, which carried explorers Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen further north and south than any vessel before it. Visitors can walk the original decks and step into the cramped cabins where crews endured months of polar darkness.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
- 10
Norway's largest open-air museum gathers more than 150 historic buildings relocated from across the country, centered on the 13th-century Gol Stave Church. Costumed guides demonstrate traditional crafts and folk dancing throughout the museum's recreated town and rural farmsteads.
📍 Oslo, Oslo, Norway
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