The port of Pipervika lies at the innermost point of Oslo's fjord, where it was established under the shelter and protection of the Akerhus fortress eastward. On the other shore, bars and sidewalk cafés sprawl along Aker Brygge's wharves while fishermen offer customers shrimp and other fried food. The old warehouses have been refurbished into an ultra-modern complex that is both shopping gallery and recreational centre.

This important collection is presented in a style which is initially disconcerting, yet extremely thought-provoking. For example, one room juxtaposes The Scream and The Dance of Life against works by Gauguin, Courbet and Monet; elsewhere a landscape by Johan Christian Dahl sits alongside Cézanne’s view of the Jas de Bouffan. Other rooms presnt the evolution of Norwegian painting in a more conventional format.

The peninsula of Bygdøy stretches, amoeba-like, out into Oslo's fjord. It lies to the west of the capital and is home to five great museums which are for the most part devoted to Norway's maritime activities. It is a residential area with a great many gardens to the north (where the Oscar I palace is hidden, built in the mid-19C) English Neo-Gothic style. It can be reached by car or by boat, from the dock before City Hall.

Its two tall red-brick towers are beacons for boats coming into the fjord. Highly functional in style, it has a a modern decor in homage to the nation's history through its daily life. It is here in the City Hall salons that every 10 December, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel's death (1833-1896), that the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded (the other Nobels are given in Stockholm, Nobel's country, by the Swedish Academy).

Karl-Johans Gate was cut in 1840 from east to west, from the central station to the new Royal Palace. Karl-Johans Gate serves all the official buildings or their immediate areas: the cathedral, the Parliament, the university, the National Theatre... and the Royal Palace. The first half of its length it is a pedestrian zone lined with great hotels and fashionable cafés; it then heads into the Palace gardens, coming to an end on Karl-Johans Square.

Set in parkland, this museum traces the cultural history of Norway from the Middle Ages. 140 wooden buildings illustrate a variety of traditional Norwegian wood dwellings, with examples from Setesdal, Numedal, Telemark and Gola (fine stave church). Inside its buildings, an ethnographic collection focuses on Sami culture and also displays traditional costume and Folk art.

Like people of other civilisations, the Vikings believed that this life continued into an afterlife. For this reason they buried their dead among the objects that would ensure a transition between the two worlds: jewels, clothing, weapons... For the richest, servants were sacrificed with their masters. It was in this way that the funerary ships were found when they were unearthed from their burial mounds at the end of 19C, providing traces of maritime techniques, more tangible than Viking myth.