Art Oslo Museums

Plan Ahead

Planning Your Visit

Practical advice for seeing Oslo's museums — tickets, the Oslo Pass, the Bygdøy ferry, and how to group the city's collections into easy days.

The Oslo Pass

For most visitors the Oslo Pass is the simplest way to see the museums. Available for 24, 48 or 72 hours, it covers admission to nearly every museum in this guide along with all public transport — buses, trams, the metro and the local ferries. If you plan to see more than two or three museums it usually pays for itself.

Getting to Bygdøy

Several of the best museums — the open-air Folk Museum, the Fram, the Kon-Tiki and the Maritime Museum — sit together on the Bygdøy peninsula. In summer the most enjoyable way to reach them is the passenger ferry from pier 3 at the City Hall (Rådhusbrygge); year-round, bus 30 runs there from the centre in about fifteen minutes. Allow most of a day to do the peninsula justice.

The waterfront cluster

In the city centre, the MUNCH tower, the National Museum, the Astrup Fearnley and the Nobel Peace Center are all within a twenty-minute walk of one another along the harbour. This makes for an easy art-focused day on foot, with the new waterfront promenade linking them.

Opening hours and quiet times

  • Most national museums open around 10–11am and close by 5pm, with one late evening a week (often Thursday).
  • Many museums close on Mondays — always check before travelling.
  • Mornings are quietest; the MUNCH and National museums are busiest at weekends.
  • Vigeland Park and Ekeberg Sculpture Park are open-air, free and accessible at all hours.

Tickets and booking

The largest museums use timed-entry tickets at peak periods, so booking online a day ahead is wise in summer. Children and students receive reduced or free entry at most institutions, and several museums offer free admission on selected days — worth checking on the official sites before you go.

Accessibility

Oslo's newer museums are fully step-free, with lifts, accessible toilets and loan wheelchairs. The historic buildings on Bygdøy are more uneven — the open-air museum in particular involves gravel paths and timber thresholds — so contact a museum directly if you have specific access needs.

A compact city: pair a fjord-side gallery with a hillside sculpture park in a single afternoon.