- Address: Museumsvegen 1, 6015 Ålesund, Norway
- Phone: + 47 70 16 48 70
- Official website: sunnmore.museum.no
- Working hours: 10.00 - 16.00
Sunnmere is an open-air ethnographic museum with an extensive collection of old houses and boats. Tourists can enjoy a walk between the picturesque houses, see the interior exhibitions, get an idea of the cultural and architectural history of Norway.
General information about the museum
Sunnmere was founded in 1931. It is the national museum of the Norwegian coastal culture . The museum is located just 5 minutes from the city of Aalesund on an area of 120 hectares. With the help of a large collection of old houses and boats, as well as various exhibitions, one can get an impression of the life and everyday life of people, from the Stone Age to our days. More than 50 well-preserved old buildings tell about the building traditions and lifestyle of local residents from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the twentieth century.
Open-air museum
In Sunnmere you can see small houses in which people, barns, warehouses lived, where they stored food and schools. All this - mountain huts, sheds, shelters and shacks of fishermen - recalls the daily work on farms and at sea.
There are several types of residential buildings:
- Deep House - many houses in Alesund looked like this before the fire in 1904. Usually they were built on the Sunnmere coast of logs, which were connected together in corners. The houses were whitewashed both outside and inside. In the middle of the building there was an entrance hall, a kitchen with a living room, and upstairs there are bedrooms.
- Follestad House is a typical West Norwegian farmhouse of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Usually they had several rooms. One-room houses are the oldest. Later they were used as carpentry workshops, sheds for drying grain, kitchens or warehouses of agricultural implements.
- Church booths - they used to stand around the church and were used as warehouses for goods. A person could buy goods in the city, put it in such a house and carry it home in parts. Still these booths were used before going to church or for important meetings. If you had to get from afar, here you could have a snack and change clothes. Usually there is one room in such houses.
- Liabygd House - built in 1856. The house has a living room with a fireplace, as well as a kitchen and a bedroom. The house had various purposes: for recreation, for the life of the elderly. In winter such buildings were often used as workshops for various peasant crafts.
- Skodje House is a three-room apartment house built in the XVIII century. It has a fireplace without a chimney (smoke went through a hole in the roof). This is a house, traditional for the late XVIII - early XIX centuries. Inside the situation is very simple. Of the jewelry - only the fabric and simple woodcarving.
- Bakke House is a long low house for a large family. Where lived several generations. A large living room with a fireplace was located in the center of the building. One wing of the house was occupied by the older generation, the other contained bedrooms and a kitchen. Children and servants also had their own small rooms. In the living room was a large table, benches. In the corner there are shelves for dishes. All the rooms had windows.
Collection of boats
In the slipways on the shore, an extensive collection of boats is collected. There is even an exact copy of the Viking ship. The building itself is built in the old traditions of Sunnmere. In it you can see:
- The Kvalsund ship is the oldest ever found in Norway. It is believed that it was built in 690 AD. The length of the ship is 18 m, and the width is 3.2 m, it is built of oak. Engineer Frederick Johannessen reconstructed the ship, and Sigurd Björkedal in 1973 built an exact copy of it.
- 2 ancient boats were found in the swamp in 1940. They were filled with a stone, there was nothing else in them. It is believed that they were a sacrificial gift. The largest of them is 10 m long. Both boats are made of oak and are considered almost as old as Kvalsund.
- A Viking ship is an exact replica of a sailing ship built in Western Norway in the 10th century. It is a heavy and capacious boat with high sides and shelter, necessary for deep-sea navigation.
- The ship Heland in 1971 was presented to the museum . This ship was engaged in catching herring, cod, halibut. From November 1941 to February 1942, Heland flew several flights to transport refugees from the Alesund area to the Shetland Islands. Back ship brought weapons, ammunition for fighters of resistance.
Interestingly, in the museum of Sunnmere you can rent an ordinary fun boat for an hour or two, a day or even a night.
How to get there?
From Oslo to Ålesund, it is easy to reach by bus. Then you need to transfer to the local bus and get to the stop Borgund bro. You will have to walk a few minutes on foot along the Borgundvegen past the church directly to Sunnmere.