Oslo

The Opera House opened in 2008 and started the transformation of Bjørvika from railway yards into Oslo's new front door. Its roof slopes down to the water so that anyone can walk up it for free; from the top the whole inner fjord opens out. Next door stands MUNCH, the tall, leaning museum that holds the world's largest collection of Edvard Munch's work, including painted and printed versions of The Scream. Across the square, Deichman Bjørvika is the city's main public library, a cantilevered glass building that doubles as a free viewing platform, and behind it the narrow high-rises of the Barcode Project form the skyline you see on every postcard. The audio guides for these buildings explain how a boggy harbour became the showpiece of modern Oslo.

Oslo's main street runs in a straight line from the central station up to The Royal Palace, which sits on a low hill at the top with its park open to everyone and guided tours of the state rooms in summer. Karl Johans gate itself is lined with cafés, the Storting (parliament) building, the National Theater and the university, and it is the natural spine for a first walk through the centre; the audio guide follows it landmark by landmark. A few blocks towards the harbour, Akershus Fortress has guarded the city since the 13th century. Its ramparts are free to wander and offer the best view of the fjord from the old town, while inside the walls Norway's Resistance Museum tells the story of the German occupation.

The brick towers of Oslo City Hall dominate the harbour, and every December its great hall hosts the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony. Facing it across the square, the Nobel Peace Center occupies a former railway station and displays the 18-carat gold medal, designed by Gustav Vigeland in 1901, alongside exhibitions on each year's laureate. West along the water, the National Museum is the largest art museum in the Nordic region, home to another Scream and to Norway's romantic landscape painters. From there the Harbour Promenade continues past the restaurants of Aker Brygge to Tjuvholmen, where the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art and a small sculpture park sit at the tip of the pier.

In the elegant Frogner district, The Vigeland Park is the largest sculpture park in the world made by a single artist. Gustav Vigeland spent decades on its more than 200 bronze, granite and wrought-iron figures, from the famous Angry Boy on the bridge to the 17-metre Monolith of entwined bodies at the park's heart. The audio guide walks you from the gate to the Monolith and decodes the cycle of life that the sculptures depict. The Vigeland Museum, in the artist's former studio at the park's southern edge, shows the plaster originals, and the Oslo City Museum (Oslo Bymuseum) inside the park tells the story of the city itself.

A short ferry or bus ride from City Hall, the leafy Bygdøy peninsula gathers Norway's great expedition stories under one roof after another. The Fram Museum is built around the wooden polar ship that carried Nansen and Amundsen towards both poles, and you can walk its decks. Across the car park, the Kon-Tiki Museum holds the balsa raft that Thor Heyerdahl sailed across the Pacific in 1947. The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History is an open-air village of 150 relocated buildings, including a medieval stave church. The Viking ships are currently off display while the Museum of the Viking Age is rebuilt; it is due to reopen in late 2027.

Take metro line 1 uphill and the city gives way to pine forest. Holmenkollbakken, the ski jump that has hosted competitions since 1892, rears over the slope like a steel wave; the lift to its top gives the widest view in Oslo. Beneath it, the Holmenkollen Ski Museum, founded in 1923, is the oldest of its kind and traces 4,000 years of skiing. The line ends at Frognerseteren, where a timber lodge serves apple cake and marked trails lead into Nordmarka. The audio guide here explains why skiing is close to a religion in this city.

East of the centre, Grünerløkka is the former working-class district that became Oslo's creative quarter: vintage shops, coffee bars, Birkelunden's weekend flea market. The Akerselva river runs along its western edge, and the old mill buildings beside it now hold Mathallen Oslo, the city's food hall. Riverside paths make this a good area to explore slowly with an audio guide, as the mills and workers' housing each carry a chapter of the industrial city.

When the weather is kind, do as Oslo does and take a Ruter ferry from the City Hall pier out to the islands. Hovedøya, ten minutes away, has the ruins of a 12th-century Cistercian monastery, beaches and quiet woods. The same Ruter ticket covers the metro, trams, buses and island boats, so a day pass is all you need to move between fjord, forest and city centre.