Oslo Airport Layover: The Air Force Museum
Part of the full Oslo Layover Guide: The Opera Roof From OSL
Oslo Airport, Gardermoen has a 300-metre departure pier built in curved timber, a hangar holding more than 40 Norwegian air force aircraft a shuttle ride from the terminal, and the manor house where Norway’s constitution was signed one train stop up the line.
The 300-metre timber pier at Oslo Airport
Nordic Office of Architecture added the pier in 2017 and it doubled the terminal in one go, taking the airport from about 17 million passengers a year to a capacity of 32 million and adding 17 gates, 11 of them with air bridges. What makes it worth actually looking at rather than walking through is the structure: curved glue-laminated timber beams overhead, oak cladding, and a pale wooden floor running the length of it, which is not what most airports built this century put over your head.
More than 40 air force aircraft in a hangar at Gardermoen
On the western edge of the airfield, about a kilometre and a half from the passenger terminal, the Norwegian Armed Forces keep their aircraft collection: over 40 machines running from the pioneer years of the early 1900s through the occupation and the Cold War to modern fighters, in hangars you walk between.
The catch is the opening hours, and they are narrow enough to plan the whole connection around: Saturday and Sunday, 12pm to 4pm, and that is it for most of the year. July is the exception, when it runs every day at the same hours. Adult entry is 130 kroner, 65 for students, over-67s and children from 6 to 18, 325 for a family. Shuttle bus S33 leaves the airport at 24 and 54 minutes past the hour on weekdays, hourly at 24 past on weekends, and drops you at Lilleplassen, five minutes away on a footpath; shuttle S55 stops at a hotel about 100 metres from the museum at 10, 30 and 50 past.
Nothing out there takes luggage, and the airport’s own lockers are landside rather than in the terminal: 194 of them on the first floor of the P10 parking garage next door, open around the clock, from 149 kroner a day for a medium and 298 for a large.
Eidsvollsbygningen, where Norway’s constitution was signed in 1814
Eidsvoll Verk is the first station north of the airport, about six minutes up the line, with trains twice an hour. The manor house 1.8 kilometres from that platform is where 112 delegates sat between 10 April and 20 May 1814, declared Norway independent after four centuries in union with Denmark, wrote a constitution and elected a king. They dated it 17 May, which is why that is the day Norwegians fill the streets.
The house itself is an ironworks owner’s country home, and the rooms have been put back to how they looked that spring, down to the furniture the delegates argued across. Adult entry is 180 kroner. Hours split by season: daily 10am to 4pm from May through August, then Tuesday to Friday 11am to 3pm and weekends 11am to 4pm from September through April. Budget about two and a half hours from terminal to terminal, most of it the walk at either end rather than the train.
The airport train reaches central Oslo in 19 minutes
Flytoget, the airport express, runs every ten minutes from the station in the terminal basement and costs 268 kroner for an adult; Vy’s regional trains use the same line for roughly half that and take about 23 minutes. Either way the platforms are one level below the check-in hall, so there is no shuttle leg to add on top the way there is at airports where the station sits across a car park.
That puts the harbour within reach on a long connection. Boats leave from the piers in front of the City Hall, and an island sightseeing sailing booked ahead is one of the few things in the centre that runs to a timetable you can plan a flight around. For everything else the city holds, the wider Oslo guide covers the Opera House roof, Akershus Fortress and the Nobel Peace Center, none of which needs a ticket bought in advance.
Frequently asked questions
Is it worth leaving Oslo Airport during a connection?
It depends which day you land. The Norwegian Armed Forces Aircraft Collection, a hangar of more than 40 aircraft on the far side of the airfield, is reachable by shuttle bus in well under an hour round trip, but it only opens on Saturdays and Sundays outside July. Eidsvollsbygningen, the manor where Norway's constitution was written, is one train stop north and needs about two and a half hours all in. If neither is open, the honest answer is to stay in the terminal or ride the train into Oslo, which is 19 minutes each way.
Is the aircraft museum at Gardermoen open on a weekday?
Not usually, and this catches people out. Ordinary hours are Saturday and Sunday, 12pm to 4pm, with July the exception, when it opens every day at the same times. Adult admission is 130 kroner, 65 for students, over-67s and children aged 6 to 18, and 325 for a family of two adults with up to four children. Shuttle bus S33 leaves the airport at 24 and 54 minutes past the hour on weekdays and hourly at 24 past on weekends, stopping at Lilleplassen, five minutes from the door on a footpath.
How far is Eidsvollsbygningen from Oslo Airport?
Closer than most people expect: Eidsvoll Verk is the first station north of the airport, about six minutes by train, with departures twice an hour. From the platform it is 1.8 kilometres to the house, 15 to 20 minutes on foot. Adult entry is 180 kroner. From May to August it opens daily 10am to 4pm; from September to April it runs Tuesday to Friday 11am to 3pm and weekends 11am to 4pm, so a Monday outside summer finds it shut.
How much time do you need before a trip into Oslo is worth it?
About four hours between flights, once the return leg is honest about itself. The train covers the airport to the centre in 19 minutes, but two hours of that window goes on the ride back, security and check-in, which leaves an hour and a half in the city. That is enough for the Opera House roof and the harbour path beside it and not much else, which is roughly what the full Oslo walk opens with anyway.