From the mine room to the cockpit in Bodø

The small town of Bodø in the far north of Norway is perhaps best known for the Salstraumen, the world's strongest tidal current, and for the ferry that goes from here to Lofoten. The town itself is modern, as it was largely destroyed by the Germans during the Second World War, but was rebuilt after the war. No cute Norwegian wooden houses here, then; but just a short walk from the aforementioned ferry, we found a few other interesting things to see here. We visited the Norwegian Aviation Museum and the Bodø Bukermuseum, perfect stops on a day when it's pouring and blowing from the side.

Norwegian Aviation Museum

In Norway there is no dislike of flying; people here love their flights. To the Norwegian people’s defense, one can still agree that some places are quite difficult to reach without flying. In Bodø, a whole museum has been dedicated to this phenomenon. Norwegian Aviation Museum It is large, really large, and divided into several different exhibitions. To put it in simple terms, some of it is about military aviation and some about civilian aviation. However, the entire exhibition begins by showing information about several of the other museums in Norway that deal with World War II. We were about to get stuck here already, and we added several places to our never-ending list of exciting destinations that we want to visit.

I probably would have let Henrik, who has a much better understanding of warplanes, describe this section, but I let the pictures speak for themselves. I thought it was most impressive to see everything up close; I could even touch the planes. It feels completely crazy to imagine that pilots actually sat in these vehicles thousands of meters in the air. There was of course an exhibition of various catapults and parachutes over the years as well, so it wasn’t always possible for the pilots to stay seated…

After a good coffee break, we went on to watch the stories about civil aviation. Imagine when flying was only reserved for the very wealthy? The food was of course served hot, on real porcelain by a beautiful flight attendant on a strict diet. Well, not everything was better in the old days. We can be happy that weighing is not part of most employees’ duties today, but we must nevertheless say that there have been some changes even in civil aviation. From glamour and luxury we moved on to the first sun holidays that ordinary people could afford. How about, for example, getting on an old Braathens plane and feeling the mixture of inhaled cigarettes and sun oil with coconut from one of the first charter planes? 🙂

An exciting museum with an interesting mix of history and contemporary phenomena. Everything from man's vain attempts to fly with his wings outstretched to our modern charter planes with bubbly in the glasses and the latest blockbuster movies.

Bodø Bunker Museum

If the aviation museum was large, this museum was even smaller. Bodø Bunker Museum It is located in the middle of a residential area in the central parts of Bodø. At first we thought we had hit a wrong GPS location, but suddenly we were there. This is an old bunker that the Germans built in the middle of the city during the Second World War. After the war it fell into oblivion and was eventually filled with water. In 2014, a group of enthusiasts received permission from the municipality to restore and renovate the old bunker, which is now run entirely by a private association.

The bunker is only open by arrangement and during the summer they have shorter opening hours for the public. It was incredibly fascinating to walk around the many rooms and imagine what life must have been like for the soldiers stationed here. The association has amassed an impressive collection of equipment and items to showcase the history; for example, there is an incredibly well-preserved Enigma here. The more obscure items include Christmas decorations featuring, let’s call them, well-known German symbols. These are actually both shocking and upsetting to behold. Not exactly our Christmas tree…

The Bodø Bunker Museum was, in any case, a very interesting museum. Since it is a small space, there are not a lot of tourists here. You can go on your own accompanied by a member of the association who will show you around and tell you about how the work to restore the bunker was carried out, as well as interesting facts about Bodø during the Second World War.