Edvard Munch bought a small wooden cottage in the fishing village of Åsgårdstrand, about 20 kilometres north of Tønsberg on the fjord, in 1897. He returned here almost every summer until 1908, using the fjord landscape — its curved shoreline, its particular quality of light — as the setting and emotional backdrop for some of his most important paintings. The Girls on the Bridge, one of his most reproduced works, was painted directly from the view outside his front door.
The house is now a small museum, preserved much as Munch left it: cramped, bare, and oddly moving. It contains original furnishings, letters, and photographs. The garden and the view to the water are unchanged. For anyone who cares about Munch's painting, the visit connects the images to a specific, real place in a way that seeing the work in Oslo does not.
Open in summer; check current hours before visiting. Åsgårdstrand is a 30-minute drive or bus journey from Tønsberg.