Ringve Music Museum and botanical garden, Trondheim

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The museum for musical instruments in the Ringve manor-house is really worth seeing: A lady from Russia had married a rich norwegian merchant and she started tocollect musical instruments from all over the world.
there are 2 parts in this museum :
1) in a former barn they show musical instruments and there you are also allowed totake photographs as long as you dont unse a flash.
2) The farmhouse have different rooms that are decorated according to the times of special composers like Beethoven, Chopin etc. In this part of the museum photography is totally forbidden and the guides will play on various instruments while taking you on a guided tour through this part of the museum.
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click here for the opening-hours !
In addition the buses of Hurtigruten will get there at around 10.30 and the museum will be open for them untill around 11.30, even when the museum is closed for all other tourists.

Visiting the music museum - Ringve Museum. This museum displays a large selection of music instruments from all over the world. There is also a guided tours of the original family house which is loaded with history (as well as music).

I was not expecting much, but it was 'wonderful, amazing, etc'. It is a centuries old farm with the buildings made into the museum. The main house contains thousands of old instruments - pianos, clavichords, harpsichords, flutes, violins, drums, and some I had never seen before. They also had music artifacts such as a lock of Franz Liszt hair, a mold of Chopin's hand, etc. We could only go by guided tour, so I didn’t get to see nearly everything I would have wanted to have seen. A day alone in the museum with the curator would have made me very happy. There was also a section where we could wander through and look at more items in display cases. A quartet set up before we left and gave a very wonderful a capella performance Then we had waffles with cream and strawberries and coffee in the little tea house adjacent to the museum.

This place is filled up with music. Take a guided tour and the guides will play the various instruments and tell you about their history and construction.

The museum isn't open all year, so check their homepage for opening days. It's always open in the summer.

The place was also the home of one of Norway's greatest heroes: Tordenskjold, who beat the swedes and stole a lot of their warships in Lysekilen.

This is the one thing I am sad that we never had time to see since I love music and I think this one would have been good. We would probably have been able to see it if museum hours would have been longer but most places closed early.

The Ringve Museum Museum is worth spending a whole day. Our tour guide, not only was totally knowledgeable of the museum, but played about 15 different types of instruments. You will see celebrity type instruments such as one of Chopin's concert pianos or one of a kind instruments such as a piano with double keyboards!

Hours: 11am-4pm generally
Entrance Fee:
Adults NOK 70
Student/pensioner NOK40
Children NOK 25
Family NOK 140
There is also a restaurant, a gift shop, and a wonderful botanical garden.

The gardens, established in 1973, cover 35 acres and consist of over 2000 different species. The park, overlooking the Trondheim Fjord, is divided into 4 main sections:
THE SYSTEM is a maze of 50 compartments showing how botanists view the interrelationship between plants.

THE PARK is kept in an English landscape style with winding paths. In the center is the Ringve Beech, which is over 200 years old and the largest tree in the gardens.

THE RENAISSANCE GARDEN is a historical herb garden consisting of over 120 herb, plants, and vegetables that were used medicinally in Trondheim in the 17th Century. It was opened in 1993 to commemorate the first garden book published in Norway by Christian Gartner 300 years ago.

THE ARBORETUM is a collection of over 80 evergreen trees of the northern hemisphere planned geographically around a pond representing the Arctic Ocean.

The Botanical Gardens are open to the public all the time and are FREE!