Where to Stay in Sandefjord, Vestfold

Sandefjord is known above all for whaling. The town was Norway's great whaling port, and that history fills its heart: the Hvalfangstmuseet tells the story of the hunt and the fleets, while the towering Hvalfangstmonumentet stands at the waterfront as the town's signature monument. Whaling money built the place.

Beyond the harbour the spa at Sandefjord kurbad, the bathing park at Badeparken and the seat of Sandefjord Municipality round out a town that grew rich from the southern part of Vestfold's reach into the world's oceans.

The Hvalfangstmonumentet dominates the waterfront, a great whaling monument that has become the emblem of the town, while the Hvalfangstmuseet sets out the whole story of the hunt nearby. The town has more. Sandefjord kirke marks the medieval centre, the spa building of Sandefjord kurbad recalls the old bathing era, and the sculpture park «Poseidon» and the Haugenfeltet rock carvings add art old and new along the southern part of Vestfold's shore.

Out on the islands Vesterøy kirke watches the outer coast.

Sandefjord's history reaches back well before the whalers. The Haugenfeltet rock carvings on the farm ground above the town show people lived along this fjord in prehistory, and the medieval parish gathered around the site of Sandefjord kirke. The fjord drew them all.

It was whaling that made the modern town. From the late nineteenth century the fleets of Sandefjord sailed the world's oceans, and the wealth of the hunt rebuilt the place, raising the spa at Sandefjord kurbad that drew bathing guests and, after the whaling ended, the Hvalfangstmonumentet and the Hvalfangstmuseet to hold its memory. The sea made the fortune.

Around that core the town spread through the southern part of Vestfold, taking in the island parish of Vesterøy with its Vesterøy kirke and the newer suburbs served by churches such as St. Johannes Døperen kirke. The heritage of the whaling years is gathered now under the Vestfoldmuseene, and the harbour front, where the monument still faces the water, remains the centre of a town that the ocean built in south-eastern Norway.

Sandefjord sits at the head of the Sandefjordsfjorden, the inlet that gives the town its name, on the coast of the southern part of Vestfold. The town wraps the harbour. From the sheltered fjord head the built area climbs gently inland, while the municipality's coast runs out past low headlands and the island of Vesterøy into the skerries of the Oslofjord's western shore.

It is a soft, low coastal landscape of fjord, farmland and island, typical of south-eastern Norway's seaboard.

Sandefjord has the mild seaboard climate of the Oslofjord region, gentler than Norway's interior. Summers are warm and bright. The sheltered head of the fjord and the low coast of the southern part of Vestfold draw bathing crowds to Badeparken and the beaches in the long light of the season, while winters are cool and often damp rather than bitter, with snow that comes and goes.

This is one of the kinder corners of south-eastern Norway for weather.

Sandefjord is easy to reach. The town lies on the main rail and road corridor down the western side of the Oslofjord, well connected to Oslo and the rest of south-eastern Norway, and the regional airport on the edge of the municipality carries flights from farther afield. Ferries cross the water too.

From the harbour boats run over to Sweden, so Sandefjord serves as a sea gateway as well as a road and rail stop in the southern part of Vestfold.