Roald Amundsen beat Robert Falcon Scott to the South Pole in 1911. Scott got to the pole only to find the Norwegian flag flapping there before him. Disheartened beyond belief, he died on the return journey, froze to death along with four of his men.

If you are English, you are taught from a very young age that Scott was the upright hero in this story, he exemplified the honourable life and death of a true English gentleman, and that Amundsen merely won the race by being sneaky and, horror of horrors, by eating his dogs.

However, if you are smart you will read Roald Huntford's incredible account of the twin expeditions. In 'The Last Place on Earth' the author details with meticulous delight the ridiculous list of disasters courted by our man. The tale of mismanagement, old-world pompousness, pure idiocy, arrogance and cack-handedness ended only when Scott gulped his final breath.

In Huntford's world, and in mine too, it is Amundsen who reigns. He was a well-organised adventurer, brave, flexible, practical and - in general - he was honourable too. I don't care about the dog-eating; whilst somewhat impolite, it was the right thing to do at the time. Amundsen continues to symbolise Norwegian pluck, the culture's fearless relationship to nature, its quiet confidence and modesty, and also its angst. I admire him, though tentatively because I also understand that he was a man of his time, and also, possibly, a friend to the Italian fascists.

I love to visit my Norwegian friends, who indulge me with sweet brown goat's cheese, Norwegian black metal, kind smiles regarding my poor grasp of their no-nonsense language, and plenty of Amundsen-chatter. The last time I went to see them, my dear friend B treated me to a trip down the Oslofjord to Svartskog, the site of Uranienborg, Roald Amundsen's home. The house has been preserved and there's a guide who shows you around. Let me tell you about it.

On a hot June day the drive to Uranienborg takes you past forests that open out into pristine clear lakes and meadows full of wildflowers and green cereal waving in the breeze. It's such a beautiful place, everything looks sharply defined in the sunlight, hyperreal. The house itself is down a never-ending winding road that takes you to a cluster of buildings right on the fjord.

Uranienborg is open most days. A sign on the door explains that a guide will come on the hour and you know what? She does, and then she unlocks the door and the next thing you know you're standing in Roald's hallway looking at photographic glass negatives stuck to the windows, like stained glass. Here's one of Ugpik, the Eskimo friend from the time that Amundsen's conquered the North-West Passage. Up on the skylight there's one of his ship the Fram, or maybe it's the Gjøa. The photographs look as clear and crisp as though they were taken yesterday. The guide hides behind a door and shines her torch up against another image of Eskimo people huddled together. The beam picks out their faces.

There's a piano in Amundsen's front room and sitting on top of it is a stuffed canary in a belljar. It's called Fridtjof, which will have polar exploration nerds rolling in the aisles with the jollity of the joke. Hmm. Let's change the subject and admire Amundsen's monogrammed dining chairs and crockery. It's strange to see such excessive items in this man's home, but up stairs there is more to come.

The office makes us chuckle. By us I mean a husband and wife pair of Amundsen nerds, B and me. The thing that makes us snigger is a dodgy-looking exercise contraption that Amundsen had attached to the floor. It's like two chest-expanders with wooden handles. The guide tells us how he liked to keep himself fit. Also in the office is an excellent map of Antarctica. I love to think of Amundsen planning his trip in this office, keeping the big secret of the fact that he was considering sailing south instead of north. On the back of a door is an appliquéd scene of a tree and some cutesy animals, made for Amundsen by a local women's group to make his office more cosy. The other thing that makes the room cosy is a stuffed baby polar bear (not there the day we visit, it had been loaned to the Fram Museum down the road). Amundsen and his colleagues kept the polar bear as a pet, "until it started to get a bit fierce." Then they shot it and had it stuffed.

It's only when you visit the bedroom and the bathroom that you get a real feel for Amundsen's eccentricity. From his bed he had a view of the outside world through a series of portholes, installed so that he could feel as though he was at sea. His washbasin is of the same style that you find on a ship too. As if that wasn't enough, the great explorer was a believer in the health benefits of bathing in salt water, so he rigged up a plumbing system that brought the stuff into his tub from the fjord below. To add to the weirdness, his bathroom is wallpapered with a design that features a series of mischievous elves. Dude!

Resist the opportunity to put on Amundsen's bowler hat and top hat, they sit on his wardrobe, as though he left them there himself this very morning. Instead, walk through to the room that was once the nursery of the two young Eskimo girls that Amundsen adopted. He brought them back from the Arctic. He had them educated. Examples of their neat handwriting in school exercise books sit on display. Exquisite. The girls are so young and beautiful. The next year, he sent them back and they were not heard of again.