Maihaugen — over two hundred buildings in a forest
One of the great open-air folk museums of Northern Europe — gathered farmhouses, town buildings, and a 12th-century stave church across a forested hillside above Lillehammer.
Tied to Lillehammer
Maihaugen is one of the great open-air folk museums of Northern Europe — over two hundred buildings gathered on a forested hillside above the town. Anders Sandvig, a dentist who moved to Lillehammer in 1885, started collecting in 1887: farmhouses, lofts, the 12th-century Garmo Stave Church dismantled and rebuilt log by log, a 19th-century farm village, and the 20th-century town quarter that traces Norwegian everyday life decade by decade from 1900 to the present. The museum opened to the public in 1904.
Staff in period dress demonstrate the old crafts in summer — handwoven cloth, the iron forge, butter churning, carving of mangletre (wooden mangle boards used for pressing linen). The Norwegian Olympic Museum moved to Maihaugen in 2016 after a long stretch in Håkons Hall and now sits inside the same gate, included in the same ticket. A half-day covers Maihaugen lightly; a full day does it justice.
What we plan to do
Half a day in the farm village and the stave church. Lunch at the museum café. A second hour in the 20th-century town quarter walking forward decade by decade until the present.