Lillehammer: Cross-country skiing, culture and Olympic history

Lillehammer combines sporting activities with culture, art and Olympic history. When planning your stay, you can choose different focuses: the Birkebeineren Ski and Ski Jumping Stadium for cross-country skiing and biathlon, the historical insights at Maihaugen, or the city’s museums. Seasonal outdoor activities are also part of the experience.

Cross-country skiing, biathlon and summer activities

The Birkebeineren Ski and Ski Jumping Stadium is a complete venue for cross-country skiing and biathlon. A 450-kilometre network of groomed trails is accessible from the stadium. This makes cross-country skiing and biathlon a distinct sporting focus alongside Lillehammer’s cultural offerings.

The Birkebeinerløypa offers a different kind of route: it includes a bus ride from Lillehammer to the cross-country skiing stadium in Sjusjøen and a 15-kilometre ski tour back to Lillehammer. This distinguishes the tour from the trails accessible from the Birkebeineren Stadium: the Birkebeinerløypa combines a bus ride with a set ski route back to the city.

In summer, the Birkebeineren Ski and Ski Jumping Stadium and its trails can be used for hiking, jogging, mountain biking and ball games. These seasonal activities are quite different from cross-country skiing and biathlon, offering another way to shape the sporting focus of your stay.

Maihaugen: buildings, crafts and everyday history

In Lillehammer, Maihaugen is a cultural history museum in a scenic setting. As Norway’s largest open-air museum outside Oslo, Maihaugen includes more than 200 historic buildings from different periods. Visitors can explore historic buildings and exhibitions, join guided tours, meet costumed interpreters and learn about traditional crafts.

At Bygda in Maihaugen, you can discover authentic Norwegian culture and the way of life in the 18th and 19th centuries. In summer, you can watch farm workers harvesting crops and carrying out their daily tasks on the farm. Maihaugen thus combines historic buildings and exhibitions with encounters, crafts and seasonal insights into farm work. The experience ranges from an overview of different periods to more specific scenes of everyday life in the past.

Olympic history and Norwegian art

The Norwegian Olympic Museum is located at Maihaugen in Lillehammer. It covers the history of the Olympic Games from antiquity to the present day, including the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics. On display are original Olympic medals and sports equipment, as well as stories about athletes’ achievements. The subject thus spans the long history of the Games and Lillehammer’s own Olympic year.

The Lillehammer Art Museum, in the city centre, has around 1,800 works of art that present Norwegian art history from the 19th century to the present day from different perspectives. The two museums therefore focus on different subjects: the history of the Olympic Games at one, and the development of Norwegian art at the other.

Ski jumps, views and trails

The Lysgårdsbakkene Ski Jumping Arena is a Lillehammer landmark offering views over the city and Lake Mjøsa. The Lysgårdsbakkene Ski Jumping Arena was built for the 1994 Winter Olympics. The connection to the Games is therefore evident not only at the Norwegian Olympic Museum, but also in one of the city’s landmarks.

The Mesna Cultural Trail offers a different perspective on the landscape. It climbs about 200 metres along waterfalls and rapids to Collets bru. For planning purposes, its route description offers a different reference point from the Birkebeinerløypa ski tour: the Mesna Cultural Trail is described in terms of its elevation gain and scenery along the way, while the Birkebeinerløypa is described in terms of the bus ride and the 15-kilometre return trip on skis.

If you are also interested in design and production, you can visit the factory shop, gallery, factory garden, design studio and production facilities at Ment in Lillehammer. This complements the historical and artistic themes with a visit focused on design and manufacturing.

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