Jørundgard Medieval Centre
Reconstruction in North Sel of a medieval farm, built for the filming in 1994 of "Kransen", based on the Norwegian author Sigrid Undset's novel "Kristin Lavransdatter".
The buildings are furnished, and props from the film are exhibited. During the summer, the farm is open for visitors. There is also a stave church on the farm.
Guided tours in several languages are available. Old craft traditions are demonstrated by staff in the various buildings. There are also animals on the farm – Scottish Highland cattle, Norwegian sheep and wild boar.
Cildren can jump in the hay, walk on stilts and throw wedges. Concerts, talks and other activities are occasionally arranged. Medieval food and drink is served by prior arrangement. Simple refreshments available daily.
Maihaugen Open Air Museum
The open air museum tells you about living and working in Norway over the course of 500 years. "The rural collection" shows the Gudbrandsdalen Valley as a whole. Here you will find a grand farm house, cotter's home, stave church, vicarage, a settler's farm, a summer farm, and small fishing shacks.
"The town" represents an inland town, town houses from Lillehammer, pharmacy, hairdresser, bakery, shops, post office, flats and backyards.
"The residential area" consists of detached houses from the twentieth century. The main building includes The Old Workshop in a nationwide crafts exhibition and the historic exhibition "We won the land". Museum shop and café.
Lillehammer Art Museum (Museum of the year 2008)
In the centre of Lillehammer you will find the Lillehammer Art Museum, which many argue is the Norway's leading visual arts museum with significant works by Norwegian artists.
Lillehammer Art Museum was voted the Museum of the Year in 2008 at The National Museum Meeting in Stavanger 22 August 2008. In the jury: Museums director Tomas Jönsson from Sweden, journalist Gudleiv Forr and from the Norwegian Parliament, Ågot Valle.
The permanent collection includes paintings and drawings by J. C. Dahl, Hans Gude, Adolph Tidemand, Erik Werenskiold, Eilif Peterssen, Christian Krogh, Frits Thaulow, Edvard Munch and others.
The Lillehammer painters, including Kristen Holbø, Thorvald Erichsen and Lars Jorde, are well-represented.
Lillehammer Art Museum served as a cultural venue during the XV11 Olympic Winter Games in 1994. The museum café serves Granum bakery's freshest baked goods every day. New museum shop featuring handicrafts and art books.
Historical farms
An increasing number of farmers in Gudbrandsdalen invite tourists to cross their threshold, to give them an extraordinary peak into their homes. Such a visit provides a retrospective glance at daily life at a great farm in Gudbrandsdalen, and it also gives visitors a notion of how active and modern farming is conducted today.
Sygard Grytting, Per Gynt Gården and Vågå gardshotell are among those farms who invite invite their guests to share culinary experiences as well as tales of the past. The meal is crucial and is adapted to the environment, with only the best of locally-rooted, traditional foods and specialties.
Many cultural farms provide ongoing proof of the craft and building traditions of the past, and they offer accommodation combined with a range of cultural events.
You will find farm history and traditions that have been upheld through the generations, and you are given the opportunity to stay on unique farms in preserved, historic buildings.
Several farms in all of Gudbrandsdalen – from Gausdal in the south, via Dovre in the north, to Skjåk in the west – have established a common event called Gardmillom (From farm to farm). This is an initiative where people are invited to share great meals, take part in different cultural activities, get a peek into farm life, and join in on celebrations and fun, all based on old traditions. The event lasts for ten days, the last ten days in July of every summer.
Rudi Gard is another farm who offers a wide range of events throughout the summer.
Stave churches
Around 2,000 stave churches were built in Norway in the Middle Ages. Only a few – just 28 – still remain. Three of them are found at their original locations in Gudbrandsdalen, and they are still in use:
In addition, Garmo Stave Church has been re-erected at Maihaugen Outdoor Museum, where it is used throughout the summer season. The churches in Ringebu and Lom, both from the beginning of the thirteenth century, are among the largest remaining stave churches in Norway.
The churches in Gudbrandsdalen bear important witness of the craft traditions in the area. They contain magnificent examples of the region's wood carving and rose painting traditions. Lom Stave Church also presents a superb collection of paintings, which is supposedly one of the largest collections of its kind in Norway.
All churches are open to the public during the summer season.
The village of Heidal
60 per cent of the 1,300 houses in this village were built before the year 1900. Every fifth house dates back to the eighteenth century, and the most ancient building are from the sixteenth century.
As a historical record of the cultural landscape, Heidal means the same to Norwegian villages as Røros does to Norwegian towns. 17 farms have heritage buildings and nine of the farms have been deemed heritage with unconditional restrictions.
Heidalost, a distinctive Norwegian cheese, is a Heidal specialty. Originally this brown cheese was produced on local farms, but now it is produced by the Tine dairy and the local cheese producer.
Rauma Railway
Raumabanen Railway is one of Norway's most spectacular and wild railway journeys. It starts at Dombås and ends 114 kilometres further west, in Åndalsnes.
During summer, you may board a steam engine and enjoy a guided tour from Åndalsnes to Bjorli, returning to Åndalsnes.
The tour takes you through wild and magnificent surroundings, offering a view to Trollstigen Mountain Road, Trollveggen and Romsdalshorn.
Parts of the Harry Potter film, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince", are filmed on the Rauma Railway. The sequences filmed on the Rauma Railway were filmed in Bjorli and shot on a veteran train belonging to the Norwegian Railway Club.
Myfallet Waterfalls
Three waterfalls with a total length of 100 metres. To get to the waterfalls, you follow the signposted path from Venabu Fjellhotell for about 3 kilometres.
Dørfallet/Dørdalen
A mini canyon with vertical escarpments of 60 to 100 metres. To get to the canyon, you follow the signposted path from Venabu Fjellhotell for about 6 kilometres.
Combine a walk here with a walk to Muen Mountain (1,424 metres above sea level), the highest summit in the municipality of Ringebu.
Kvitskriuprestein (The Priests of the White Scree) in Sel
Kvitskriuprestein is an example of a form of erosion that is very rare in Northern Europe. With the exception of some minor pyramids in some of the tributory valleys of Gudbrandsdalen, there is nothing comparable this side of the Alps.
The compact white moraine soil, left over from an earlier Ice Age, is hard as concrete when dry, but easily washed away by rain and flooding creeks. The rocks on the top of the pillars have protected them while the rain washed away the surrounding soil.
Other conditions for the creation of these enormous pillars are a steep hillside and desert-like precipitation, preferably as heavy showers.
The formation of "the priests is a continuing process which calls for protection. The pillars grow slowly, topple over and are replaced by new ones. From a distance, the white pyramids topped by the dark rock hats remind you of a group of priests, hence the name.
The national parks of Gudbrandsdalen
Gudbrandsdalen lies in near proximity to several national parks:
The first four are situated in the northern areas of Gudbrandsdalen. All the parks offer excellent opportunities for walking, and skiing during the winter, in spectacular surroundings.
The last, and also Norway's smallest national park, is located only an hour's drive from Lillehammer. Ormtjernskampen National Park covers only nine square kilometres. Situated in Gausdal Vestfjell, the park contains rare species of flora and fauna. One of Northern Europe's rare occurrences of the flower Bearded Bellflower (Campanula barbata) is found here.