Maihaugen Open air museum

History comes to life at the open-air museum Maihaugen in Lillehammer. Join in at tours and walking plays, visit our historical homes and experience the Norwegian culture, history and tradition. Every day from the mid-June to the mid-August you can enjoy our walking plays that are included in your ticket. This year's new play, Flora, fauna and flatbread, takes you to the mountain farms, where you get to experience what met English tourist visiting the exotic Norwegian mountains in the late 1800s.

Get carried away in time
Maihaugen gives you Norway's history from the Middle Ages to our own age.
Maihaugen is the perfect place to experience how life looked like in Norway in the past. The open-air museum has more than 200 historic houses and buildings from as far back as the 13th Century to the present day. Many of these are open for you to enter. In some of the houses you will meet guides or traditional clothing, or the “inhabitants” who are dresses according to the time period they represent. Experience farm life in the late 1800s or meet the teenager at home in the 1980s house.
The guided tour Into Norwegian homes takes you through the Town and the Residencial area, to several homes of the 1900s.
Exhibitions and workshops
Maihaugen is also housing many great exhibitions, both indoor and outdoor in the open-air museum.
Do not miss the great permanent exhibition We won the land, and this year's main exhibition Death.
Old workshops that used to be presented inside the main building are now put up in their natural in the open-air museum. You may take a peek into the workshops of the boookbinder, hatter, hairdresser and more.
New houses in the open-air museum
The newest part of the open-air museum is the cabin area next to the mountain farms. During the winter of 2018 the modern mountain cabin Vy has been put up here. This will, together with Maihaugen's other cabins, tell the story of the Norwegian the Norwegians’ dream of their own cabin.
In the Residential area the museum's craftsmen are working on restoring the childhood residence of Norway's Queen Sonja. The house from the 1930s opens 27 August 2018.
Shops and eateries
Make sure you do not miss a visit to the historical grocery shop in the open-air museum. The the Maihaugen shop in the visitor center is also a very nice museum shop that deserves a visit.
In the visitor center you will find the Maihaugen café with traditional food and a nice view to Garmo stave church. In the summer there are also several eateries in historical environments in the open-air museum.
Maihaugen will not let you come unmoved back to the present time!