Activities at Stalheim Hotel
Stalheim Folk Museum is next door to the hotel, and is one of Norway’s largest privately owned folk museums. In addition to the exhibition room with around 5,000 objects on show, the museum has an old hamlet with 24 log houses, the oldest dating back to the late Middle Ages. The jewel in the crown is the elegant Lekvehuset from 1725, restored both externally and internally to its former glory from the end of the 18th century.
Fyrdeslåven is an old barn building from 1750 and now part of Stalheim Folk Museum. The hotel has restored this building to create a rustic restaurant seating 60 guests. The menu here is full of local traditional dishes and ingredients from the area. The lamb served has often been raised on the hotel’s own grazing ground on the hillside in Brekkedalen valley, the venison most probably spent its life in the meadows directly behind the hotel, and the trout comes directly from the Oppheim lake. For dessert, you can enjoy the cloudberries picked in the delightful countryside surrounding the hotel.
Guests can go hunting and fishing practically on the hotel’s doorstep. The beautiful mountains surrounding the hotel are the perfect ground for hunting deer and reindeer, and also have numerous lakes for fishing. And for salmon fishing, you only have to travel a few kilometres to the Nærøydalselva river.
With Stalheim as your base, you have some of West Norway’s most magnificent fjords within easy reach, surrounded by dramatic mountains.
There are plenty of walks in the area, or you could take a drive or boat trip from Gudvangen (10 km from the hotel and with good bus transport). A boat trip on the narrow Nærøyfjord is a fascinating experience as you gaze up at the thousand metre high mountain slopes which tower almost vertically over the fjord sides.
If you prefer a more open view, take a trip to the highest tops and be rewarded by views of the entire fjord landscape some thousand metres below you. Our web page has several suggestions for trips.
For those looking for a mix of mountain and fjord, we recommend the following trips:
NORWAY IN A NUTSHELL
This round trip was recently voted the most beautiful round trip in the world by an American tourist magazine. We leave Stalheim by bus swinging round and down the Stalheimskleivene hairpin bends and to Gudvangen. From there, we go onboard a boat to Flåm. This boat trip follows the wild and wonderful Nærøyfjord then branches off to sail in on the Aurlandfjord – in total a two and half hour boat trip in some of West Norway’s most breathtaking scenery.
We stop for lunch in Flåm for one hour then continue by train up Flåmsdalen valley, known for both its wild scenery and for the impressive piece of engineering represented by the railway. We change train in Myrdal and continue to Voss, where the bus is waiting to take us back to Stalheim.
You can also take this trip in the opposite direction, i.e. Stalheim - Voss - Myrdal - Flåm - Gudvangen- Stalheim. You can also travel Stalheim – Flåm – Myrdal – Flåm – Stalheim.
Stalheim Folk Museum – Tønnebergs Collection:
Stalheim Folk Museum is next door to the hotel and is one of Norway’s largest privately owned folk museums. The main aim of the museum is to provide an insight into the different aspects of life for local people over the past two to three centuries.
The museum is divided into 3 sections, each interconnecting and complementing the other:
The old farmyard:
Visitors are greeted by the sight of this charming, old farmyard consisting of 25 old farmhouses, including an open-hearth room from the 16th century, a barn from 1650 and a blacksmiths and two stalls. You can also visit the very first coaching inn from Stalheim dating back to ca. 1750, the beautiful Lofthus attic, even a tiny schoolhouse from 1881.
Exhibition hall:
The exhibition hall covers two floors and has around 5000 objects on show, sorted by subject so that the different rooms are dedicated to the different aspects of a farmer’s daily life; one room focuses on brewing, another on baking, a third on national costumes etc.
Lekvehuset:
At the very top of the museum area is the elegant Lekvehuset building from 1725. This is a manor house from Lekve in Voss, and has been carefully restored both inside and out to return it to its former glory from around 1750-60. The manor house also shows us that continental luxury and culture had reached all the way in to Voss.
OPENING HOURS:
• The museum has the same opening hours as Stalheim Hotel, i.e. normally from the start of May to the end of September.
• Entrance to the buildings only as a part of a guided tour.
• Guided tours can be arranged for groups of minimum 10 persons.
• Requests for guided tours should be made to Stalheim Hotel.
