Garmo Stave Church

Garmo Stave Church is a reconstructed medieval wooden church located at Maihaugen in Lillehammer. Originally built around 1200 in Garmo village in Lom, the church was carefully dismantled in the late 1800s and rebuilt at Maihaugen in the early 1920s to preserve its intricate woodcarvings, dragon-head ornaments, and traditional stave construction. Today it stands as one of the best-preserved examples of Norway’s iconic stave churches and forms a central highlight of the museum grounds. Because it is part of Maihaugen, the church is surrounded by the open-air museum’s extensive collection of more than 200 historic buildings. You can walk through traditional farmsteads, 19th-century town streets, and rural workshops that show how Norwegians lived and worked across different periods. The Norwegian Olympic Museum is also on site, with exhibitions on the 1994 Winter Olympics and Norway’s sports history, while the Postal Museum details the country’s communication heritage. From Garmo Stave Church it is a short stroll downhill to Lillehammer’s town center. Storgata, the main pedestrian street, offers cafés, independent shops, and the Lillehammer Art Museum, which houses important works of Norwegian art from the 1800s to today. The 1994 Olympic landmarks are close as well. Lysgårdsbakkene Ski Jumping Arena sits just minutes away, with its towers providing sweeping views over Lake Mjøsa and the Gudbrandsdalen valley, and Håkons Hall is nearby for sports and events.