Eastern Norway
in Norway

Norway without the fjords, which turns out to be a different and quietly compelling proposition. The eastern interior is a landscape of boreal forest, long valleys, and frozen lakes that stretches towards the Swedish border in a silence that feels earned rather than empty. Oslo is the obvious entry point and a city that repays more than a transit: the Munch Museum, the Aker Brygge waterfront, and a restaurant scene that has grown into one of the more serious in Scandinavia. Beyond it, the Gudbrandsdalen valley runs north through farm country and timber villages to the Jotunheimen mountains, where the hiking in summer and the cross-country skiing in winter are both exceptional. Lillehammer sits above Lake Mjøsa with the particular self-possession of a town that hosted an Olympic Games and decided afterwards to simply get on with things.