Normally I would tag Lillehammer onto the end of another blog as I didn't even stay a full day there but it has deemed itself worthy of it's own post in just a few hours.
The drive back through the fjords (on a different road) was great again, and sunny this time, although the winding roads take a toll on your concentration. I eventually arrived in the town around 5.30pm and wild camped in a street close to the middle of town.
Lillehammer is famous for having held the Winter Olympics back in 1994 with the help of £2billion-worth of Norweigan cash, despite being about half the size of Bury St Edmunds. Now the town has a major tourism boom in the winters with loads of great skiing facilities close by.
The town centre is pretty small, as you might imagine, with the main street looking rather quaint and plenty of nice architectural buildings without anything too serious of note. The Olympic Park to the north is good and they still have the ski jumps (where Top Gear sent the mini down on skis I am told) and the main Olympic building - still dedicated to winter sports.
The Kunstmuseum is a very modern looking wood and glass building for modern art. It was still open at 7.30pm with a queue outside so I assumed there was some sort of installation opening and joined the back. Once I got in I was shoehorned into a room with around 500 people for what turned out to be the Lillehammer Literature Festival - very interesting I'm sure, if you speak Norweigan! That's an hour of my life I will never get back.
It later transpired that one of the speakers was the Prince of Norway, my second run in with royalty in the last few days.
Looking around afterwards, the museum exhibitions were pretty poor with not much on show - a bit disappointing.
I got some food and headed to the first bar I saw, an Irish pub which was playing Flogging Molly. It was pretty dead though with about 5 people sat inside at around 9.30pm. I decided to go elsewhere for one quick drink before bed and headed into the town centre. Here I met a local guy, Stein, and his friends and got chatting.
After a few beers, and a few bars (including one with a high view on Lillehammer by night which my camera doesn't do justice to), we went back to the van for a couple more before heading to his flat to play drunken guitar and sing until the sun was up. Everything from Johnny Cash to ACDC to Flogging Molly (what is it with that band in this town) got a rather inaccurate rendition, I even got to try moose sausage too!
All in all, a cracking night, and a fitting way to round off my time in Norway - thanks guys!
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