Ferries from Lillehammer Skibladnerbrygga

Lillehammer is the top of the lake and the end of the line. One sailing arrives from Moelv at 13:30 and one leaves at 15:00, twice a week — 12.8 nautical miles and 90 minutes down a lake that narrows to a river here.

Ninety minutes for under thirteen miles gives the speed away. This is the Skibladner, built in 1856 and still driven by her original paddle wheels, and she is not fast — the timetable is the same shape it was when the boat was the quickest way up Mjøsa rather than the slowest.

The season is short: sailings run from midsummer to the middle of August and there is nothing in the record for the rest of the year. Lillehammer sits at the head of Gudbrandsdalen, and the 1994 Winter Olympics are what most people know it for now — but the paddle steamer predates the ski jumps by well over a century, and comes back every summer.