Scan Magazine | Hotel of the Month | Norway
Scandic Holmenkollen Park, designed in Dragon Style by architect Baltazar Lange, was completed in 1894.
Hotel of the Month, Norway
A legendary winter stay in Holmenkollen When walking around Oslo, you will often notice the world-famous ski jumping hill, Holmenkollbakken – Norway’s most-visited tourist destination – on the horizon. If you look more closely, you might even spot the silhouettes of numerous majestic dragons against the winter sky. The mythical animals are carved into the ridges of the renowned hotel Scandic Holmenkollen Park, whose views are almost too good to be true. By Eirik Elvevold | Photos: Scandic Holmenkollen Park
“Tourists are totally blown away by the view up here and leave with hundreds of spectacular pictures,” confirms Scandic Holmenkollen Park’s hotel director Bjørn Runar Johansen. At 350 metres above Oslo, the magnificent hotel really does offer scenery like no other. On a clear day, guests can see the entire city and the Oslo fjord in the south, as well as 104 | Issue 96 | January 2017
the vast woodlands stretching northward from the edge of the Norwegian capital. “Scandic Holmenkollen Park offers a wide spectrum of rooms, ranging from single bedrooms to luxurious suites, with easy access to a range of nature activities such as cross-country and downhill skiing, sledging, ice skating, climbing
and hiking – everything you need for an active family holiday just 15 minutes from downtown Oslo,” says Johansen.
More than a century of recreation “It’s also a perfect spot for those who want a peaceful stay close to the city. No other European capital I know has this type of nature so close to the centre,” Johansen continues. Holmenkollen’s recreational quality was the very reason why the historic hotel was built in the first place. In the late 19th century, when the general population was encouraged by Norway’s elites to enjoy the areas north of the city, Holmenkollen’s light, air and water made