Where to stay in Lena
Most beds in Lena gather in the village centre near Hoff kirke, where guest rooms and small inns stand within a short walk of the shops, the school and the road running out across the Toten fields. The centre suits visitors who want the church and the village services on the doorstep. It is the obvious base.
Out by Balke kirke and the manor of Stenberg, farm stays and country lodgings take in travellers touring the rich farmland of Østre Toten. Those rooms suit a quiet stay. Across the rest of the municipality, holiday cabins and farm rooms spread among the parishes toward Nordlia kirke and Totenviken kirke, a calm base for visitors working through the churches and farms of the district.
Beds thin in the outlying parishes. Reserve ahead in summer, when the manor and the farm country draw visitors to this corner of Innlandet.
Things to do in Lena
Ranked by global recognition; descriptions from Wikidata (CC0).
Museums & Galleries
- Stenberg
Churches & Religious Sites
- Hoff kirke Heritage-listed — church building in Østre Toten
- Balke kirke Heritage-listed
- Totenviken kirke Heritage-listed
- Nordlia kirke Heritage-listed
About Lena
What is Lena known for?
Lena is the administrative centre of Østre Toten municipality, set among the rich farmland of the Toten country. The old manor of Stenberg draws most visitors, a museum farm that kept the seat of the district magistrate among the fields. The land made the place.
Hoff kirke stands as the chief parish church, and between the manor, the church and the farms that spread out from the village, Lena serves as the meeting point for one of the best growing districts in this southern corner of Innlandet.
What are the main landmarks in Lena?
Stenberg is the chief sight of Lena. The old manor kept the seat of the district magistrate among the Toten fields, and stands now as a museum farm of the wider district. Churches mark the parishes.
Hoff kirke serves the heart of Østre Toten, Balke kirke rises among the fields to the south, and Nordlia kirke and Totenviken kirke stand out in the outlying parishes, the old stone and timber churches strung across the farm country of this southern corner of Innlandet.
What is the history of Lena?
Lena grew at the heart of the Toten farming country, one of the old grain districts of the inland east. Farms spread across the gentle land, and their churches, Hoff kirke and Balke kirke among them, served the parishes long before a village gathered at the road junction that became Lena. The soil carried the district.
At Stenberg the manor held the seat of the magistrate among the fields, a sign of the standing that good farmland gave to Toten through the centuries of grain and timber. The village settled into its role as the centre of Østre Toten. Shops, the school and the administration of the district gathered at Lena, the place where the farm parishes came together, and the church towers of Nordlia kirke and Totenviken kirke marked the reach of the settlement across the land.
Stenberg passed from magistrate's seat to museum farm, keeping the memory of the old district alive, and Lena held its place as the hub for the rich farm country of this southern corner of Innlandet.
Where is Lena?
Lena lies among the rolling farmland of the Toten country, in the southern part of Innlandet, in south-eastern Norway. The village stands at a junction of the field roads, the centre gathered near Hoff kirke and the shops. Open grain land spreads on every side. Østre Toten reaches across the gentle slopes and the parishes from the village out toward Balke kirke and the manor of Stenberg, taking in the farms and church grounds that make up one of the better growing districts of the inland east around Lena.
What is the climate of Lena?
Lena has the dry, continental climate of the inland farm country. Winters run cold and bright over the Toten fields, frost and snow lying across the open land and the church grounds around the village through the dark months under the inland sky. Summers are warm and long.
The gentle land and the southern aspect give the grain district its good growing season, the fields green under the long northern daylight that falls late on the farms by Hoff kirke and Stenberg in this corner of Innlandet.
How do you get to Lena?
Lena sits on the roads that cross the Toten farm country toward the larger towns of the south. Buses serving the district stop in the village near Hoff kirke, the chief link for travellers without a car. Most arrive by road.
The field roads carry drivers through Lena and Østre Toten between the farm parishes and the wider routes of the inland east, passing the manor of Stenberg on the way, while the airports of Innlandet and the south handle the longer journeys into this corner of the county.