Resort height: 200m
The mountains
Hafjell is home to Lillehammer's nearest pistes (there are free shuttle buses at the beginning and end of the day). It hosted the slalom events in the 1994 Olympics, and offers 33km of pistes, dropping through a respectable 800 vertical metres. It's also home to a sizeable terrain park. As with all Norwegian resorts, it's a good place to make your first turns as a beginner, thanks to the friendly, English-speaking instructors - but the daily commute is a hassle.
To the north lies Kvitfjell, which has steeper slopes, and saw the downhill and giant slalom races at the Olympics. It too is home to a highly-rated terrain park, and has a skiercross course too.
Getting there
Fly to Oslo and take the train, or a bus. The transfer to Lillehammer should take less than two hours.
Rating: 
7/10
Après-ski
Lillehammer is close enough to Oslo to attract a weekending crowd from the city, and has several cool bars and clubs - in fact one of them, Brenneriet, is amongst the country's largest. There are lots of nice restaurants too - try the arty Café Banken, and Egon, housed in an old mill, which serves excellent Norwegian salmon and lamb.
Rating: 
9/10
Non-skiers
Non-skiing is the whole point of coming here, really. The Olympics left Lillehammer with a superb wintersports infrastructure, and you can try just about every snow and ice-based sport known to man: bobsleigh, luge, dog-sledding, ice-skating, tobogganing, curling, snow-mobiling, and of course cross-country skiing.
Rating: 
5/10
Cost of living
Norway is a rich country, thanks to its oil and gas reserves, and it's not cheap. Alcohol in particular is expensive compared with UK prices.
Rating: 7/10
Attractiveness of the resort
Aside from the fact that there's no downhill skiing here, and no real mountains to speak of, Lillehammer is a handsome town, with great facilities, shops and infrastructure.
