Soria Moria Sauna Dalen: Complete Guide to the Art Sauna on Lake Bandak

At the far western end of the Telemark Canal, past 18 locks and 105 kilometres of forest and farmland, the water runs out at Dalen — a village best known for a 19th-century wooden hotel built like something out of a storybook. On the shore of Lake Bandak, just below the village, sits another kind of landmark: Soria Moria Sauna, a golden-shingled sauna built as a work of public art, rated 4.8 stars by the people who’ve actually sat inside it.

Not to Be Confused With the Other Soria Moria

Before going further, a quick note that will save some confusion. There are two saunas in Norway called Soria Moria, and they are not related. Soria Moria Hotell Spa is an indoor hotel spa perched on Holmenkollen in Oslo, with a heated pool and a panoramic sauna window over the city. The Soria Moria this guide covers is an entirely different place: an outdoor art-installation sauna on a lake in rural Telemark, a different world away from the Oslo hotel of almost the same name. Both take their name from the same source — the mythical castle of Norwegian folklore — but that’s where the resemblance ends.

Dalen and the Telemark Canal

Dalen owes its existence, at least as a destination, to the canal. The Telemark Canal was completed in 1892 as a feat of Norwegian engineering — a series of 18 lock chambers across 8 lock systems, lifting boats a total of 72 metres over its 105-kilometre run from the coastal town of Skien to Dalen in the interior. In its day it was celebrated as one of the “eighth wonders” of the industrial world, built to move timber and goods out of Telemark’s forested interior before roads or railways reached that far.

The canal turned Dalen into a tourist destination almost immediately, and it still does. Between late May and October, the historic vessels MS Henrik Ibsen and MS Victoria run the full canal route, including the dramatic Vrangfoss staircase — five locks in a row lifting boats 23 metres — before arriving at Dalen’s quiet harbour. It is, by any measure, one of Europe’s great slow-travel journeys, and it’s the classic way to arrive at or leave the village.

Waiting at the end of that journey is the Dalen Hotel, an 1894 wooden hotel built in a lavish, romantic style — dragon-head gables, towers, spires and verandas — that earned it a reputation as “the hotel from the fairytales.” It’s one of Norway’s oldest wooden hotels and one of the largest wooden buildings in the country, sitting just 400 metres from the canal, and it once hosted European royalty drawn by the same canal traffic that put Dalen on the map.

Soria Moria Sauna: An Artwork You Can Sit Inside

Soria Moria Sauna sits directly on the shore of Bandak, the long lake that the Telemark Canal follows through this stretch of the valley. It isn’t just a sauna with a nice view — it’s a designed artwork in its own right, the first structure completed under “Tales of the Waterway” (“Vannvegens fortellinger”), a project that gives each municipality along the canal its own piece of public art tied to the waterway.

The building’s shingle cladding draws on local Telemark building traditions, and scattered among the wood shingles are gleaming gold ones that catch the light off the lake. The roofline and silhouette are deliberately designed to echo the steep mountainsides that rise around Bandak — the sauna reads less like a building and more like a small, angular piece of the landscape itself.

Inside, the sauna holds up to 15 people and is heated by an electric Harvia sauna heater. A bathing jetty extends from the building directly into Bandak, so the classic hot-cold cycle is a matter of a few steps: sweat inside, then walk straight off the jetty into the lake. It’s the kind of unfiltered, close-to-nature bathing experience that outdoor saunas in Norway are prized for, and reviewers agree — a 4.8-star rating across 109 Google reviews is an excellent score by any sauna’s standard, and it puts Soria Moria among the better-reviewed sauna experiences in the country.

Booking, Price, and Getting There

Soria Moria Sauna is bookable in two-hour sessions, with the building open between 08:00 and 24:00. Most visits are private group bookings — you reserve the whole sauna for your party — though drop-in access is offered on Wednesdays for anyone wanting a shared session. Pricing sits in the mid range for Norway, from roughly 400 to 1,000 NOK depending on how a booking is structured, so it’s worth confirming current rates before you go. Facilities are simple and functional: a changing room at the sauna itself, with toilets and a shower located near the car park about 200 metres away. The address is Markensvegen 20, in Dalen, in the municipality of Tokke.

Getting to Dalen means either driving in on Highway 38 or taking the far more memorable route: the canal boat from Skien, arriving by water at the same harbour that has welcomed visitors here for well over a century. Given the sauna’s strong reviews and modest size, booking ahead is worth doing, especially if you’re travelling as a larger group or visiting during the peak canal-boat season from late May to October.

Making a Trip of It

Dalen rewards a slower visit. Pair a sauna session at Soria Moria with a night at the Dalen Hotel, a walk in the hills above the village, or — if your schedule allows a full day — the entire canal journey from Skien, watching the landscape rise past you lock by lock before the trip ends at the lakeside sauna. Few places in Norway pack a 19th-century engineering marvel, a fairytale hotel, and a genuinely excellent modern sauna into one small village. For a trip built around the wider canal and Telemark’s folk traditions rather than Dalen alone, allow at least a couple of days — the canal towns between Skien and Dalen each have their own character, and Dalen is a satisfying place to end the journey rather than rush through it.

Continue Exploring

For more on the region, see our guide to things to do in Telemark, covering the canal, the folk culture, and the wider area beyond Dalen. If you’re curious about the Oslo sauna that shares this one’s name, Soria Moria Hotell Spa is covered in our guide to the best hotel spas in Norway. And for the full profile — including exact coordinates and booking details — see the Soria Moria Sauna listing.