"The hotel's red and cream half-timbered exterior, with its decorative fish-scale roof and ornate lattice work, conjures a storybook fantasy. Numerous writers thought so too. Karen Blixen, Henrik Ibsen, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle all loved this spot, as did other illustrious guests, from Queen Maud of Norway and composer Edvard Grieg to Kaiser Wilhelm II, who liked to turn up with his own bath in tow. So there’s history to the place, a sense of which oozes through its paneled interiors, up the sturdy pine staircase to the 24 bedrooms. After paddling through the fjords, or skiing through the Sunnmøre Alps, coming back to the hotel's roaring fireplace and stuffed stockings is like slipping back into a dream."