Explore the Lofoten Islands

“So at 5.30am (4.30 on my UK body clock) my alarm yanked me from sleep and hurled me up that mountain. It was hard: Lofoten is. I gasped and retched as I ran up heather, mud, and granite. But as dawn rose and sunshine slid across the peaks, the sea sat solid and silver and the islands and peaks out there across the bay stood in silhouetted contrast. I stopped running and turned round and round, whooping at the top of my voice, crazed at the sheer abundance of beauty in this day.”

“All three of us now, pointing, gasping at the heavens. The colours were spread bright across the sky. All of us shouting now, and staring and pointing and none of us listening. Caught in our own worlds of wonder, out here on a hillside on a dark Artic night. The aurora was galloping now, more like a nightclub or an outdoor laser show than anything you would imagine sedate and graceful Mother Nature to lay on. Curtains of green, turning purple, darting and swooshing enormous across the stars. Shafts of colour, graceful arcs, giant coffee swirls of green. By now I was just running around and around in the dark, tripping over guy lines, cheering like a football match.”

“We then spent one or two nights in Ramberg, a drive-through village with a gorgeous long beach and the most turquoise water I’ve ever seen. The hike to the end of the beach exhausted us so much we had to take a nap on the rocks. Through fields of flowers and colourful wooden cabins we roamed, admiring the mountains rising up behind us. Sleep feels like wasted time when the sun never really sets, instead inviting you to do some amateur yoga around midnight. Hot chocolate was our fuel…”