The Grand Tour of Norway: Fjords, Lofoten and Oslo

Ålesund sits at the entrance to the Geiranger Fjord, one of the two UNESCO-listed fjords in Norway and at 15 miles long one of the most photographed stretches of water in the country. The town itself was rebuilt in the early 1900s after a fire destroyed most of it overnight, which is why the architecture runs to a consistent Art Nouveau style found almost nowhere else in Scandinavia.

The Jugendstilsenteret museum covers the story of the rebuilding and the style it produced. The hill of Aksla rises from the centre of the town and the harbour at Brosundet sells fresh crab and prawns off the fishing boats each morning.

On the second day, Do Not Disturb arranges a private boat through the Geiranger Fjord, past the Seven Sisters waterfall where seven separate falls drop simultaneously from the cliff face above.

The boat moors at Skageflå, a farm on the wall of the fjord that was worked until the 1940s, with views back down the water to the valley floor far below. The evening is spent in the hotel’s lavvo, a traditional Sami tent in the forest behind the property, where dinner is cooked over an open fire.

A flight north from Bergen takes you to Leknes on the Lofoten Islands, an archipelago that sits above the Arctic Circle and stretches for around 100 miles along the Norwegian coastline.

The islands have been a fishing settlement for over 6,000 years. In summer the sun does not set. In winter the Northern Lights run across the sky above the harbour.

The second day in Lofoten is built around your interests. The options include free diving in the water off the islands, deep sea fishing, surfing at Unstad Bay on the western coast, or a visit to the Lofotr Viking Museum at Borg, which holds the largest Viking longhouse ever excavated in Norway.

On the third day, Do Not Disturb arranges a sea kayak across the Reine Fjord to Vindstad, an old fishing settlement at the base of the mountain Helvetestinden. From Vindstad, a trail leads up the mountain with views across the surrounding islands and water below.

Dinner that evening can be at Kitchen On The Edge of the World, a restaurant on the shoreline at Å, the last village on the main island, where the menu follows what comes off the boats each day. Do Not Disturb will request a reservation in advance, though availability at this remote location is limited and cannot always be guaranteed.

A boat from Manshausen to Bodø and a flight south brings you into Oslo for the final three days.

The city has the largest concentration of world-class museums of any Scandinavian capital. The National Museum, which opened in 2022 on Aker Brygge, holds the largest collection of art, architecture and design in the Nordic countries.

The Munch Museum in Bjørvika covers the full body of work of the artist who gave the world The Scream. The Fram Museum on the Bygdøy peninsula houses the original polar ship Fram, the vessel that carried both Fridtjansen and Amundsen on their expeditions, and tells the story of the Norwegian polar age in full. The Viking Ship Museum nearby has three of the best-preserved Viking ships in the world.

Frogner Park, a ten-minute walk from the centre, holds the sculpture park created by Gustav Vigeland between 1924 and 1943. The park covers 80 acres and contains more than 200 works in granite, bronze and cast iron, all commissioned from Vigeland as a single project. It is one of the largest sculpture installations made by a single artist anywhere in the world.

The Aker Brygge waterfront is where floating saunas sit in the harbour alongside working fishing boats, and where Oslo’s restaurant scene is concentrated. The city now has a significant number of Michelin-starred restaurants, most of them built around Norwegian produce and seafood from the surrounding fjord.