When the world feels ruined, there’s always Norway.
Turn off MSNBC, silence notifications, and book a flight to Ålesund, 300-ish miles northwest of Oslo on Norway’s wild western coast. Visitors from all over the world come to this gateway to the Sunnmøre region to cruise the fjords.
While energy and aquaculture are the main industries in this country of just five and a half million, tourism is a close third. Mitt Strøck, a hiking-and-biking guide from Glomset, attributes it, in part, to climate change. Who wants to pedal through Provence in August, when 85-degree-days are now the norm?
However, don’t fret—the likelihood of bumping into the selfie-stick set onshore is slim. Arctic birds—sea eagles, Steller’s eiders, and, in the spring and summer, copulating puffins—are more common than people.
Sunnmøre is the Tilda Swinton of archipelagoes—frighteningly beautiful, tricky to navigate, and reliably chilly. Its only big town is Ålesund, whose colorful collage of Art Nouveau buildings owes its aesthetic consistency to a devastating fire in 1904. Kaiser Wilhelm II, who vacationed there, was so dismayed that he sent four ships full of relief workers and supplies. Over the next three years, Ålesund’s young architects rebuilt the city almost entirely from scratch, and it’s full of charm, right down to the sherbet-colored façades.
Today, the town’s unofficial ambassadors are the peripatetic entrepreneurs Knut and Line Flakk, who were born and raised there. While working in his family’s engineering and manufacturing business, Knut expanded into fashion in the 1980s when his father bought Devold, a heritage knitwear brand that had been founded in Ålesund. Its chunky sweaters are now popular with the Dimes Square crowd.
The Flakks saw an opportunity to revitalize their hometown by capitalizing on its greatest asset—its location—and have turned it into the headquarters of a small empire of luxury travel.
Sunnmøre can—and should—be enjoyed in every season. In April, it shimmers under 18 hours of daylight; it’s possible to ski in the morning and kayak in the afternoon. The Flakks’ travel agency, 62°Nord, named for Ålesund’s latitude, can arrange all of this. Their soup-to-nuts vacations reveal the very best of this 1.3-million-acre region via bike, boat, electric car, helicopter, and foot. Guests stay at some combination of their three hotels and cabin, scattered among the fjords.
Most 62°Nord itineraries begin at Ålesund’s 131-room Hotel Brosundet. A wooden-beamed, lambskin-strewn exercise in classic Scandinavian design, it has also become a local hot spot, thanks to its two restaurants—the elegant Sjøbua, which specializes in seafood, and the relaxed brasserie, Apotekergata No. 5.
After one night, it’s off to the main attraction: the dramatic constellation of jagged peaks, their vertiginous forests, and the transparent fjords that pool around them before spilling out into the Norwegian Sea. (Sounding a little Disney? Sunnmøre was used as the model for the landscapes in Frozen.)
An elegant speedboat from 62°Nord’s fleet collects guests from the Hotel Brosundet’s dock and spirits them off to Hotel Union Øye, a little more than an hour away. Cradled in a cove, the wedding-cake building looks like it wants to hide. It was originally built in 1891 as a retreat for royals and wealthy yachtsmen. Karen Blixen and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sequestered themselves there to write. In more recent years, Bill Gates has signed the guest book.
Despite respectful refurbishments over the years, its public rooms haven’t changed much—the dining room is as formal and Victorian as ever, the library is stocked with the same old first editions. Rooms, however, are more casual affairs. Line Flakk oversees the interior design of all her hotels, prioritizing comfort and Norse trappings such as overstuffed duvets, squishy sofas, claw-foot bathtubs, and fireplaces. Leaving is an undesirable proposition.
And yet! It would be criminal to ignore 62°Nord’s cheerful guides, whose adventures in skiing, kayaking, snorkeling, and biking come with a side of Norwegian history and trivia. It’s equally tempting to sizzle in the floating sauna at the end of the dock before cold-plunging in the fjord.
Theoretically, after a night at Hotel Union Øye, one could walk 11 miles to the village of Ny-Hellesund, but it’s much nicer to take an e-bike on the winding road through the Norangsdalen valley. It was impossible to pass by the glacial lakes and waterfalls without stopping for a photo op. We paused longer at a saeter, a historic summer farm wedged into the hillside. Strings of small rooms with grass-covered roofs, they are found all over Norway.
In Ny-Hellesund, 62°Nord’s 37-foot Axopar speedboat will transfer guests to Storfjord Hotel, the company’s cozy mountain lodge overlooking the Storfjorden fjord. But first, this dwarf among the giant cruise ships winds its way through the Geirangerfjord, a UNESCO World Heritage site where snow-covered peaks are sliced with waterfalls. At this point, your Instagram followers may start weeping with envy.
Geirangerfjord’s beauty can be overwhelming, or at least it seemed that way to my captain, who sat back, unwrapped a doughnut, and for the next 40 minutes let me drive the boat back to Storfjord Hotel. (Hey—the view really is superior from the driver’s seat.) That’s where a 62°Nord trip might end. You can spend a few days hiking its rocky trails and gorging on chef Florian Harnisch’s unfussy (but technically flawless) locally farmed lamb and venison. But the greatest pleasure here is found in an Adirondack chair on the lawn, taking in the glittering—but never sweltering—Norwegian sun and the view of one final fjord.
What could have possibly stirred the Vikings to go anywhere else?
The writer was a guest of 62°Nord. Rates begin at $285 per night at Hotel Brosundet, $545 per night at Hotel Union Øye, and $465 per night at Storfjord Hotel
Ashley Baker is a Deputy Editor at Air Mail and a co-host of the Morning Meeting podcast
