Norway

A magical land of tranquil shimmering fjords, of sweeping pine and spruce forests and towering mountains reaching up across the Arctic Circle into Lapland, where its once nomadic Sami people live a life, and in a world, apart.

Further North still, at the apex of their ancestral home, is Nordkapp, the most Northerly point in Europe where the jaw-dropping Northern Lights dance across the night sky.(It was a Norwegian, Kristian Birkeland, who first gave the world a scientific explanation of them from observations he made in the Kafjord near Tromso).

As the Aurora lights appear in the night sky, as if escaping from a genie’s bottle, Norwegian Lapland
becomes an adventure playground cloaked in glistening, crystal snow with trails for husky mushing, snowmobiling and reindeer safariing particularly in the tundra around Alta and Karasjok.

December sees the building of the Sorrisniva Igloo Hotel and the Kirkenes Snow Hotel for a 'once in a lifetime' experience of sleeping in a hotel that literally melts away in spring.

Joanne Lumley created considerable excitement searching for the Northern Lights in a programme made for the BBC travelling to many of the places we feature and our ‘Northern Lights at the Top of the World’ follows much of her journey.