A glorious trip through the Bergen islands

Framed by fjords and mountains on Norway’s southwest coast, Bergen is a beautiful city with a lively cultural scene, including some excellent New Nordic (“Neo-Fjordic”) restaurants. And the islands around it also offer a “very Scandinavian interplay of big, contemplative nature and fresh thinking”, says Toby Skinner in Condé Nast Traveller.

Compared with, say, the Lofoten or Stockholm islands, this archipelago remains “relatively under the radar”, but it is magical even so, and a delight to explore by road and on “peaceful” ferries. It’s a world of rocks and forests, “picture-postcard” seascapes, and villages of white weatherboard houses. Here and there, “immaculate” red boathouses sit by the shore, and there are some great bakeries and artisanal distilleries, as well as stylish boutique hotels.

Among the more recent openings is Lilløy Lindenberg, a private island retreat that sleeps 12 people in a “traditional” house and a “whimsically converted” boathouse. Both have “coolly Scandinavian” yet “playful” interiors featuring locally made objects such as “wobbly, organic-seeming” lamps by the glass-blower Sigrid Rostad. Summer days here are “slow, soft-lit reveries of saunas, boat trips and vegan feasts”, but it’s also worth visiting other islands. On “rocky, windswept” Fedje, you can taste “subtly complex” organic whiskies and spirits at the Feddie Ocean Distillery, and stay at Fab 8 (“crisply designed” apartments in a former sardine factory).

And there are two good hotels in the little fishing community of Bekkjarvik, on Selbjørn – the “traditional” Bekkjarvik Gjestgiveri and the “angular” Beckerwyc House, where the Bocuse d’Or winner Ørjan Johannessen serves “sublime” 16-course dinners made at the restaurant, Mirabelle. Before heading back to Bergen, Bekkjarvik Experience offers kayaking trips, fishing expeditions and more. I loved its sleek, black “Bond-worthy RIB”, which reached speeds of 70mph on a “roller-coaster-like tour of tiny islands”.