Known as the "Land of the Midnight Sun", this ruggedly beautiful northern country of glaciers and fjords offers a true escape from it all. Like the Vikings before you, come and explore one of Europe’s most unspoiled countries.

Lying on the western edge of the Scandinavian peninsula, Norway occupies an area of 324,220 square kilometres and is home to 4,326,000 people. The country has a massive coastline indented with fjords and a mountainous interior with some of Europe’s biggest glaciers. Midnight-sun days - when the sun never drops below the horizon - occur from 14 May to 30 July at Nordkapp in the far North. Southern Norway has daylight from 4am to 11pm in midsummer. The opposite occurs in winter when the sun does not rise in the North from the end of November to the end of January. Norway’s first inhabitants arrived 10,000 years ago at the end of the Ice Age. Nordic pirates - known as Vikings - arrived in England in 793 AD. This heralded the start of the Viking Age. Over the next century, the Vikings raided Europe and established settlements along the way. The Viking Age came to an end when the Norwegian king Harald Hardrada was defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066. In 1380 Norway was brought under Danish rule and was ceded to Sweden in 1814. The country finally won independence in 1905 and established a monarchy.