When I was planning our trip along Norway’s coast, I thought we’d miss much of it because the ship continues to travel through the dark of night. Duh!

“Dark” doesn’t happen up here for around 6 months of the year. We’ve now crossed the Arctic Circle and are in a world of 24-hour sunlight, crossing fortuitously on 21 June, the northern Summer Solstice.

We’re probably going to end up seriously sleep-deprived because it’s so hard to take yourself off to bed when the sun’s still up and there’s so much to see.

We struck it lucky yesterday with a rare day that was clear, still and sunny – for the entire 24 hours.

We started off in Trondheim, founded by the Vikings and the site of Norway’s original capital, Nidaros. With only three hours in port, we headed straight up to Nidaros Cathedral, founded in the 10^th Century and now northern Europe’s largest medieval structure. It has an enormous front face, and a dark, austere interior built over the tomb of Norway’s first king, Olav Haraldsson, who was martyred in the 11^th Century and subsequently canonised.

Then it was back to sea again on our way north on a gloriously shining afternoon that mellowed gradually into what we thought was a strangely golden, sunlit evening – until we realised that the strange golden glow was the midnight sun, sitting just above the horizon at midnight. I just want to mention, for the record, that I was wearing my walking sandals … in the Arctic … at midnight.

That was yesterday. Today, with the notorious fickleness of Norwegian coastal weather, it’s cold, wet, grey and a bit grim. And that’s a pity, because we’ve reached the Lofotens, the chain of sharply-peaked islands that look like they’ve been invented for a fantasy film. We can see the base of the mountains, but their dragon-toothed peaks are hidden behind dark, heavy cloud.

We thought we might miss out on going into Trollfjord. It’s a very short (only 2km) and infamously narrow (only 100 metres wide!) fjord, surrounded by sheer mountainsides 600 – 1000 metres high. Small boats can enter the fjord relatively easily, but as well as extreme skill, larger vessels require near-perfect weather conditions, and the day was gloomy with a rather lumpy sea. Hurtigruten’s small ships, however, have made something of a specialty out of sailing into the fjord, turning at its 800 metre-wide head and sailing out again.

And we did it! At midnight when – as everyone knows – the Trolls are out! It was scary and spooky and very, very strange!