Hidden treasures

In its South Quarter is a fisherman’s warehouse where cod liver oil was first pressed. 

Next door is a boutique bric-a-brac selling shipwreck chic: old fishing nets for £80 and a ship’s vintage wheel for £590.

Across the cobbled street is Ingrid’s Glassverksted, where the boss blows recycled glass into magical shapes and outside hangs a customised road sign which reads “se opp for gleden”. Or “watch out for happiness”.

The motto is no suprise given it is possible to ski pristine mountaintops in summer and UNESCO world heritage fjords are as common as the fish they used to hang over the cliffs to dry.

But you never know what lies around the corner.

In Ålesund, explains tour guide Ronnie Brunvoll, everything seemed to be going well until one night a hundred years ago. A drunken sailor dropped a cigarette which was swept up by a huge wind and the resulting fire raged across the wooden city destroying everything east of the church for 2km.

Everyone has a different spin on the tale – though they all end the same way: help came from around the world, namely Germany and Kaiser Wilhelm II.

The decadent emperor liked to take constitutionals in the region. He enjoyed the peaceful fjords (three hours by boat from Ålesund) and the forest-covered slopes. His favourite stay was a Swiss-style cottage, Hotel Union Øye, where his elegant bath still sits beside his old bed as if he never left.

The place is open to stay the night or to take tea and cake in the elegant dining room, with everything still whiffing of belle époque style.

“It’s like I always say,” explained Ronnie, as we rifled through shipping ephemera back in the bohemian junk shop, “don’t be happy. But it’s hard not to be here.”

Thanks to the Kaiser’s fundraising, architecture students who had trained under the eye of Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow and Antonio Gaudi in Barcelona and were desperate for work in a depressed Norway, descended on Ålesund to unveil their newfound skills on a blank canvas.

“Ålesund has the highest concentration of Art Nouveau buildings in Europe,” proclaimed Ronnie later, as we meandered through the compact cluster of buildings arranged around the harbour.

From here, high-speed RiB boats race out to Runde Island’s gnarled caverns and coves populated by shags, with puffins swirling above seals on nearby skerries.

We walked around the harbour to the floating terrace cafe of Invit. A design crowd were eating fresh Skagen shrimp salads and lounging on deck chairs under a low sun.

Around the front, at Apotekerg 16, is a harmonious Art Nouveau masterpiece, the old pharmacy, which is worth a visit to see the era’s furnishings and fixtures.

For Ronnie, though, it’s the unusual decor on the other side of the city that makes him wobbly-kneed.

Shankly’s Bar, a clandestine underground drinking hole dedicated to Liverpool FC, with scarves, shirts, flags and autographed memorabilia, was once graced by genuine Scouse hero, Jamie Carragher.

It’s Ronnie’s baby – and he promised to take this fellow football fan to his mecca.

“My father was a fisherman. In the 1970s he’d moor at English ports and bring me back football kits. That’s why so many Norwegians support English teams. He brought me back a Liverpool kit. Luckily it wasn’t Leeds.”

The night before we graced Shankly’s, Ronnie took me to another of the city’s cultural highlights, Sommerfesten.

The family all-dayer, organised by Ante Giskeødegård and Lars Berg Giskeødegård, is fuelled by a similar spirit. It’s a free music festival on neighbouring Giske (population 700) which started eight years ago with a few musicians singing and grilling sausages with friends.

This year, Scottish indie band Travis sang hits to a happy, albeit soaked, crowd after falling in love with the ethos the year before.

“It’s such a different concept, often people don’t understand how it works,” said Ante.

“It used to be shrimps and paper cups. It was 30 people, then 70, 200, 1,300. Now it’s almost 20,000.”

It all harps back to the old Norwegian custom of spleise. “We call it spleisefest: sharing-fest. The core idea is that everyone chips in. Norwegians have a long tradition of volunteering. That’s the secret.”

The festival’s motto is “peace, love and understanding”, suggesting Ante’s father brought some rather different treats back when he was fishing English waters in the 1970s.

“It’s never made any money and it never will,” smiled Ante, as the scent of fresh-grilled salmon dished out by volunteers in a nearby tent floated down the breeze.

But such generosity is ironic, chuckled Ronnie, as he explained the folk from this area – rich from fishing, maritime engineering and furniture making – are thrifty.

Gesturing inwards with his arms, and with a little wink, he said, “The smell of fish is the smell of money. In Oslo they joke we learn to swim the other way round.”

Lucky, then, that nature is free, because it’s the oldest nest-egg here.

Sheer, staggeringly steep fjords explode out from crystal waters just a two-hour coach ride inland along a new network of National Tourist Routes.

The road to Geiranger Fjord sweeps between lakes and mountains, up green gorges perfect for hiking, cycling and walking.

There is Trollryggen, the highest rock-face wall in the world, whose lustrous polished surface suggests its glacier retreated only months before.

And up at Trollstigen, in a mountain pass, is a new visitor centre and viewing platform to match its billing as one of Norway’s most visited attractions.

Design magazines come to review the shells and shapes but most people come for the view. Or to throw themselves off; as we looked down into the grand expanse below, red parachutes bloomed like flowers in spring.

Then the road hairpinned, heading down into the tiny, isolated haven of Geiranger village, before opening onto a fjord so grand and magnificent its sound can only be silence.

“When it’s dark in winter and with so few people,” explained resident Gwen Nickolaychuk, “you’ve got to get creative.”

She said when it’s darkest, the road becomes a piste. Locals sledge down with only a headlamp for light, while someone else checks for traffic.

In the summer safer pursuits exist. Take a two-man kayak on the water to see the Seven Sisters waterfall cascading into the fjord and carving out craggy crevices. Peer up on either side of the water at the abandoned mountain farms last used in the 1900s.

“They used to live here to prove you could,” revealed Nickolaychuk, resting the paddle on her kayak. “The slopes are steep but you can hike up. It’s doable, and spectacular.”

We bedded down for the night in another Union hotel. Naturally, it has Royal connections and heavenly views, but a vintage car museum in the basement? Why not.

As you slip back down the fjord towards Ålesund on the morning ferry, stand on deck, sample svele pancake with butter and sugar and take a deep breath.

You’ll soon be passing pure fluvial lakes that reflect the mountains as if they were mirrors – and gulping for air at the magnificence of it all.

The Facts

• Direct flights to Ålesund from Gatwick from £43 one way including tax, with www.norwegian.com
• Double rooms at Hotel Union Øye from £215, www.unionoye.no
• For details of Sommerfesten visit www.momentium.no/ sommerfesten