Live like a Viking in Norway

WHETHER it's looking for trolls or hunting a mysterious moose, Norway is the perfect place for imagination and adventure.

A mountain biker at Kleivafossen waterfall, Briksdal glacier, Norway. Picture: Getty Images

"DO YOU think we will actually see a real Viking? Or at least a troll?"

My son Jimmy Joe, 8, was optimistic that Norway would reveal the bloodthirsty warriors I'd built the Scandinavians up to be on the flight into Oslo. As we drove north from the capital into the Norwegian countryside, he misted up his window, face pressed close to the glass as he watched for trolls.

For my five-year-old daughter, Dolly, it was the wood cabins with grass growing on their roofs, nestling among pointed mountains that captured her imagination they were just like a Sylvanian Families fantasy.

But I had someone else on my mind, as I tried to recall snatches of Henrik Ibsen's poem about the romantic figure of Peer Gynt, a man who could fish, ski, swim and hunt with the same dexterity he used to fight trolls. We were heading to Gudbrandsdalen, an area north of the lakeside town of Lillehammer known as Peer Gynt's Valley, because Ibsen researched local legends from the area as a basis for his tales.

Little village
Our home for the week would be Gala, a village of wooden cabins surrounded by a quintessentially Norwegian landscape of sharp mountains dotted with sheep, dark-green forests and glittering lakes.

During the long winter, snow transforms Gala into a ski resort, but in the summer, the ski lifts look forlorn, like neglected washing lines strung loopily across a landscape so huge and so chequered in startling green that they disappear into insignificance.

The wide, shallow valleys, the knife-sharp air and the scent of pine created such a clean environment that I felt it contained a silent expectation of how I might behave.

In the same way that Russia makes you want to drink vodka with someone else's husband and lose your voice to nicotine, and America instils the urge to drive a red convertible into the sunset listening to Johnny Cash, there's something about Norway that makes you want to embrace an extreme program of healthy living.

And our holiday, at the Gala Hogfjellshotell, duly promised a dawn-'til-dusk activity program of walking, fishing, cycling and even a moose safari.

Looking out from our cute red wooden cabin which had grass growing on the roof, a sauna and a sitting room with kitchen and wood-burning stove at a landscape of emerald-green hills, I felt that quite suddenly I might become the kind of person who takes an early morning freshwater swim before a breakfast of goat's milk and whole grains and an afternoon of orienteering and hiking.

Activities at Gala are organised from the main hotel, a much larger cabin, where there was also a heated outdoor swimming pool (a hit with the children). As well as the canoeing and walking on offer, I was all for trekking on the glacier in the Jostedalsbreen National Park farther west, until I realised this would involve crampons and climbing gear and be a bit much for Dolly's little legs. I was anxious, too, about how I would manage a canoe on my own with two children.

Enter the Viking
Anxious, that was, until our very own Viking walked into the hotel lobby. Tall, blond and startlingly good looking, Jakob Physant was to be our guide for our extra activities.

Suddenly everyone was very happy indeed: Jakob pointed out walking trails, agreed to accompany us on the canoe trip and promised the children a Frisbee tournament and the possibility of spotting a moose.

Gala is 800m above sea level and the surrounding mountains are easily accessible on the ski lifts, which continue to run in the summer.

Having packed a picnic sourced from Gala's small shop - very expensive rye bread, some relatively cheap Jarlsberg cheese and a can of herring fillets - we took the chairlift to the top of the Valsfjell mountain. This looks out to the Jotunheimen and Rondane mountain ranges, and a glassy lake in the distance.

The top was flat, with sparse vegetation dotted with big, smooth stones, where we ate our picnic while screaming skylarks twirled above. Another day, when the sun shone, we took boats out on to Gala lake, where families grilled frankfurters and cast fishing nets from a pier bobbing on the water. Jimmy Joe learnt how to row a boat, and I was reminded of holidays in Scotland as a child, the cold splosh of water on the wooden slats of the bottom of a boat, the squelch of wet gym shoes and the orange rustle of being strapped into a lifejacket.

Jakob took us canoeing across a string of four lakes. It rained quite a lot, but this didn't matter, because when we got out of the boats he lit a fire under a shelter and produced potato salad and frankfurters with mustard, a little bottle of whisky for me and fizzy drinks and chocolate biscuits for the children.

Despite a day of rain we followed a cycle track along Peer Gynt Way, through a hilly landscape where myopic cows watched us through the soft rain, along undulating farm tracks and stopping at a cafe, where strapping Norwegians in the best hi-tech, wet-weather gear sipped their hot chocolate and stared in disbelief at Dolly's improvised cagoule, fashioned from a plastic bag.

Jakob also took Jimmy Joe out in a canoe one evening to set nets, which they pulled up early the next morning, finding a dozen fat-bellied trout to barbecue for lunch by the lake.

We went on a moose safari, driving a minibus into the mountains to be rewarded with the sight of a huge, almost unearthly, moose who stared back at us through the swirling mist.

When the lights go out
Evenings at Gala were spent as a family in our cabin, playing cards to the insistent ding of sheep bells outside. We had a barbecue on our little terrace looking out to the mountains, and the children were mystified by the fact that night-time in Norway during the summer is never really black.

Our final adventure with Jakob was a canoe tour down the river Lagen, swollen and Amazonian-looking after the previous day's rain. While Dolly and I shared one canoe, Jakob took Jimmy Joe off in another, navigating us through swirling eddies for 8km down the river.

It was one of the most exciting things I'd ever done. Watching my son bobbing off across the rapids was scary, but it was fantastic to see him do something that would previously have been unthinkable, thanks to Jakob's reassurances that he could make it through the rapids, if he just held his paddle in a certain way.

On the final day Jakob set up a "Gala challenge" for us all, giving the children a go at archery, air-rifle shooting and Frisbee. For Jimmy Joe it was an absolutely perfect holiday, packed with boy's own adventures. Dolly might have preferred a bit less water, and fewer hills, but now she wants to live in a wooden cabin when she grows up.

We didn't manage to spot a troll this time, but I have a hunch that Jakob, living up on top of that mountain at Gala, might just be Peer Gynt.

Top Tips: Norway Destination Guide

Adventure: Holiday Ideas