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Northern Europe

By Mark Stratton

JUNE 19, 2024

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Northern Europe overview

Northern Europe’s maritime history stretches back over a millennium. Around its coasts, the scenery and wildlife are broodingly magnificent and ripe for small ship adventures.

At the confluence of the North Sea and Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, the UK and Ireland’s biodiversity is best seen at sea; Norway’s coast offers monumental fjord lands deep into the Arctic Circle, while Iceland’s glacial landscapes are flamed red by active volcanoes. Voyagers should expect barnstorming sunsets, encounters with whales, and boisterous seas.

Our Destination Guides explore this region in greater detail, with expert opinions from those familiar with small-ship adventures. Sailings in the UK may call by historic port cities like Liverpool and Douglas on the Isle of Man, as well as fishing town harbours such as Fowey in Cornwall. Yet the UK’s epicentre for small vessel expeditions is the bewitching Scottish islands: the inner and outer Hebrides, Orkneys, and Shetlands. Sailing into sea loughs and weaving by tiny scarcely-inhabited islands, you rarely see more transparent waters or beautiful white sand beaches.

Either departing from Glasgow or Oban, these wild isles are best enjoyed between spring and summer. Famed for its whisky production, the island yields splendid sightings of seabirds and marine mammals. The puffin colonies on the way towards the imperious St Kilda Island are a spring to early summer highlight. Venture further north to the Orkney Islands to discover excavated pre-historic settlements and then onto the rugged Shetlands, where a journey to Muckle Flugga, the UK’s most northerly outpost, arrives some 3000kilometres (1900miles) from the UK’s southernmost point at Land’s End.

Ireland’s finery is best seen along its western Gaelic fringe, a gentle coastline of pretty fishing villages and lighthouses. The mountains rise in Connemara, and the grass is green in Kerry. There’s much craic to be had in Kilkenny and Galway’s homely pubs, rocking to live Irish folk music. The tremendous geological coastal sight is Northern Ireland’s unique columnar basalt Giant’s Causeway in County Antrim.

One of the world’s oldest small-ship journeys takes in Norway’s western fjords. Pioneering the coastal express linking 34 communities, covering 1255 kilometres (780 miles) from Bergen and into the Arctic Circle to Kirkenes. Experiencing this epic traverse, small expedition vessels dip into the fjords and pass the ethereal mountains of the Lofoten Islands. During winter voyages between September and April in clear skies, the sight of aurora borealis can be majestic.

Just below the Arctic Circle, Iceland has been making global news for dramatic ongoing eruptions around its fiery Reykjanes Peninsula. Its emerging volcanoes are a highlight of a circumnavigation of Iceland’s 4800-kilometres (3000 miles) coastline, in which voyages sail between the Greenland and Norwegian Seas and the North Atlantic Ocean. Heading out of Reykjavik, you’ll visit the magnificent Snæfellsnes Peninsula, full of legends of trolls. Látrabjard’s giddying cliffs offer some of Europe’s best birdwatching, and you’ll see abundant whales around Húsavik.