In all our years of travel, Bina and I have avoided Scandinavia, the one exception being a 2023 visit to Tromsø, Norway, to see the Northern Lights. 

As a general rule, we are averse to cold weather and have a bias for warmer countries. During the summer of 2024, however, we considered escaping to a more northerly latitude as a relief from the heat of Portugal and discovered we could fly direct from Faro to both Stockholm and Copenhagen. So, off we went to Viking Land.

We took Norwegian Air on September 3 from Faro to Stockholm, returning on September 8 via Ryanair from Copenhagen.