M ost evenings at the Union Øye hotel, guests assemble in the living room to hear a staff member tell the tale of Linda, the resident ghost. The hotel, which is hidden deep at the end of the Norangsfjord, has stood in the shadow of Norway’s Sunnmøre Alps since 1891. Around the turn of the 20th century, it was a frequent summer destination for German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II. During one of these stays, a hotel maid named Linda fell in love with a soldier in the Kaiser’s service. The couple got engaged and promised to marry on the Kaiser’s return. But it wasn’t to be: the soldier died in the interim, and when Linda learned of his fate, she threw herself into the fjord. She has haunted the property ever since.
As Union Øye’s storytellers spin this yarn, they often weave in accounts of their own lives among the fjords. One night, a young woman whose impeccable Californian accent belied her Øye roots spoke of her childhood in the tiny village, where she was one of five children on the local school bus. She also delivered a Seinfeldian riff on a grocery run gone awry due to a rare breakdown in the regional car ferry system, a snafu that required her to search her phone in vain for the PDF of alternate routes. It was a purposely if-you-know-you-know bit of humor, somewhat opaque to outsiders, but flashing a glimpse of everyday life beyond the setting’s fairy-tale architecture and imperious peaks.
The Sunnmøre Alps, in western Norway, have long attracted visitors, such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Henrik Ibsen, Roald Amundsen and Edvard Grieg—all of whom, like the Kaiser, stayed at the Union Øye. The hotel itself is an ornate confection, a prefabricated structure done in Sveitserstil, or Swiss chalet style. It was designed by innovative Norwegian architect Christian Thams, who topped off the roof with dragon’s-head finials. The whole building was transported in pieces by boat along the fjord.
After languishing some years as a mid-range hotel and falling into general disrepair, the Union Øye was purchased in 2009 by the Flakk family, local entrepreneurs who are involved in hospitality, textiles, renewable energy and other areas. Their company, 62°Nord, owns two other Sunnmøre properties: the Staurneset Guesthouse on Giske island and the Storfjord Hotel in Glomset. Among the family’s other holdings are Devold, the classic Norwegian knitwear brand, and its more fashion-forward offshoot, O.A.D., whose patterned sweaters are sold at 62°Nord hotels.
“It was my mother and father who discovered the potential in both Union Øye and Storfjord. What immediately drew them in was the combination of dramatic natural surroundings and, in the case of Union Øye, its extraordinary history dating back to 1891,” says Erika June Flakk, a co-owner of the Flakk Group and daughter of its CEO, Knut Flakk. “At Øye, the mountains rise so steeply they feel as though they nearly close in above you, creating an intimate and almost mythical atmosphere.”
F or the Norwegian tourism industry, the “coolcation” trend has proved both an opportunity and a challenge, as more people seek out milder climes to avoid the scorching weather in traditional summer destinations. “From our side in Norway, the increased interest is very real,” says Ann Kristin Ytrevik, 62°Nord’s chief brand officer. “Summer demand for bespoke fjord journeys has grown meaningfully year on year since 2022.” Likewise, travel company Red Savannah has seen a 29% increase in Norway inquiries year on year.
Amid the enthusiasm over the country’s increasing popularity, though, concerns around the potential for overtourism are creeping in. Last summer, The New York Times ran a story titled “In Norway, Are ‘Coolcations’ Taking a Toll?” describing fjords full of cruise ships and small towns overrun with tour groups. “Overtourism is something we take seriously,” says Ytrevik, “but it’s important to distinguish between Norway as a whole and specific pressure points. Sunnmøre is not experiencing mass tourism in the way some European destinations are.”
Even so, many travelers are starting to shift their trips to other times of year instead. Red Savannah, for instance, has seen requests for shoulder season trips increase from 60% to 71% year over year. “Norway is increasingly known for its wealth of activities, many of which can be enjoyed from spring until autumn,” says Red Savannah Europe specialist Clare Watkins.
The Norwegian principle of friluftsliv, or “free-air living,” which means taking time every day to be out in nature, is a year-round ethos that doesn’t end when days get shorter and the air gets crisper. “It is the rough weather that shaped our region, and us, that I have always loved,” says Erika June Flakk, of the Sunnmøre region. “It’s a place that instills resilience, humility and a deep respect for nature.” Hiking; “wild swimming” (followed by a rustic sauna); downhill, cross-country and off-piste skiing; kayaking; fishing; and biking are all activities offered by 62°Nord.
And for visitors determined to see summer’s midnight sun, Ytrevik notes, “timing and access matter. Early mornings, evenings and private transport make a significant difference. We favor lesser-known fjords, private boats and routes that are simply not viable for group travel. Traveling with local guides who understand daily patterns, not just landmarks, is often the deciding factor between a busy experience and a quiet one.”
T he gateway to the Sunnmøre Alps is the city of Ålesund, an hour’s flight northwest of Oslo. Ålesund has long been an important center of fish packing and shipping, and the industry remains a significant part of the local economy. Along the Brosundet canal that winds through the city stands the statue of the sildekona, or “herring lady,” a tribute to the women who worked in the city’s fisheries. The kerchiefed figure, created by sculptor Tore Bjørn Skjølsvik in 1991, pulls salted fillets from a barrel and packs them into a box.
A short walk and a whole world away from the herring lady is Sjøbua, an elegant fish-forward restaurant that’s also part of the 62°Nord family. The word sjøbua means seashack, a playful misnomer. Here the classic chip-and-dip combo becomes a gastronomic adventure: goat cheese topped with arctic char roe and eaten with crispy salt-cod skins.
Traditional recipes like lutefisk (lye-soaked cod) and krumkake (delicate waffle cookies) are put to fresh use. As Norwegian gastronomy has risen in stature and complexity, it’s become a year-round interest for tourists. “We see a number of visitors attracted to Norway’s increasingly popular culinary scene,” says Watkins, “and autumn is the best time to visit from a gastronomic perspective.”
Once a fish warehouse itself, the nearby Hotel Brosundet is an example of Ålesund’s hallmark art nouveau architecture. After a fire tore through Ålesund one night in January 1904, the city was left in ashes, and 10,000 people were without shelter. Ålesund was re-envisioned and rebuilt by architects from Trondheim and Berlin, who brought in their cosmopolitan outlook. As a result, the city’s canal is lined with elegant gabled structures in earthy pastels—markedly different from the half-timbered Hanseatic-era architecture that characterizes other Norwegian metropoles, like Bergen.
Norway’s broader art nouveau heritage comes into kaleidoscopic focus at Ålesund’s Jugendstilsenteret, a jewel-box of a museum in an old pharmacy, through the work of artists little known outside the country: Marius Hammer’s Viking ship bowls, colorful plique-à-jour enamel pieces with dragon’s heads at the prow, for example, or the fin de siècle birchwood cabinet by furniture maker and sculptor Valentin Kielland, with cabinet doors featuring two women at different life stages; the younger one inhaling the scent of a blooming lily, the older one examining its drooping blossom.
“It’s a place that instills resilience, humility and a deep respect for nature.”
The specifically Norwegian dragestil, or dragon style—rooted in Norse mythology, Viking culture and medieval stave-church architecture—is well represented here, especially in the furniture of local artist Lars Kinsarvik, whose work at the Møre Folk school in the Sunnmøre city of Ørsta was highly influential. His pieces often refer back to the 900-year-old Urnes church and its intricate, meandering carvings full of serpents, lions and dragons. In the field of historic design, Norway is often overshadowed by its Nordic neighbors, particularly Sweden and Denmark, but the Jugendstilsenteret’s collection taps a rich tradition that’s ripe for discovery.
A long the winding road from Øye to the Storfjord Hotel in Glomset, one finds a series of neatly kept grass-roofed huts banked in the mountainside. These are seter, or summer farms, for those tending the livestock grazing on summer pastures. Historically, these houses were mostly populated by dairymaids. One hundred fifty years ago, the British mountaineer William Cecil Slingsby encountered them as an early tourist in the Sunnmøre region. In his book “Norway, the Northern Playground,” he described the young women hard at work. “One girl often has to milk 30 or 40 cows, and as many goats,” he wrote, “and then has to make nearly the whole of the milk into cheese for winter consumption and for sale.”
Slingsby, who eventually had a Norwegian mountain and glacier named after him, was one of the few outsiders traveling in Sunnmøre at the time. He wrote that, according to local recordkeeping, only five travelers had entered the area between 1853 and 1876. “Tourists were then unknown,” he wrote, “and strangers were suspicious characters.” It was an insular place, socially and topographically isolated. Seter culture, now recognized by UNESCO on its Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity list, continues on in present-day forms, but the humble cabins recall the hardscrabble world of Slingsby’s era.
Continuing onward, past the epic view of the Geirangerfjord from the Ljøen Observation Deck, one eventually reaches the Sykkylven-Magerholm ferry, which traverses the Storfjord. Inside the ferry are blond-wood tables and chairs arranged in front of picture windows, and a snack bar stocked with several brands of salted licorice. Modern comfort and functional infrastructure abound, and the ferry glides flawlessly to the other side–no need for a PDF map.
At the Storfjord Hotel, there are also sod roofs. The seven structures at this forested site overlooking the namesake fjord were built from solid logs using traditional Norwegian techniques. In the mossy woods there’s a tent called a lavvo for special fireside meals. Hiking paths connect the property with the nearby town, and people pass by on their way home or to work, in full friluftsliv mode. No matter that it’s private property: Norway’s allemannsretten, or “everyone’s right,” gives all people recreational access to natural spaces, regardless of who owns them.
“Storfjord,” says Flakk, “is defined by its vast openness—a sweeping landscape of ‘giants’ that feels powerful and untamed.” Kayaking through the waves, the landscape becomes almost immersive, as the water spreads out all around and the mountains rise up. It’s a thrilling feeling, seemingly unchanged from what Slingsby wrote a century and half ago, envisioning steaming through the fjords: “In all probability the deck-tied passenger will have some lovely though distant peeps of the sharply serrated [Sunnmøre] peaks, which beckon him in a most tantalizing manner and make him long for freedom.”
