THIS week's Diary comes from the Arctic Circle and fjords of Norway where we spent a fortnight enjoying breathtaking sights like the midnight sun, huge blue glaciers, white and blue icebergs, mighty waterfalls, wild reindeer, a solitary Arctic fox, the land of the trolls, delightfully pretty villages and lofty mountains sides sloping majestically into clear green waters of unimaginable depth and beauty.

Our first port of call, and our first taste of Norway, was Bergen. After sailing along Hjeltefjord and Byefjord, we berthed at 8am to the sight of small, tightly-packed wooden houses clinging to the wooded hillsides. They were brightly coloured in white, blue, green, yellow, brown, brick red and other colours, and among them I spotted the twelfth century St Mary's Church, the oldest in Bergen.

Bergen is surrounded by seven hills and is considered the gateway to the fjords; once the capital of Norway, it is now Norway's second city with a population some 246,000.

After a short bus tour of the town and surrounding mountains (which included one area called Fyllingdalen and another called Natland - a Lake District village name), we walked around Bergen's delightful market place and dock area. The quayside, known as Bryggen, comprises lots of tightly packed former warehouses built in wood. Today, many have been developed into boutiques, restaurants, antique and souvenir shops but a medieval atmosphere prevails and indeed, these docks are now classed as a Unesco world heritage site.

The fish market boasted a bewildering assortment of fish and sea food, as well as woollens, handicrafts and souvenirs, some made from either seal skin or reindeer horn. One of the specialities was smorbrod, a large open sandwich topped with meat, fish, cheese or salad. The koldbord - cold table - was another source of food, this being a buffet-style meal comprising cold meat, fish and cheese.

We found the food to be very good, much of it being fish-based, but wine is expensive - £6 or so for a small glass! And you can't buy wine in Norwegian supermarkets.

Our next stop was Andalsnes via Romsdalsfjord, a stunning ride with snow-covered mountains in the background, lots of tiny wooden houses along the shores and a glass-like surface to the water. We were taken ashore by tender.

The city of Andalsnes is very small (population 2,500) and was razed to the ground by the Germans in 1940 but it has been completely re-built without detracting from its ancient charm.

Our trip was into the majestic countryside via one of the most amazing mountain passes. Our route was the Trollstigheimen Pass which was not opened until the Seventies because older technology could not cope with such construction. So remote is this place that the landscape is the home of the legendary trolls, small ugly human-like creatures with tails who live in the cool of the mountains. There was even a road sign telling us to "Beware of trolls" but if a troll gets touched by the sun, it will turn into stone, hence they live in woods and dark places.

You can buy toy trolls as souvenirs - their antics and behaviour reminded me very much of the hobs of the North York Moors.

At the summit of the Trollstigheimen Pass was an hotel, shop and vantage point, with reminders that in winter the snow can be 25ft deep, covering all the buildings. Stigfoss, a blue waterfall, cascaded down the mountains from a base of snow and yet the lush valley below produces strawberries and cherries and offers superb salmon fishing.

In Trondheim we found lots of green-roofed churches including the splendid granite cathedral. A Roman Catholic church until the Reformation in 1537, it is now Lutheran but was not ravaged by the Protestants as were the English cathedrals and it has retained many statues, stained glass windows and other images. In the crypt there is an exhibition of tombstones found during excavations, some dating to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

With three nights and two days at sea ahead, we cruised north, entered the Arctic Circle and eventually docked in Ny Alesund on Spitzbergen. During our cruise to Ny Alesund, the sun did not set; we had 24 hours of daylight for four whole days.

Ny Alesund is the world's most northerly scientific research centre boasting the North Pole Hotel, the world's most northerly post office, a few houses and other buildings - with polar bears, reindeer, Arctic foxes and Arctic terns which attack humans with white hair in the belief they are polar bears.

We were advised not leave the community and always use the roads - there was a genuine risk from polar bears and indeed a girl had been killed by one about three years earlier. The local people never venture out without a high-powered rifle.

With snow and glaciers around us, and temperatures just above freezing, we toured this lonely place - and found it fascinating even if we did not see a polar bear.

Our slow return south was via a glacier with a nine-mile long face, through seas littered with icebergs and graced by whales, with visits to Tromso, the breathtaking Geiranger Fjord and finally friendly Stavanger.

In a short narrative like this, it is difficult to portray the sheer scale of the mountains, the utter splendour of the fjords or even if huge distances involved. Norway, for example, is twice as long as England and Scotland put together and that is not counting the mileage of the shores of the fjords - some fjords, for example, stretch more than 100 miles inland from the sea!

The coastline of Norway is 1,656 miles long but if the indentations and fjords are added, it increases the coastal length tenfold, equivalent to two-thirds of the world's circumference.

The most northerly part of the Norwegian mainland is Nordkapp (North Cape), more than 1,600 miles from London and in the region of 900 miles from Oslo, each as the proverbial crow flies. And Ny Alesund on Spitzbergen is a further 600 miles north of North Cape across the Arctic Sea.

It is not surprising that few Norwegians have ever visited this remote spot and so I feel most privileged to have set foot upon its soil. We did not venture further north - the sea was frozen!

ONE interesting discovery was the temperate climate of Norway. Despite its latitude, it is able to cultivate crops at altitudes which, in nearby countries, suffer a permanent frost. This is due to the Gulf Stream which brings millions of gallons of warm water every second into the sea around the west coast; with it come shoals of fish such as herring and cod, and in addition it produces warm air over the western coastline.

During our visit, the local crops of strawberries and cherries were being sold in the markets; new potatoes were also on sale while barley and apples were ripening among the mountains. We witnessed haytime too - the long lush grass was mown and hung over wire fences to dry, just like a line of household washing. And the entire countryside was full of wild flowers, including lupins and wonderful roses.

Much of the vegetation is identical to that found in these islands, although there did seem to be a greater variety of wild flowers, all of which were flourishing, and I did notice heather on the heights as well as some delightful ferns where we might expect bracken.

The wild animals and birds are similar to ours - we spotted magpies, sparrows, finches, a pied wagtail, countless varieties of sea birds and a huge eagle I was not able to identify. It was flying along the side of a mountain above a fjord and I caught only a momentary glimpse but, with a distinctive light tan back, it looked like a golden eagle.

Reindeer can be found living wild in parts of Norway but perhaps the most curious creature is the wolverine. This used to inhabit Britain until some 5,000 years ago but is now extinct here; it does, however, survive in remote parts of Norway and other northern regions where it can be dangerous.

A large bear-like carnivore, it was once known as the glutton, but curiously it is a member of the weasel family - the largest such member in fact. It has a nasty habit of covering surplus food with a foul-smelling secretion, doubtless to ward off others which might steal its hidden cache.

It is disliked because it feeds on small mammals, birds and carrion and trappers hate it because it will steal from their traps, although the fur was once considered valuable.

And finally the trolls! The mountains are full of these small dwarf-like creatures with shaggy hair, long tails and ugly faces. They can be kind to humans, offering assistance on farms, but when aggravated they become mischievous. They hate the daylight and sunshine - in fact, heat can turn them into stone and I now have one sitting in my study watching over me as I compile these notes.