Take a winter road trip from Iceland’s second city, Akureyri, through a northern peninsula framed by fjords and punctuated by isolated herring-fishing villages.

Winter has a way of slowing life down in the gentlest of ways, setting in like a quiet spell or a morning’s frost. Days feel softer and nights longer, the darkness illuminated by the warm glow of ligh

Steam rises in plumes, roaring from fissures in rocks, while around me, pools of mud bubble. The hillsides are rusted with iron ore, and dark storm clouds echo the colours of the dark-coloured earth.

From city breaks to ski and sauna weekends, head to colder climes for an elegant way to enjoy the season

If you’re driving north, be careful of the reindeer,” said Father Christmas as I sat beside him at Santa Claus’s Main Post Office in Rovaniemi. “We have 230,000 reindeer here in Finland,” he said, “bu

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