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The word “Scandinavia” evokes many images. Endless fir forests, awe-inspiring fjords, wilderness, and lately, perhaps, crime fiction and noir thrillers such as Borgen, Wallander and The Killing. It’s all these things, of course, but this hardly does justice to the region’s vastness and diversity. To the North is the Arctic Circle, where polar bears roam, the summer sun lasts 24 hours, but an implacable dark descends in a winter lit, if you’re lucky, by cosmic northern lights. Although not in Scandinavia, Finland, where Russia's cultural orbit is felt, also has a Nordic feel with vast expanses of lake and forest inhabited by wild bears stretch beyond sight. Nomadic reindeer herders range from mountain to forest and the naked sauna is a national pastime. Scandinavia travel guide Stockholm offers grand Venetian charms around its many canals and islands as well as the world’s only ABBA museum. AP The western coasts are wild and wet. Plunging cataracts and cruise-ship-dwarfing fjord cliffs defy your sense of scale and the wind whips angry seas. Head south to Denmark’s countryside, though, and you’ll find a pastoral, almost English beauty of rolling fields and woods. It’s a gentler landscape ideal for touring by bike. Scandinavia is also a region of extreme seasons quite unlike Britain’s tepid climate. Winter in the region thwarts all but the most determined city-break tourist. It’s a winter sports heaven, though, when ice grips great tracts of wilderness tight for half the year and you can snowmobile to ice hotels or trek wild trails by husky sled. During summer’s brief lease, the days stretch on and every Scandinavian country explodes in a celebration of light, music, culture, Baltic beachcombing, lakeland fun and some legendary fishing (especially in Norway during the salmon runs). This is the time to explore remote coasts and sleepy islands by car, canoe, ferry or historic Baltic schooner, and to plan mountain and trail hikes. It’s also when frivolous midsummer festivals and cavorting take over and a husband can win his wife’s weight in beer at the World Wife Carrying Championship. More information...http://www.telegraph.co.uk