Getting the flavour of…

A musical valley in Norway

It has some of the best hiking trails in southern Norway, and towering cliffs that draw climbers from all over Europe, but the Setesdal valley is also famed for its artistic traditions, says Sarah Pollock in The New York Times – distinctive folk music, dance and song. “Urbanites” have in the past looked down on these things, but in recent years interest has been renewed. Videos of

stevjing – the valley’s unique, semiimprovised call-and-response singing – can be seen at the Sylvartun museum, where exhibits include mouth harps and “exquisite” old Hardanger fiddles, whose lower strings vibrate sympathetically as the upper strings are played. Accompanied by the performer’s stamping, the music varies from “rollicking” to “plaintive”. You can hear it live at the Setesdals festivalen, an event held each summer.

See visitnorway.com for details.

Endless sand on the Outer Banks

Stretching 200 miles along America’s east coast, the Outer Banks – a chain of remote barrier islands – are “no secret” to vacationing Southerners, says Emma John in The Observer. In peak season, their endless beaches and warm Gulf Stream waters are a “magnet” for spring breakers, families and sporty types, who come for the kite surfing and fishing. The year-round population is small now, but the islands have a “rich human history”, having been inhabited for centuries by the indigenous Roanoke and Croatan peoples before Europeans arrived in the 1500s. The region has some other claims to fame too: it was here that the Wright brothers launched their first successful flight, and where the notorious pirate Blackbeard was killed in 1718. Much of the shoreline is protected and a haven for wading birds and other wildlife. Hard to reach, the islands have a sleepy, laid-back vibe, which is only occasionally disturbed by hurricanes.

The wildness of antique Amorgos

In the ninth century a group of monks fled Palestine seeking wild isolation, and found it on the Greek island of Amorgos, says Kevin Rushby in The Guardian. This low-key Cycladean island lies about three hours’ boat ride from Kos. Like so much of Greece it’s an “antique land” of deep gorges and ancient stone-walled terraces. The well-marked cobbled trails that criss-cross the island have cemented Amorgos’s “reputation for good walking”; indeed, the hillsides are full of “beautiful” old pathways leading to ruined villages and abandoned cottages. High above Aegialis beach, the road takes you to Ioannis Theologos church, a “tiny white gem”, and then about a mile beyond, the even tinier, impossibly remote chapel of Stavros, perched on a windswept clifftop – the one-time dream home of those aforementioned monks.