Europe's Most Awe-inspiring National Parks

Literally translating from Norwegian as the ‘Home of the Giants’, this park is the Scandinavian wilderness at its most epic: a region of mighty glaciers, highland lakes and snow-crowned arêtes (glacial ridges) at the heart of the country.

Jotunheimen National Park

NORWAY

Jotunheimen also contains Norway’s 29 tallest mountains, including the 2,469m-high Galdhøpiggen, the highest peak in Northern Europe, on whose summit the sun never sets on summer nights. Hikers here get to enjoy ‘allemannsretten’ – free access to roam all uncultivated parts of the countryside – but there is no shortage of established trekking routes either. Among them is the the Besseggen Ridge – a legendary scramble along a rocky spur, requiring concentration and the use of all four limbs, with the lakes of Bessvatnet and Gjende providing a distracting backdrop.

Gran Paradiso National Park

ITALY

Once the private hunting ground of Italian King Victor Emmanuel II who came here to shoot Alpine ibex, Gran Paradiso National Park is now the preserve of hikers, climbers and cross-country skiers. The peak after which the park is named counts as one of the most accessible summits above 4,000 metres in the Alps – an easy, non-technical trek until the final paces, where mountaineers shimmy along a sheer cliff watched over by a statue of the Virgin Mary on the peak. Those who reach her are rewarded with sweeping views of the peaks of Mont Blanc and Grand Combin to the north, and towards the plains of Piedmont in the south. If you don’t fancy the hair-raising climb, plenty of lower-altitude paths meander among wildflower-strewn Alpine meadows, and larch and fir woodlands down below.

Vatnajökull

ICELAND