Nothing is more perfect than this nanotechnological wonder to wrap my increasingly whiffy sandwich, as I head up the hill to Bergen railway station on this warm summer's morning. Most important of all, I am smug in the knowledge that they weigh a mere 51g.You see, I am here not just for exotic food, spectacular scenery, nor the miracle of Europe's last remaining wilderness, not even the awe-inspiring sight of reindeer herds charging through the tundra - but for something more prosaic. A bet to see how far I can go and how long I can last with the smallest weight of carry-on baggage allowed by any airline in the world.Now, I can hear you saying, it's not exactly Around the World in Eighty Days But there is a twist. I had also to perform three tasks: to travel stylishly by plane and train, to walk at altitude in snow at sub-zero temperatures, and to don appropriate formal wear as though I were entertaining the head of state in the smartest restaurant in the capital The rules stipulated: no washing (cf. underpants), no purchases after leaving home and never looking less than stylish for any part of the journey.Where else but Norway could provide such a variety of extremes in the early summer? I would start with a budget airline (Norwegian Air Shuttle) with one of the most cheese-paring luggage limits in the world (a strictly enforced 8kg). Musts include my clever Rockport Dressports - light-as-a-feather brogues, built like trainers, in which you could run a marathon. On the way I'd take in the world's steepest adhesion railway, plunging at a gradient of 1 in 18 from the snowy mountains where Scott of the Antarctic trained, down to the fjords, made balmy by the Gulf Stream.
Journey's end would be in Oslo, not so prim and proper as it was in the days of Ibsen and Munch, but still sufficiently starchy to fulfil my last task with proper formality.So here I am, on my knees on the living-room floor, hunched over kitchen and bathroom scales, making some fine calibrations. Then I'd join one of the world's great train rides, taking me over the snow-capped mountains from Bergen to Oslo. A chain-smoking grandmother who dislikes wearing shoes was responsible for luring me to this windswept archipelago. Stranded amid a hostile Atlantic, hundreds of miles off the coast of West Africa, the islands of Cape Verde are among the world's lesser-known destinations, uninhabited until the arrival of the Portuguese in 1456 and independent since 1975. A tortured history of slavery and droughts has done little to boost the archipelago's standing in the modern-day world. But, like many before me, my imagination was captured by the music of the islands - more precisely, the deep, rich voice of Cesaria Evora.
The sixty-something singer, also known as the Barefoot Diva due to her disdain of shoes, has become the international voice of Cape Verde. Queen of the deliciously melancholy morna ballads, she laments the plight of her "paradise of the Atlantic" and "islands of the wind, islands of my love". Seduced by her lyricism, I find myself flying thousands of feet in the air, somewhere nameless between Lisbon and Cape Verde, in the midst of an in-flight carnival. The plane is resounding with the cries and laughter of high-spirited emigrant families clinking plastic cups to celebrate their return home for the holidays. Rosa, a matronly woman in her fifties, is visiting her homeland for the first time in 14 years. "It has been a long time, too long," she sighs, sipping a cup of tepid white wine. "But Cape Verde will always be in my heart, wherever I find myself living." It is a fitting introduction to a country that finds two-thirds of its population living abroad. Cesaria was true to her word when she sang that Cape Verde greets visitors with un bes d'sodade - a kiss of nostalgia.I arrive at Sal, a tiny island that is currently home to the only international airport for the 10 islands and five islets of the Atlantic archipelago Outside, the landscape is as barren as it is remote.
