The North Cape (Nordkapp) is a 307-metre cliff on the island of Magerøya, long advertised as the northernmost point of continental Europe — a claim that is geographically debatable but impossible to disprove once you are standing there, looking at the Arctic Ocean with nothing between you and the ice except grey sea. A road, a tunnel under the sea, and a visitor centre built into the cliff (Nordkapphallen) bring several hundred thousand tourists up here every summer. The famous steel globe monument on the clifftop is one of those places that looks the same in every photograph and somehow still feels like a pilgrimage.
Most visitors arrive on a day trip from Honningsvåg, the small fishing port that sits 30 km to the south and serves as the gateway to the cape — it is a stop on the Hurtigruten coastal ferry, has a regional airport, and holds nearly all of Magerøya's four thousand inhabitants. The drive up to the cape crosses an open, treeless plateau grazed in summer by reindeer herded over from the mainland. Come between mid-May and late July for the midnight sun, when the sun never drops below the horizon. Outside summer, the road is frequently closed by snow.
