I hate the snow and ice, but I’ll bear them for the Northern Lights - Susan Dalgety

Budget airline EasyJet has just announced a new twice-weekly service from Edinburgh to Tromso, just inside the Arctic Circle. The Norwegian city is considered one of the best places in the world to see the Northern Lights and, for once, a tourist information office is not guilty of hyperbole.

My husband and I spent four days there earlier this year, and it turned out to be the trip of lifetime. No matter that we had to get a train to Manchester for our EasyJet flight, or that we had to queue for two hours on arrival as the tiny airport struggled to cope with the new biometric passport system. Tromso is simply magical.

Back to my hatred of snow. The best time to see the Northern Lights is from November to end of February, when the night sky is darkest, but that means the city is carpeted in snow and ice, which I detest. The trip was for my husband, who had always yearned to see the lights, so loving wife that I am, I piled on my thermal underwear, pulled on my ugly boots and headed north.

But snow in Tromso is different to snow here. It may be deep, but it is also clean, crisp and dazzlingly white. The pavements and roads are cleared every night so that pedestrians and cars can move around safely. There are even heated pavements in the busiest part of the city centre. I kid you not. Underfloor heating for pavements. Food and drink is expensive, but if you avoid fine dining, it is not much dearer than central Edinburgh and I can heartily recommend the whale salami.

As for the Northern Lights, there is no guarantee you will see them, but we were lucky enough to catch a display twice during our four-day stay. There is nothing to match the sight of the aurora borealis rippling across the midnight sky in vibrant shades of green, purple and pink. My advice, if you can – start saving for the trip of a lifetime.