The Floating Suite On Hitra Island. Discover Sleeping On The Awesome Atlantic

Sarah Kingdom eats at the Brygge Restaurant before taking a boat to Hitra Island to sleep on the Floating Suite on Hitra Island.

Hitra lies off the coast of central Norway, around 40km west of Trondheim, where the Trondheim Fjord opens towards the Atlantic. Part of Trøndelag county, the municipality includes the main island of Hitra, along with thousands of smaller islands, islets and skerries, and even a small part of the mainland. Hitra island itself is Norway’s seventh-largest island, with a permanent population of around 5,000.

Forest, open pastures and rocky coastlines alternate across the island, while quiet roads wind past ferns, small farms, and traditional houses with turf-covered roofs. Deer run wild here and the coast is populated with small fishing communities, their homes looking out across an archipelago of sheltered bays and uninhabited islands.

On the western edge of Hitra island, lies Kvenvær, a tiny settlement facing the Atlantic. More than 100 islets lie offshore, many uninhabited, and the surrounding waters are still central to everyday life. This is where you’ll find The Floating Suite.

Dinner first, and then the boat

The best way to arrive at the Floating Suite is to begin your evening at Brygga Restaurant on the Kvenvær quay. Brygga is owned by the same people behind the Floating Suite, and the connection between the restaurant, the accommodation and the sea could hardly be more direct. Most of the restaurant’s seafood supply comes directly from the waters immediately outside. Owner, fisherman and skipper, Bjarne Johan Faxvaag, regularly brings in the catch, while Chef Hristo Donchev builds his menus around what is fresh and available.

This is not seafood transported across the country to reach the kitchen. Crab, lobster, scallops, hake, Atlantic mackerel, haddock and other fish from the surrounding waters all find their way onto the menu at different times of the year. Cod and herring are plentiful in these waters, while halibut spawn in the saltwater fjords. Bjarne checks his crab pots among the islands and selects what the restaurant needs, returning the rest to the sea.

The result is a menu that’s shaped by the catch, rather than by a fixed idea of what a coastal restaurant should serve. Line-caught, pan-fried haddock is a speciality, while fishcakes and bacalao (a hearty, fish stew made from salted and dried cod, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, olive oil, and olives), offer other ways to sample the local catch. There are also dishes based on island produce, including a wild-sheep burger, with meat, fruit and vegetables sourced from local producers.

Brygga Restaurant itself is large and lively, with a bar and wooden terrace overlooking the small quay. At weekends it draws fishermen, walkers and local residents, and there is a great, laid back feeling to the place. The focus is on good ingredients and very fresh seafood, with the provenance of much of it visible just beyond the terrace.

After dinner, the journey to bed takes only twenty minutes. A small boat, captained by Bjarne, leaves the quay and heads out among the skerries to the Floating Suite, moored on the water just offshore. As Brygga and Kvenvær recede, the beauty and size of the archipelago becomes even more apparent, with low islands, open water and a coastline that’s broken into countless coves and channels.

A suite on the water

The Floating Suite sleeps four and is designed to make the most of its location. Large windows look out over the sea, while the accommodation includes a comfortable double bed, two single beds up in the eves, a modern kitchen, a shower with hot water, and Wi-Fi. There’s also a fantastic sauna, ideal for combining with a cold plunge. Known traditionally as badstu paired with kald dukkert, this is a truly invigorating wellness routine that alternates extreme heat with freezing water. If the cold plunge part of the regime doesn’t appeal, the suites sauna still provides a relaxing and warm retreat after a day spent on or in the water.

Outside, along with the direct access to the sea, there’s an outdoor dining and seating area. Guests can fish, catch crabs or gather shells, while the surrounding waters provide an obvious invitation to take a boat and explore. If you’re lucky, like us, you’ll spot a whale breaching on the horizon and wake to an inquisitive otter swimming in circles around the suite.

The setting changes throughout the day. In the morning, the light comes in through the huge glass windows that form the bulk of the cabins walls. Seabirds fly overhead, while schools of fish, along with tiny jelly fish and sea urchins can be seen in the crystal clear waters below. By late in the evening, depending on the time of year, the islands become silhouettes and the sound of seabirds is replaced by the gentle slap of the water against the against the floating structure beneath the suite.

The suite is far enough from civilisation to feel like you are completely alone, but close enough for dinner at Brygga, or to restock with supplies from the general store back at Kvenvær.

Exploring Hitra and the archipelago

There is plenty to see beyond the Floating Suite. A guided boat trip through the archipelago is one of the best ways to understand the geography of this part of the coast, threading between islands and past rocks that are barely visible above the waterline. Sea eagle safaris and fishing trips can also be arranged, while boat and kayak hire offers the freedom to explore independently.

The surrounding islets have a long history, despite many now being uninhabited. One local general store remained open until 1982, while a school serving 50 pupils on another island closed in 1969. Children were once rowed there every day.

There are also island graveyards, reached by boat and surrounded by wildflowers, where generations of islanders lie for eternity alongside shipwrecked sailors. In summer, wild columbine, vetch, clover and scarlet poppies grow among the graves.

On Hitra itself, walks through the forest offer another perspective on the island. At Dalpro, a community project and farm shop, visitors can buy local honey, fruit juices, smoked and air-dried wild sheep and deer, deer sausages and grotteost, an aged cheese stored in caves. A short walk through the trees leads to picnic tables beside a lake.

A different kind of coastal stay

The Floating Suite experience is more than just the accommodation. Dinner at Brygga introduces the seafood and fishing culture, the boat ride to your accommodation puts you directly into the archipelago, and the following day/s, can be spent exploring the same waters that supplied the previous evening’s meal.

For those travelling through Trøndelag, Hitra is a very different side of Norway from the better-known fjord routes. This is an Atlantic landscape of islands rather than mountains, with small communities still closely connected to fishing and the sea.