whale watching europe

Plus, of course, it’s dark. And all this against the magnificent snow-covered mountain backdrop of the Vesteralen archipelago. Many of the residents of this picturesque Norwegian village, 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, can watch whales from their beds, kitchen sinks and desks. You’d have thought something almost as long as a Boeing 737 would be impossible to miss, but the blue whale is hard to find. But they are still giants (up to 30ft long) and will sometimes approach boats closely. It is the most common whale in the country and prefers shallow, inshore waters, which makes it readily visible from land.

Males prefer colder, higher latitudes, such as off the coast of Norway, but females prefer warmer waters around the Azores, the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean. One of the best known is Fungie, the so-called Dingle Dolphin. It is widely distributed in Europe, tending to prefer cooler waters, but Britain offers some of the best chances of a sighting. Europe Whale Watching: Check out Viator's reviews and photos of Europe tours Between dives, however, they lie still at the surface, catching their breath. And with Arctic darkness come the Northern Lights – a suitably ethereal distraction after the whales.There’s just one problem.

They are common in Greenland and European Russia, but the best place to go is the Svalbard archipelago in Norway, where they can be seen close to shore; I once watched several hundred milling around in the water outside the airport in Longyearbyen, while queuing to go through security (It’s impossible to prepare someone for their first encounter with a killer whale, or orca. Harbour porpoises are being seen increasingly often in some of Germany’s larger rivers – even as far upstream as Hamburg, where locals have been observing them from cafés along the Elbchaussee and from the pontoon in Teufelsbrück.We rely on advertising to help fund our award-winning journalism.We urge you to turn off your ad blocker for The Telegraph website so that you can continue to access our quality content in the future.To watch The Telegraph's latest video content please visit On another day we saw a family group of long-finned pilot whales; they appeared from nowhere, swam around the boat a few times, and were gone.But the real stars of the show in Andenes – even though you don’t get to see them – are herring. However, it does prefer shallow coastal waters and can be seen from shore in many European countries. As well as humpbacks, it is home to all three Arctic whales – bowhead, narwhal and beluga. The most popular month for these … But in whale watching circles, this large, attractive dolphin is a must-see species. Their water-droplet blows lit up like sparklers in the golden light. A quick and inexpensive way to see them is to join a passenger ferry plying the Bay of Biscay between Plymouth or Portsmouth and northern Spain; you could see other species as well, from fin whales to striped dolphins (Belugas are best known for three things: being very pale to pure white, making an impressive array of facial expressions, and their great vocal repertoire – once described by a beluga scientist as sounding like a string orchestra tuning up before a concert. Sightings of humpbacks are increasing off the coast of Britain and, as the eastern North Atlantic population recovers from a long history of intensive whaling, sightings are more common. They just have to look up, and there they are – just offshore, blowing, breaching, lobtailing and fluking.Admittedly, most species are around in greatest numbers during midwinter, when it can be seriously cold – temperatures ranged from 40F to –10F (4C to –23C) during my visit – and you need winter tyres for your car and metal spikes for your boots. Andenes is just such a place. But in whale watching circles, this large, attractive dolphin is a must-see species.

Learn more about whale watching in the wild and different kinds of whales. I went for a meal in Andenes on the first evening, and on the menu was whale meat.

In Europe, bottlenose dolphins can be seen anywhere from Croatia and Slovenia to Gibraltar and Greece; they are probably the most familiar dolphins in Britain, frequently occurring close to shore, and there is a substantial population in Cardigan Bay, where the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre (You may not have heard of the white-beaked dolphin.