Few places offer a balloon flight quite like Helsingborg, combining the very best of northwestern Skåne. The landscape beneath is changing right before your eyes – open fields and manor estates, beech forests, and then suddenly the glittering blue line of the Öresund, with Denmark visible on the other side. That part of the country should be seen from above.

The wind decides everything, and here – it decides generously. A westerly morning might lift you from Pålsjö forest, drifting slowly over Mariastaden and Vasatorp toward Söderåsen, with Helsingborg and Helsingör spread out below and the ferries crossing the Sound like slow white dots. On a clear day, Kronborg Castle appears across the water. To the north, Kullaberg cuts a sharp silhouette against the sky; to the south, the island of Ven and Landskrona come into view.

When the wind runs north or south, the flight moves inland – over Åstorp, Klippan, Bjuv, past castle after castle and the kind of quietly beautiful farmland Skåne does better than anywhere.

And when it blows from the east, that’s when something special happens. Rising from Röstånga and soaring out over Söderåsen – Skäralid, Kopparhatten, Stenestad below you – is one of our favourite flights anywhere in Sweden.