By the time this is published, I’ll be on my way back from my latest train adventure/book research trip in which I’m spending a week visiting Czechia’s three UNESCO Great European Spa Towns. I’ll tell you all about it in at least nine blog posts over the next month, depending on how many spas I … More What I packed in my personal item for a week in West Bohemia in April
Last night I had my ninth out of ten lessons in the Norwegian for beginners: module one class. I knew that I wanted to write this before it even started and I’ve written pages and pages about it and deleted it. So now, with the end in sight, I’m starting over. I’m not actually a … More I spent 10 weeks learning Norwegian
Iceland is now up to eleven lagoons, pools and geothermal experiences that are aimed at tourists, if we’re totally honest. Icelanders love hot water and the Blue Lagoon did start out as a request from the locals to bathe in the hot mineral-rich waste water from the power station but I’d bet you’ll find very … More Which lagoon should I visit in Iceland?
Iceland Itineraries is a series I did quite a few of a couple of years back but I haven’t for a while. But now I’m a member of a Facebook group for people to ask questions and they’re all the same questions and a huge proportion of them are about what they should do and … More A first-timer’s Iceland itinerary
Having got a bit out of the habit of using the film camera that I carry everywhere I go, I was determined to get through a whole roll of film in Finland. I managed something in the late 20s out of my 36 exposures and used the last 8 in London last weekend but when … More Helsinki on film (winter edition)
I’ve talked a little about the Rebel Badge Club/Book before – some of the badges I’ve done and especially Summer Camp and apparently the first ever Meet Up but after going to my sixth nearly three weeks ago, I thought it was time to talk a bit more about it. The initial plan was to … More What happens at a Big Rebel Meet Up?
First thing, straight up – in case you thought I got all dressed up in a harness and tied myself to a couple of hundred metres of dynamic rope, I climbed Tower Bridge from the inside, not the outside, using a ticket I bought online last week, just like every tourist who’s ever visited it. … More I climbed Tower Bridge!
We all know that sauna came from Finland. I’ve tried out assorted saunas, in Finland and outside, at spas, pools and on beaches. I’ve even been to Helsinki’s big flagship public sauna. But this time, I sauna’d the way the Finns sauna, which isn’t at spas or flagship venues or even in small sheds on … More Sauna & aquajogging: what Finns actually do at the pool
Quite a bold statement, especially for someone who has a Finnish train-related chaos story and lived in Switzerland. I do like Swiss trains – somehow they’re almost invariably timed so that you can quickly get comfortably interchange everywhere, they’re clean, quiet, efficient and the tickets are easy – any given ticket is for a journey … More Why Finnish trains are the best
This was my third trip to Helsinki (if you don’t count the one evening I spent there before getting the train to the Arctic Circle via the train wash…) and I’ve already been over to Suomenlinna three times. The “castle of Finland” (or “of Sweden” if you use Finland’s other official language) is a more … More Taking the icebreaker to Suomenlinna – or is it?
I Am A Polar Bear 