Skip to content

I Am A Polar Bear

Travel, adventure & wellness with plenty of snow

  • Home
  • About Me
  • Travel
    • By country
      • Nordic & Scandinavian
        • Denmark
        • Finland
        • Iceland
        • Norway
          • Svalbard
        • Sweden
      • Western Europe
        • Belgium
        • France
        • Ireland
        • Italy
        • Netherlands
        • UK
          • Scotland
          • Wales
      • Central Europe
        • Austria
        • Germany
        • Hungary
        • Poland
        • Switzerland
      • Eastern Europe
        • Estonia
        • Georgia
        • Latvia
        • Lithuania
        • Romania
        • Russia
        • Ukraine
      • Mediterranean
        • Croatia
        • Cyprus
        • Malta
    • By type
      • Daycations
      • Weekends away
        • Cheese & Chocolate (2026)
        • Parc Asterix (2025)
        • Christmas in London (2025)
      • Road Trips
        • A Birthday On the Ring Road (2025)
        • Accidental Ring Road (2023)
        • The Quest for a Volcano (2022)
      • Train Adventures
        • The Original Spa (2025)
        • Great German Spa Towns (2025)
        • The Eras Train Tour (2024)
      • Short Breaks
        • Winter in Helsinki (2026)
        • The Romanian Do-Over (2025)
        • A Short Trip to Pula (2025)
      • Longer Trips
        • Traversing Cyprus & Georgia (2024)
        • The Russian Odyssey (2019)
        • The Laugavegur Diaries (2018)
      • Year Abroad
      • School Trips
    • Unique Places to Stay
  • Adventures
    • Water
    • Snow
    • Land
    • Height
    • Indoors
      • Girlguiding
  • Wellness
  • YouTube

Tag: Eurocamping as an Adult (2017)

Pierrefonds is a great castle | iamapolarbear.com

Pierrefonds is a great castle

June 24, 2017

While I was in France last month, we went into Paris and to Disneyland but we spent most of the time either in the pool or reading in the caravan. That particularly part of north east France is… well, there’s nothing there. It’s flat and empty and the sort of place you drive through to … More Pierrefonds is a great castle

Leave a comment Pierrefonds is a great castle
I don't really like Paris | iamapolarbear.com

I don’t really like Paris

June 6, 2017

This is a really difficult post to write and I’ve tried about ten times now. At the end of May, I went off in a caravan with my sister for a week. Being sixty-five miles north-east of Paris, we had to pop into Paris for a day. And while I need to write a post … More I don’t really like Paris

Leave a comment I don’t really like Paris
Eurocamping as an adult | iamapolarbear.com

Eurocamping as an adult

May 27, 2017

When I was a kid and a teenager, I spent all of my summers on holiday with Keycamp – camping for people who don’t like camping, really. You arrive on a campsite to find your tent or caravan all ready for you to move in, fully equipped with plates and wine glasses and pillows and … More Eurocamping as an adult

Leave a comment Eurocamping as an adult
A Disney-hater's day at Disneyland Paris | iamapolarbear.com

A Disney-hater’s day at Disneyland Paris

May 23, 2017

Last week I went camping in northern France with my sister and we had to go to Disneyland Paris. This was not my choice or indeed my preference. I first went to Disneyland Paris on a school trip in the summer of 2000 when it was a novelty and also when Disney-mania was not quite … More A Disney-hater’s day at Disneyland Paris

Leave a comment A Disney-hater’s day at Disneyland Paris

Who am I?
I'm Julie, a travel, adventure and wellness blogger. I love Iceland, I love jumping into hot water and I do love a bit of snow.

  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • Bluesky

Most popular posts

  • Zedwell Capsule Hotel review: what's it like to sleep in a coffin?
  • Tent review: Eurohike Sendero 4 vs Cairns 5 DLX
  • How to spend a day in Budapest's Castle Hill district
  • Löyly: a traditional Finnish sauna experience (for tourists)
  • Is the biggest spa in Europe overrated? My day at Therme București
I tell myself I’m an Elsa (I’m actually more of an Anna) but sometimes, like when it’s -15° and I didn’t bother to put the furry leggings on under my lined trousers and I have a 15-minute scurry back to the bus before hypothermia gets me, the cold does bother me anyway. It’s not that 2026 has been so bad but it seems to have been busy and harder than normal. One of my Brownies gave me the cold from hell and that dragged on for *thirty-five days*, culminating in pulled back muscles and such incredible pain for ten days that at one point I was stranded upside down like a turtle who can’t physically turn over. I’ve also done three weeks with someone else’s Brownies as well as my own and my Rangers and I’ve got one more week of a Norwegian course that’s taken out my Wednesday evenings since late January, which feels like just one too many nights on. And work hasn’t helped - certain bits of research have been either difficult or hellish in certain countries but my boss and I have agreed a timeline for the current stuff that seems realistic to me and acceptable to him! A few pictures from Suomenlinna on a very cold February day. Helsinki was very cold, averaging about -10°C during the day but it’s also very beautiful. Today’s blog post is about my icy trip over Helsinki’s harbour to Suomenlinna and meant I had to figure out whether or not the ferry is an icebreaker. I have learned a lot about ice classes and propulsion and protection along the way, realised that the answer depends on your definition of icebreaker, picked up @horatiowrites’s Icebreaker again for bath reading and even (accidentally! I didn’t ask!) learned the word in Norwegian during my lesson yesterday. Why, yes, jeg går på nurskkurs. More on that later in the month! I didn’t have a lot booked or planned for my trip to Helsinki but I did book a sunrise swim at Allas Sea Pool, a geothermal pool floating in the harbour. Or, as I discovered when I got there, frozen into eighteen or so inches of solid ice. Did getting up at 7am to walk 1.5km at minus several degrees feel offputting? Yes! Did the run from the showers to the pool in nothing but a thin towel feel offputting? Yes! Did I then discover that my lungs attempted to close up after swimming a few lengths in the relatively warm water? Yes! I’ve spent the last nearly a week in Helsinki, where it’s averaged about -10°C during the day. I’ve tried out four different saunas & pools, discovered aqua jogging, had cloudberry juice with my breakfast, had a successful train adventure to Finland’s old capital and right now I’m in the longest queue for passport control that I’ve ever seen (taking back control, yay! /s) with a bag of korvapuusti, Finnish cinnamon rolls, in my carry on. Blogs will be coming next week - I think I’ve got four or five planned at the moment. Time to talk about The Bath Book, which is the book I’m really struggling to write about hot water, baths, steam, bathing culture and all that good stuff (and the excuse for a few trips I’ve done over the last 18 months). It tends to slide down my priority list but if it’s here on Instagram every month, I have to have an update every month, so I have to sit down and write occasionally. I started this because so many people went skiing in January and now we’re finishing off with my attempts at snowboarding. I started far too old - if I can’t manage one plank, how am I meant to manage two? Luckily, there’s a whole world of other fun you can have in the snow.

About Julie

I’m a blogger, adventurer, lover of hot water, amateur paddler and polar bear who wilts in hot weather.

Time (by day, I’m a researcher) and funds keep me within Europe and I make regular trips up to the north, especially to Iceland. I like the occasional adventure across Europe by train and I’m starting to make use of my weekends for 48-hour adventures.

This isn’t my only creative outlet – I’ve written two travelogues with a third and fourth being (not to much) written simultaneously right now.

Blog at WordPress.com.
  • Subscribe Subscribed
    • I Am A Polar Bear
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • I Am A Polar Bear
    • Subscribe Subscribed
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...