One of the great joys of travel is to observe, learn, experience and enjoy new places, new people and new cultures. From these experiences we make observations, generalisations, even conclusions about the people and places we visit. We compare what we see with other travel experiences and with what we’re familiar with back home. Its human nature, its part of the fun. So apart from the drop-dead beauty of this … Continue reading →
Julie and I were sitting in the sunshine having a sandwich at a café in the main square of Tromso. The fjord’s blue waters lapped against the docks nearby, snow-patched mountains surrounded us as background, short-sleeved Norwegians and rugged-up tourists were going about their business on this beautiful blue-sky day. The disconnect in this scene is that we were at 69.39 degrees north latitude, about 350 kilometres (220 miles) above … Continue reading →
To be honest, Julie and I didn’t know too much about the cod liver oil industry. I mean, unless you are a cod fisherman, who does? But we were smack dab in the middle of Europe’s largest cod fishing area and surrounded by cod drying in the warm Norwegian sunshine. The Lofoten Islands are a string of interconnected islands shooting off the coast of northern Norway north of the Arctic … Continue reading →
By some reckoning the Arctic Highway in Norway, also known as the E6, runs from Trondheim in the central region of the country for about 2,000 kilometres to the Russian border at Kirkenes. Spending most of its time high above the Arctic Circle across remote and sometimes inhospitable land it is an engineering feat, an economic necessity and a traveller’s dream. After exploring the magnificent Norwegian Fjords in the south … Continue reading →
Monty Python has a lot to answer for. Their offbeat British humour from the 1970’s brought many new phrases into the English lexicon, including the poor Norwegian Blue parrot that was ‘pining for the fjords’. We’re in much finer health than that bird and our attention in Norway had now turned towards the magnificent fjords that crease its shoreline and create one of the most spectacular geographic and geologic settings … Continue reading →
Julie and I have been fascinated by the Vikings for a long time and especially since we visited their original North American settlement in Newfoundland Canada and learned more about their amazing exploits across the north Atlantic over 1,000 years ago. As part of our travels around Scandinavia we wanted to dive into the whole Viking thing in more detail and the perfect place to start was the cool Swedish … Continue reading →
