Kamianets-Podilskyi, the Carpathian Mountains, Lviv and an egg museum In western Ukraine we first went to a city called Kamianets-Podilskyi. Tourists visiting Kamianets-Podilskyi come there to see the old town and the fortress. Over the centuries power over Kamianets-Podilskyi has shifted several times. With each new ruler came new architecture styles. This has given the old town a special character with different cultures living side by side. The most obvious example of this can be seen in the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul. It was originally built in the end of the 16th century when Kamianets-Podilskyi was part of Poland. It was then a catholic cathedral. In the 17th century Turkey took over the power for a while. They turned the cathedral into a mosque and in the process they built a minaret outside the ... read more

Crimea and Odessa After we left Kiev we headed for the somewhat unusual tourist destination Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Donetsk is dominated by mining and heavy industry and there are very few tourist attractions in the city. Add to this that the city is located far into the east close to the border with Russia, far away from the main tourist attractions in Ukraine, you realise that very few tourists visit the city. Our guess is that there are at the most two things that come from Donetsk you have ever heard of: 1 The winners of the 2009 UEFA Cup in football, the team FC Shakhtar Donetsk 2 The pole-vaulter Sergey Bubka Sergey Bubka has been honoured with a statue outside the Olympic Stadium in Donetsk. We actually went to Donetsk just so Ake could ... read more

Running without sightseeing "Baby we were born to run"/Bruce Springsteen About a month ago we went to Berlin and ran a half marathon race there. That was the first of three half marathon races we have planned to run this year. The third race will take place in Stockholm in September. We probably won't write about that here. Running a race in Stockholm doesn't involve any travelling or sightseeing. Consequently, there is nothing about that race to write about in this blog. After all, this is Travelblog, and the contents of a blog entry on Travelblog are supposed to be about travelling. However, the second race of the year was in Gothenburg, the second largest city in Sweden. Going there involves at least a bit of travelling so we feel we can make a blog entry ... read more

A long weekend in Milan and surroundings This year we decided that instead of waiting for spring to arrive in northern Europe we could make our way down to Italy and catch a few days of spring time already in February. Said and done, we bought flight tickets to Milan in Italy at a time of the year when we would freeze our butts off if we had stayed at home. February isn't exactly warm in northern Italy either, but it sure is better than Sweden. Emma was able to take more time off from work than Ake could so Emma left for Italy a few days before Ake. Emma does not enjoy travelling on her own so she had company with her sister Anna. When we were making plans for this trip we knew very ... read more

Varanasi and Delhi The main purpose of my trip to India was to visit Kolkata as I mentioned in my previous entry of this blog. But the time I had also allowed me a little bit of sightseeing in New Delhi and to visit Varanasi. Varanasi sits on the banks of Ganges River, a river that to the Hindus is holy. Varanasi is a holy city and is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in the Hindu religion. Most pilgrims visit Varanasi to have a ritual bath in the river. By having a ritual bath in the holy Ganges River the Hindus are cleaned both to their body and soul. It is a bit ironic that the Ganges River is so heavily polluted that if you swim in the water you are actually dirtier/... read more