The biggest day of the Christmas season in Sweden is Christmas Eve, where the family sit down to eat from a julbord, a Swedish Christmas smorgasbord, before Tomte, a little gnome believed to live under the the floor boards of the house or the barn arrives with presents. The tomte has now assumed a role comparable to that of Santa Claus and he even has similar attire with a big beard and a red cap. He does however wear a grey coat which is similar to that worn by farmers that he visits. Due to work commitments, we didn't arrive at [View Full Entry]

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It had been a long time coming, but we finally made the hop over the water from London to Paris and what a fantastic weekend we had! Montmartre I arrived on the Thursday night and met Rhi at Gare du Nord. She was our gracious host for the weekend, allowing us to stay with her in her beautiful old apartment in Montmartre, the artist and bohemian quarter of Paris. She was the best tour guide for the weekend with her duties starting that evening without request. We dropped my bag off and set up the hill to the top of Montmartre [View Full Entry]

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Belfast I arrived in Belfast just after lunch excited to learn about the history of Northern Ireland and thought Belfast would be just the place to gain that knowledge. And I was right. I went on a 1.5 hour walking tour that discussed the 330 years of Belfast viewing the Victorian architectural sights of City Hall and the leaning tower that is the Albert Memorial Clock. A fairly boring tour, unless you are interested in the year each building was built or where a building was bombed. The bus tour was more interesting. I saw most of the sights that were [View Full Entry]

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Getting to Dubrovnik from Split The only direct way to get to Dubrovnik by car from the north of Croatia is to drive through Bosnia. No train service exists for this purpose probably due to the complication of going through this neighbouring country. We travelled the 4.5 hour journey from Split with a friendly Croatian guy, whose mother owned the apartments that we were staying in. The police on both sides of the border didn't bother looking at our passports, so we never collected another stamp in the book. War and peace Dubrovnik was an independent republic for 700 year [View Full Entry]

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Dan and I visited Norway over the August bank holiday long weekend in the UK. Being a Scandinavian country, our first thought was that it was going to be cold, but we had clear blue skies and warm sunny days whilst we were there. It was warmer than Britain!! Saturday - Norway in a Nutshell Our first day was spent on 14.5 hours of transport! We chose to catch a few trains, a boat ride and a bus ride to see Aurlandsfjord that joins Sognefjord, the largest fjord in Norway, and to see the surrounding countryside. The scenery was beautiful, but [View Full Entry]

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