What can we say about Florence, centre of Tuscany and the Italian art world, other than it is a wonderfully charming and enlightened city. It is full of enticing streets, great eateries, cute cafe's and cool wine bars. After checking in to our little hotel in the centre of the city on the shores of the Arno river, where we decided to spoil ourselves with a little alone time in a room of our very own (which was pretty tiny, but nice), we spent the afternoon strolling the streets. We decided to start our cultural fest by meeting the most famous man in Florence, who else but Michaelangelo's David, a giant of a man. To be fully aware of his perfection, he needs to be seen in the flesh, as it were (actually marble). He is ... read more

We ventured out recently to the oldest part of Uppsala, Gamla Uppsala. The old town was once the centre of Uppsala City before the township itself was moved in the 13th Century four kilometres away (to its current site). What remains in Gamla Uppsala is a range of historical sites, testament to the long history of this city. The most significant of the historical sites is a series of ancient burial mounds. The three major grave mounds are said to be the tombs of legendary pre-Viking kings, with archaeological digs retrieving ancient Viking artefacts from this location. It was amazing to be in a place with such a long recorded history-eerie to imagine where we were standing was once a place of ancient burial rituals! Nearby was a lovely church dating back from the 15th century. ... read more

Stockholm truly lives up to its reputation for being one of the world's most beautiful cities. The city itself is made up of thousands of islands, with multiple harbours forming the backdrop for the beautiful baroque style architecture throughout the city centre. Our day in Stockholm was largely spent strolling around. While it was a very chilly day, the sun was out making our stroll along the harbour really beautiful. Being that Stockholm is the city of museums, it was only fitting that our visit there include two of the most famous. We first visited Skansen, an open air museum that exhibits traditional housing from Swedish and Nordic lands. It also houses a huge variety of animals, some of which I had never seen before. Being that its winter here, the brown bears at Skansen were ... read more

Our journey to here, Uppsala SWEDEN, can only be described as a comedy of errors-one that is not yet amusing to us as we continue to recoup from our 48hr travel time, delayed flight, missed flight, and an ongoing drama of lost baggage that remains lost! Still we can manage a wry smile as we retell this tale-one that we hope will be a future source of amusement, rather than of woe (which our current jet lagged melodramatic selves dictate!) It was with an overwhelming sense of relief, moreso than excitement, that we climbed into the car with our trusty travel companions Leah and Tony to head to the airport on Friday afternoon. It had been by far the most stressful week we had experiened together in a very long time but at last we could ... read more