We got up late this morning. Hardly surprizing after our long day yesterday. We thoroughly enjoyed the hotel breakfast and set out in the general direction of the Eiffel tower. We had a tour booked there at 13:00, so we were in no rush. We wandered around the area of Les Invalides, looking for a supermarket and enjoying the Parisienne streets. We found a store and got some snacks for the way. Then we headed towards the tower. At around noon we came to the Champ de Mars, the old parade grounds leading up to the tower. Ethan said it well. The tower is beautiful, ugly, and impressive all at once. On the Champ de Mars there's a christmas market (lots of them around) with lots of stalls, mostly food. We worked our way through the ... read more

What a great hike! Amichai (Amichai Spector http://www.spectours.co.il) invited me to join this hike after I joined a trip to Jordan’s Wadi Fayed that he organized (see the blog: https://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Jordan/South/Petra/blog-950587.html). The trip started really early. Or maybe really late on the previous day? I dunno. Either way I got up before 3 AM, had some coffee and something to eat and left. Eli and Kobi met me at Latroun and I continued with them to Mitspe Shalem, on the Dead Sea road. We met up with the rest of the group there, a little before 5 AM, had some coffee, cake and dried fruit, and at the first imaginary hint of light we set out. The beginning of the trail is a steep climb up to the beginning of the trail. Confusing? Well, that’s the way ... read more

I planned this trip because I just love the trail. One of the most beautiful in Israel. Late Tuesday morning we gathered at the Dvora Falls parking lot and left one car there. Then we went to the Jilaboun parking lot. Most of the hikers start this trail at the Dvora waterfall, follow the valley downstream to the Jilaboun waterfall, and then climb out of the valley to the Jilaboun parking lot, but to save us the arduous ascent at the end of the trail I decided to do it the other way around. So we waited a little until all the group’s participants arrived, 13 in number, and we set off. The group consisted of six adults and seven children, ranging in age from four to seventy-one, including my son, my brother and his two ... read more

Today was all about sledding; getting dragged around by dogs and deers. What a day! We started out at the husky kennels, where the local guide Saara gave us driving instructions for the husky sleighs before we went to meet the dogs. All the dogs were harnessed to the sleighs, excited and ready to go. With about twenty sleighs, and six dogs each, that's a lot of canines, all howling and barking and raring to go! We were assigned our sleighs, two to a sleigh, and met our dog teams. One of us was the designated driver, the other along for the ride and we switched in the middle. Pretty soon we were off! The dogs took off like rockets, racing after the guides on their snowmobiles or the sleigh ahead. We really picked up some ... read more

We got up very early this morning and got on Bus #2. The driver told me 'Kaakse' and raised two fingers. So obviously I said we can't start at two, what is 'One' in Finnish? It's 'Uukse', by the way. By the end of the day I got to three. So, one two three, uukse kaakse kolme! Between my Finnish lessons the driver took us to Kemi, on the Gulf of Bothnia. There we boarded the Good Ship Sampo, a Finnish icebreaker. Sampo was built in 1960 and kept the Finnish shipping lanes opened for many years, until the cargo ships got too big for her. But instead of retiring her they turned her into a cruise ship. She is the only ice breaker in the world used for tourism! We boarded the Sampo and wandered ... read more