The day following our last hike in Kotkatharju, we took train from Pieksämäki to Helsinki, where we spent a couple of days doing final purchases and picking up our eyeglasses. Then we flew back to Pisa, and spent two nights there. In Pisa we stayed in central but relatively quiet […]
Not this time. And not the vacation I was looking forward to! The plan was to do some scenic hikes in lovely, sunny December weather. None of that happened. The weather was dreary and grey — we only had sun on one day of our six-day trip — luckily it […]
Finally, starting from this day, our luck with the weather changed. It was sunnier and warmer, and the worst chilly wind had mostly died out. We stopped in Concarneau on our drive from Quimber to Carnac. First we visited the market hall and bought a loaf of rye bread. A […]
This year we returned again to the Briançonnais region in Hautes-Alpes for our winter/spring vacation. However, we did not stay in the Serre Chevalier valley as we usually have done, but booked the accommodation in the village of Villar-Saint-Pancrace in a different river valley, namely that of Durance, which by […]
We spent the extended holiday weekend in the area where most of town and village names sounded like they were taken from Asterix. The area, called la Dombes, is an undulating plateau in the department of Ain consisting of 1200 ponds or rainwater pools that are man-made, most of them […]
It’s been three years since we last visited our friends in Chinchón and three years since we ran our last street marathon, also in Madrid. As usual we arrived at Madrid-Barajas T4 and picked up our rental car in T1, and then drove about 50km south to Chinchón. On our […]