Summer Rails 2026: Mänttä Art Festival and some serious hill climbing

From Tampere we took the Serlachius shuttle to Mänttä to visit the Art Festival,  the largest summer exhibition of Finnish contemporary art — our almost annual tradition since I don’t remember when, but it must have been before we moved to Singapore in 2008. This year’s theme was “On Being”, […]

Another very welcome getaway from heat

We booked a newly and very nicely renovated studio apartment on the sixth and uppermost floor of the apartment building in Roche Béranger in Chamrousse 1750 for three night this past weekend. We drove there early Friday evening and returned this Monday morning so that we could have two full […]

It’s not just a race, it’s Madrid

We had a lovely week-long vacation in Spain. Our two goals were to run the Zurich Rock’n’Roll Marathon in Madrid after 11 years, and visit our friends in Chinchón whom, likewise, we had not seen in 11 years. Except for a couple of navigational glitches, problems with locking the car, […]

So ready for the Spring … or next Winter

Finally, we had a proper winter vacation, with snow and skiing and all. First, we spent a week in the village of Le Rosier in Vallée de la Clarée in Hautes-Alpes (our third time there in three months) running and skiing, and then three days in Entre-Deux-Guiers on the Chartreuse […]