We had five travel days left on our Interrail passes from the Summer Rails trip to Finland, and thought it would be a good idea to use them to visit the Black Forest (Schwartzwald) in South-western Germany for some relaxed hiking. And so we did. The Fall foliage was not […]
We returned to Trièves for bicycle touring, this time not just for one but four days. Like last time seven years ago, partial plan was to escape the heatwave in the city, but at 700-900 meters it was still very hot. Fortunately, unlike when walking or hiking, when riding you […]
This past long weekend concluded our two-weekend dress rehearsal for the bicycle touring season of 2026. We encountered almost every aspect — good or bad — one commonly encounters on tours. We rode in heavy rain and chilly wind, but also under a scorching sun in the beginning of a […]
We had two travel days left in our Interrail Global Passes (10 days of traveling in two months) from the July’s train travels that needed to be used by the end of August, so we decided to utilize them this past extended weekend (+ a couple of extra days) traveling […]
This Summer’s vacation/workation was a combination of train travel with an Interrail Global Pass, and flights from Italy to Finland and back. First, we took a train to Firenze (*) where we spent three days before continuing to Pisa by train, and flying to Helsinki. From Helsinki we took a […]
I use various filters and a special plugin in Facebook to filter out advertisements and sponsored posts from my feed. For some reason an ad for The Art of the Brick, a LEGO® art exhibition by an American artist (and a former lawyer) Nathan Sawaya, got through. We didn’t think […]
As much as I love the landscape of the Massif Central, I think the Matheysine Plateau in the French Prealps in Southern Isère is one of the most scenic areas I’ve visited in France, with the silhouette of the magestic Grande Tête de l’Obiou as a backprop. Soon after returning […]
Thanks to the recent gas crises — due to the strikes at oil refineries 30-40% of the gas stations have shortage of at least one type of gasoline — Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes announced last week that all regional trains and buses were free this past weekend. We though about taking our bikes […]
We briefly visited the French capital this past weekend to leave our passport applications at the consulate. The Paris consulate is the only place to for the Finnish expats to apply for a passport in France, and it’s been made extremely expensive compared to applying for the passport in Finland; […]