Highlights of Travel to Europe
We had four nights in Riga, Latvia. I probably should have written this post while I was still in Riga. Please do not tell Estonians, Latvians, or Lithuanians I said this, but there stories are similar. They have a healthy/friendly rivalry and regularly tease each other about it. While they are all Baltic countries and they have a lot of similarities, there are still...
Tallinn, Estonia is a UNESCO World Heritage site for its well preserved medieval old town. It was founded in the 10th century as a place where merchants came together to trade. In the 13th century, the Danes settled it and established a fortified city called Reval. It remained named this until 1918. For all of this time, it has maintained its Estonian language...
When I posted on Facebook that we were going to St. Petersburg for 72 hours, there was some feedback that it wasn’t enough time. A little explanation of why such a tight amount of time. Normally, a visa would be required to visit Russia at all. However, from Helsinki you can go on a 72 hour visa free trip if it is an organized trip. To be visa free, you need to book...
I thought I would switch things up a bit. I have been doing posts about multiple places in one. Even though I haven’t done a post in about a week, I am going to break it up into multiple posts… Helsinki, Finland Inside a metro station… we see Calgary, Winnipeg and Thunder Bay As I last posted, we moved to Helsinki on a tight schedule. We got to Helsinki late on...
Hello from Helsinki, Finland. This is a quick update regarding the cruise we were on. It was the MSC Preziosa and we departed from Hamburg, Germany and travelled up the coast of Norway, to Svalbard, and then back down the coast of Norway returning to Hamburg. We left Hamburg and flew to Helsinki the same day we arrived. A quick note about Hamburg as we were there for...
I will start by saying sorry that this is so long. That is what happens when I take too long in between posts. Okay… so I admit I have been slacking off in the posting department. We have been on the move pretty fast and frankly I could have used the bus and train time to write a post… but I didn’t… sorry. I am writing this post on the bus from Copenhagen to Hamburg...
Nicola thought we should do an Iceland post to wrap up the campervan things we learned. I decided to expand that a little to include all of our lessons learned. This may seem like a jumble of things but nonetheless good things to know. Campervan Lessons Of course you need to remember all of the costs when you plan a campervan holiday. In all, we travelled about 2500...
The next morning we got up in Hvammstangi with a plan to scope out the seals. Turns out that there is only the Iceland Seal Centre but no seals in Hvammstangi. We drove up to Illugastadir to find seals… actually the girl told us Svalbard. Again we saw seals basking in the sun on rocks out in the water. No great up close experience. As there was only two nights left...
I have been building a Google Maps track of our adventure. This is where we are to date… I will complete it as we finish the drive and then update this post.
Click on it and zoom in to follow us. The red numbers are where we stayed each night. Photos are tagged in locations we took them. I added gas, groceries, and activities.
The last I left off, we were in Borgafjordur seeing puffins. That is is north east Iceland. After a successful puffin adventure, we began across the north of Iceland travelling east to west. The #1 highway cuts across the bottom of all the fjords and large peninsulas. Driving up and around all of these can mean lots of unpaved roads. So we were selective about what...