I must confess. I’m not a huge fan of churches. Sure, I don’t mind visiting churches while travelling, and they are all magnificent, but I just don’t appreciate old art or old architecture as much as a devout church-tourist should. I often like admiring them from the outside, but I rarely go inside unless my […]
TRAVEL
St Pete – the food, the drinks, the stories
It’s not about the food. It’s about the stories experienced around the food. The stories shared around the food. Ok, I lie. It is also about the food. But also about the stories. So now, experiences, stories and thoughts linked to food or drink establishments during my time in St P. Georgian food. When one […]
St Pete – the skyscrapers, the bridges, the palaces
St Petersburg, one of my favourite cities where I lived for three years, never explored as an adult and without being accompanied by a parent. So now, when I needed (well, wanted) to visit a foreign place which didn’t involve flying, what better choice than this cultural capital of Russia, just three hours train ride […]
Szimply the B(udap)est – 5 things to do
I just came back from the epicest four days with my favourite Scottish human, the lovely Nicola who fans may remember as my beloved travel companion in Cesky Krumlov last year. This year twas time to brave the Buda and the Pest, so without further ado, here goes, five things we did which I would […]
Big Almaty Lake feat. Sultan
Big Almaty Lake was the first site I’d decided I wanted to see when I started researching Almaty, frequently heralded as the “most beautiful lake in Kazakhstan”. Hidden amidst the mountains at an altitude of 2,511 metres, this imaginatively named wonder is a turquoise natural reservoir which provides drinking water for the city. Due to […]
The sun which set beyond the Kok-Tobe cable cars
What to do when first arriving in a new town? Go see the highest view you can find. This can be via a tower, via a tram up a mountain or, traditionally in the Story of My Life, via a cable car. One of the attractions of Almaty in the first place was the cable car […]
Lake Kaindy, the mystic sunken forest
110 years ago Lake Kaindy was a forest like any other. Then the 1911 Kebin earthquake happened, which created a landslide which created a dam, eventually causing rainwater to drown the forest. The trees have taken Ariel as a role model and still appear to be living underwater as mertrees, covered in sea plants and […]
Charyn Canyon, the little sibling of the Grand
What should you go see in Kazakhstan? Yeah, I had no idea a few weeks ago either. But I’ll tell you. As mentioned in my previous entry, there were certain places I wanted to visit: the Charyn Canyon and surreal Lake Kaindy topping the list. Visiting both of these would require a private and expensive […]
Transport in Kazakhstan
I have a question for you. Is Kazakhstan part of Europe? If you say no, you lose, like I lost that bet at university some years ago. If you say yes, you win, but I am still skeptical. But since about 10% of Kazakhstan is on this side of the Ural mountains, it can be […]
Karelia: 74 years after
Relatives are a fun bunch to travel with. I was reminded of this in Lapland; and it was reconfirmed in Karelia earlier this month. My relatives and I had the chance to revisit family history by going on a kind of package trip with a busful of other Finns to go and visit old family history […]