When dreaming of a visit to Cinque Terre, the breathtaking cliffside towns and sparkling water of the Ligurian Sea are easy enough to picture, especially with a little help from travel magazines and Instagram jetsetters. So what do you need to know to end up at the top of a vineyard-filled cliff or basking on the beach on the Italian Riviera? Continue reading “Cinque Terre: Five Towns, One Seamless Visit”
Category: Europe
Ciao! Whether you’re navigating the winding streets of Firenze, shopping in Milano, basking in the sun in Cinque Terre, or walking in the footsteps of history in Roma, there’s something you’re always looking for in Italy – amazing gelato. But, especially in tourist-flooded areas, you’re going to need a discerning eye to get the best. Continue reading “How to Always Find the Best Gelato in Italy”
As a Swedish and Finnish travel writer, it is a bit difficult to get in the right state of mind to feature something Norwegian on anchored & adrift. They have an irritating amount of oil, impressively ugly trolls (compare this to, for example, Finland’s most famous trolls), some of Scandinavia’s best snaps, and an unfortunately high amount of Winter Olympic gold medals per capita. Generally I ignore their existence altogether unless something Nordic comes up on the world stage, and then we all amicably band together like an ABBA reunion tour. But, what I do in fact enjoy (and less-grudgingly admire) about that side of the Scandinavian Peninsula are the incredible fjords that dominate the coast of Norway. Here’s how to get your fjelltur, or mountain adventure, to the Norwegian fjords started. Continue reading “Fjelltur into the Fjords: A Starter Pack for Norway’s Most Dramatic Sights”
Helsinki is truly a jewel in the crown of Nordic capitals, but is often overshadowed by its sister cities. Sweden gets billed as a socialist paradise, Norway gets name recognition through the cruise and airline, and Denmark is really pushing the hygge thing in an uhyggeligt fashion. So, what about Finland?
Continue reading “Oh Well, I’m Going to Hel…sinki”
Being Swedish, and Sweden being a popular tourism destination, I regularly get asked for recommendations on where to go, whether in a city or throughout the country. The issue? The people requesting recommendations usually want to “do Sweden” in about three days. I get it- vacation days, hard-earned travel funds, and limited points are precious commodities and the world is pretty big. So Sweden in three days it is.
Despite a lifetime of taking the ferries back and forth between Stockholm and Helsinki, and forcibly becoming acquainted with Tallink, the Estonian ferry brand, after their acquisition of my beloved Silja Line, the Finnish cruiseferry brand, I had never headed south across the Gulf of Finland for a daytrip in Tallinn. Until I turned 23. Continue reading “Turning 23 in Tallinn, and a Tirade about Tallink”
I have finally had the opportunity to start to take in Berlin in person, which I plan to do in a series of visits, and I still can’t wrap my mind around it. Berlin is the Hauptstadt of Europe’s economic powerhouse, a centuries-old city, but also a brand new city, reborn again and again through some of modern history’s worst clashes.
Most know that the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, but I was shocked when I realized that its occupiers, including the Russians, did not leave until 1994. 1994! Continue reading “Berlin: Meeting a European Hauptstadt That’s Younger Than Me”
Copenhagen is a beautiful city, and with airline connections, mainly through SAS’s major hub at Kastrup Airport, becoming more convenient for visiting the Nordic capital, there’s all the more reason to visit. But with many travelers using it as a gateway for other northern European cities, or as a departure point for increasingly popular Baltic cruises, it sometimes gets overlooked for an extended stay. If you only have one day in Copenhagen, consider fitting the following activities into your day, and then make plans to come back again. Continue reading “One Day in Copenhagen: What Not to Miss”
Hej! After a painless, nonstop flight from Dulles to Copenhagen, I arrived at the Copenhagen Marriott just in time for some breakfast before heading out for the day. On the agenda: a quick tour de Skåne, or the southern part of, Sweden for lunch and fika with family. So after flying in that morning, I took the train from Copenhagen H over the Öresund bridge to head north to Halmstad. After our rendezvous in Halmstad we drove back, taking the Scandic Line ferry from Helsingborg back to Denmark and then continuing into Copenhagen. Continue reading “København-Skåne by Air, Land, and Sea”
Most of my life, I’ve been a voracious reader. I remember reading Little Women and Gone with the Wind in fourth grade, always having a good book for long flights, and even learning how to write Swedish fluently solely based off of being read to and reading as a young child. But in college, I was always reading books for classes (though as an English major most of those were fantastic), but if I wasn’t finishing up a reading for class, I was doing one or several of a hundred other active projects. I got out of the habit of reading for fun. After more than a year since graduation of my primary reading material being news on my phone, I decided preparing for my next trip would be the perfect occasion to break this streak.
I’m soon headed to three cities that I have never visited before: Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Tallinn. My interest in Tallinn had previously inspired me to do background research on the city online, and last year I spent an insightful evening at the Embassy of Estonia in Washington, DC, so I turned my attention to Berlin and St. Petersburg. Continue reading “Pre-Trip Reading: Berlin & St. Petersburg”
anchored & adrift 