The Alcazar of Seville is the kind of place where you want to linger… In fact, even the Spanish royal family wants to linger there and stays there occasionally as its one of their official residences, and it’s the oldest royal palace still in use in Europe. We lingered so long that the weather had […]

My favorite thing about Skansen, Stockholm’s famous open-air museum, are the sod roof houses. Until the late 19th century, grass and flowers growing out of roof tops all over Scandinavia were a common sight, but not anymore. These houses seemed like something out of fairy tale and were a definite highlight in sprawling Skansen. We […]

If you really want to feel like a yuppie, walk through Christiania in Copenhagen while pushing a stroller with one hand while clutching your cappuccino from Baresso in the other. In Christiania, the division seems to be not so much tourist vs. resident but rather yuppie vs. hippie. Oh, there were plenty of us coffee-carriers […]

How to break up a six-hour drive from Stockholm to Skane? With a bunch of moose, of course! After three days in Stockholm in July, it was time to throw our luggage (including a travel crib) into the roomy trunk of our Volvo XC70 graciously supplied by Carrentals.co.uk  head south to Skane, where we’d be staying […]

After spending three days in Stockholm in July, it was time to head south to the countryside of Skane to visit our friends who had moved back to Sweden after living in New York City for a year. Normally, they live in Uppsala, which is less than an hour drive from Stockholm. But for most of the summer, […]

I think I’ve found a valid excuse for why it’s taken me so long to do a blog post about the Monserrate palace in Sintra: it’s very hard to describe! I was there exactly a year ago, and while I haven’t been ruminating on it every single day since then, I must admit that even […]

Quinta da Regaleira, an eclectic, almost spooky palace in Sintra, Portugal, was nothing short of amazing. most visitors to Sintra, however, will probably end up passing it over for the more popular palaces. If we weren’t staying within walking distance from it at the historic, luxurious Hotel Tivoli Palácio de Seteais then we probably would have […]

If Lisbon reminded me of San Francisco, then Sintra reminded me of Newport, Rhode Island. When Sintra was in its heyday, the richest of the rich built incredible palaces of sometimes questionable taste but never lacking in detail, opulence or personality. And just like in Newport, these homes/castles are no longer inhabited but are open […]

When you walk into the Vasa Museet in Stockholm, you’re immediately in awe of the massive wooden ship that stands before you. The whole building of the museum is built around the enormous vessel, and the lighting is dim and dramatic to perserve this delicate giant. Right after we played around at the Junibacken, the […]

Copenhagen’s most famous statue, The Little Mermaid, turns 100 today. Happy birthday, Little Mermaid! Or should I say: Tillykke med fødselsdagen, Den Lille Havfrue! This symbol of Copenhagen – the famous character from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale –  doesn’t look a day over 25. I must confess, I only saw the back of her […]