~Featured image credits: (c) Jussi Hellsten/Visit Finland~ After living in Finland for more than 2 years, I have come to realize that this much of time in this country is actually long enough to make you (unknowingly) accept and acquire a few certain Finnish ways of life and some of the typical Finnish traits. The sweet realization! It also makes you…
If you are living in Finland, then, I am sure, the very idea of Spring is beginning to sound like a myth to you. Sometime, you even doubt that the dull weather outside is ever going to change into something exciting. But it always does. Like everyone else, I am also waiting for Spring to knock soon in Helsinki. I…
The experience of living in Finland would have been incomplete without a coup d’œil of its farm life. In search of a perfect spot to do so, I had stumbled upon this beautiful place called Haltiala Farm near Helsinki. As expected, this place happens to offer an ideal excuse for a day out amidst nature. Then, I also got to…
It has been a dream to go to Japan and witness the magnificent cherry blossoms but that can wait as Helsinki offers a tiny bit of the same. Although it doesn’t happen on a grand scale the blossom surely offers some consolation for those bitten by nostalgia, yearning for home, and curious to witness a spectacle so grand that it…
~ Looking back at our trip to Amsterdam last month, I have been wondering, what is the most fascinating thing about Amsterdam that makes the city so irresistible! The answer often comes to me in many fragments and,then, in intersecting loops-sunken canals, vibrating nightlife, sex, leisurely coffee shops, old brick buildings, sweet dope, fine cheese and what not??? But, again, the…
Seated in a toy-like train on a bright mid-July day, we were moving down from an elevation of about 2800 ft. However, it hardly felt like summer as we were in Norway, one of the coldest regions in the world. To support our point, a couple of hours ago, we had just crossed a vast stretch of glaciers. The…
~Scribbles from the road~ Start: Vienna, 1 PM A warm and fuzzy Spring day. 17 degrees Celsius and thin traffic. A couple of hours later, a butter-smooth highway leads us out of the concrete world, to abundant nature and tranquility. “As I roll down the windows, the unfamiliar sounds of the road barge in and everything else gradually ceases to exist;…
~A beautiful Finnish Midsummer day, a very special road trip, and a short hide-out at a traditional summer cottage-that’s all I am going to talk about in this post. If you already don’t know, ‘Doing Road Trips’ is my thing as I have explained in many of my previous posts and discussed how each time I am on a road…
~To start with and at the risk of going all cliched, I would have liked to talk about Hallstatt being Austria’s best-kept secret but as you all know it is not. It is because this place is so famous that it is on every traveler’s bucket list. Secret or not, a trip to Austria would be actually incomplete without a…
It is true that for the Finns the farther located a place is from the city, the better it is. But when it comes to finding both peace and good quality of life, Finland is probably one of the few remaining countries in the world where nature and high-class cities coexist. Even for those living in Helsinki which is gradually…
Often referred to as the queen of the Dalmatian Islands for many reasons, Hvar, surely, does justice to its title. Its mild climate, fertile coastal plains and the favorable location being a few of those reasons make it the most populated island in Croatia.Even though it is a small island it has forever been an important trade hub across the Adriatic…
The funny thing about having a bucket list is that it keep growing and no matter how many things you slash off from the top, the list grows a tail; a longer one, each time. So after years of dreaming, I finally managed to fulfill one of my wishes and ended up adding another. This special wish came true after…
As the autumn grey has finally settled both in my heart and bones, I desperately needed some warmth and colour rush and, luckily, Helsinki has something fun going on all around the year. Usually, I am too lazy to go out to indulge myself but, this time, I did not miss this amazing light carnival held every year during Autumn…
This summer (2016), I managed to cross Plitvice Lakes National park in Croatia off my bucket list but I have been procrastinating about writing a post as the photographs I took there buy for only 5% of its beauty. This is ,mostly, because I am not a pro and, partly, because my camera fails me on days when the sun…