Denmark 2026 - Day 5 - The last day (with an eclipse!)

We still wanted to do a lot of things today, so we started with the freshness of 10 am at the National History Museum. It is a good exhibition that highlights the many ups and downs of Danish history. You would not guess it because the people of Copenhagen are so laidback, but as a nation they were involved in many wars with their neighbors, and tried to do their fair share of colonial imperialism. They had colonies in Ghana (and were active participants in the slave trade), the Danish Antilles (now the US Virgin Islands), and India.

Regarding the kings engaged in European wars, it is a bit difficult to keep track of who is who because the names Fredrick and Christian got reused time and again for the different kings.

Our next stop was at the Copenhagen History Museum, which was not great in terms of museography, but showed some vignettes of the city through the two World Wars, the post-war reconstruction period, and the progressive development of the city we see today. A couple of days ago, while we were in the bikes, coming back from the Heritage Palace, we crossed through many suburban areas dominated by single-family homes, which together with clusters of modern apartment buildings add considerably to the housing options of this city. Lucas and I got talking and we both agreed that Copenhagen is a much more attractive city than Stockholm or Helsinki and has much more of a vibe to it. For example, this week is Pride Week, and every night there has been a big concert in Nørreport to prime the crowds for the big Pride Parade that will take place on Sunday.

Still fascinated by the royal palaces, we visited Amalienborg, which since the fire that destroyed Christianborg has become the home of the royal family. It is formed by four separate houses that had been built by aristocrats, who under considerable royal pressure sold them to the crown, so all the family can "live together", just like if it were an old Mafia complex. The King Christian X (who seems to be well loved by the Danes) and his wife live in one of the houses, the dowager Queen lives in another, and cousins and uncles share the other two. The Amalienborg museum conserves the working offices of the last three kings, shows they were messy packrats, and also houses the jewelry designed by Fabergé (but only one small egg).

After a bit of rest in the house we headed out again, intent on seeing the solar eclipse. I had not seen much excitement about the eclipse around the city (remember Lucas had a hard time finding eclipse glasses), but by the time we got to the metro a considerable throng was heading for the Amagerstrand beach, a short barrier bar on the east of the city, but with enough of a lagoon to promise a good view of the sun. At its maximum the Moon was to cover only 80% of the sun, at 8 pm and at an elevation angle with the horizon of only 6 degrees. Thanks to our glasses we were able to follow the progress of the eclipse from 7:10 pm to its maximum coverage at 8:03 pm. The surrounding light was a bit subdued when the eclipse reached its maximum, but you could not look at the sun directly and no corona was formed. Lucky the people in Spain who had a full totality!

The return home was crowded, but it is amazing at what rate the metro can move people with a new train coming every five minutes. Tomorrow I will use the same metro, which runs all night, to go to the airport and start on the way home.

So I said goodbye to my dear Géraldine and Lucas. It was great to have traveling companions to explore Scandinavia. I must, however, go back to a very hot California (but all of Europe is going through a heat wave so we all seem to be in the same boat) to get ready for the new semester, which starts next week. I will be teaching my regular Development and Management of Water Resources, and two classes I have not taught for years: Sedimentary Rocks for the upper division students, and History of Earth and Life for lower division students. It should be a fun semester.

My route back will be Copenhagen to London Heathrow, a two hour layover, and an 11-hour trip London to San Francisco. I am not looking forward to the latter.

Finis

Denmark 2026 - Day 4 - Christianborg, Rosenborg, and a concert

We were intent on doing our best as tourists, so we were at the palace of Rosenburg when it opened, at 10 am, only to find out that you needed to pre-book your visit. We prebooked for 3 pm that day and then headed for Chrsitianborg, the enormous government complex where are housed all three government powers: Rex-Lex-Jur (executive, legislative, and juridic). The castle goes back to the 1100's, when crusader Bishop Absalon got authorization to found a new coastal diocese. The original fortress grew over the years, but in the 1600's one of the Christians demolished the old stuff and built himself a proper royal palace. Alas, faith had decreed otherwise and the palace burnt to the ground in the mid 1700's. A new palace was rebuilt, but this one to burnt to the ground in the 1800's. Having learnt their lesson, the new palace was built without fireplaces and out of concrete, and the Danes hope this will be the last rebuild.

The king (or queen) is the official head of state but shares the executive power with the Prime Minister, signing or vetoing the laws passed by the parliament. The parliament draws laws and approves the budget. Finally, the juridic system makes sure that the laws are constitutional and are applied fairly.

The big draw on visiting the castle is of course to see the trappings of royalty, including the Grand Hall where heads of state are feted or where important birthdays are celebrated. The hall is decorated with gobelins (tapestries uniquely made at the town of Gobelin, in France) designed by a contemporary artist. They are weirdly modern in style and color, and are reminiscent of the murals of Diego Rivera, where the subscenes depict important (but sometimes unpleasant) moments of Danish history. For example, World War I and WW II are represented, together with the faces of Churchill, Stalin, Lenin, and JFK (it seemed to me the artist forgot the role played by FRD). The personal library of the monarchs was a thing of joy.

We then went to visit the modern Copenhagen Library (also known as the Black Diamond), built between the Old Library and the Main Canal. It is a modern library in every respect, with full electronic connectivity. But if you walk through it to the very back, into the building of the Old Library, you can still come into an old-fashioned reading room, where serious scholars can consult some of the rare books in the collection.

Finally it came time to go back to the Rosenberg Palace, which compared with the other palaces we have visited is fairly small and dark, but has the distinction of being where the crown jewels and other precious things are displayed. There are fancy porcelains and glassware; an armory of ancient arquebuses, jewel encrusted swords, and cross bows; a wide collection of ivory objects (one of the queens enjoyed turning ivory using a lathe); and of course rings, collars, brooches, and three magnificent crowns. Apparently the queen still wears some of these jewels in functions of state.

It was getting a bit late, but we rushed to try to see the university library only to get there just as they were closing. Bummer!

Géraldine and Lucas wanted to climb the spiral tower of the Church of Our Saviour, so we went there by metro. Wisely, I waited for them at a nearby restaurant, sipping a beer and having a delicious pasta with salmon. Once back, Géraldine wanted to hear an organ concert at the church, but Lucas departed on a wild chase around the city to try to find eclipse-watching glasses (amazingly he succeeded and still made it back in time for the concert). The church has the so-called Elephant Organ, a massive instrument 20 m high supported by the carvings of two elephants, and with a voice that easily reaches 90 decibels. It was a very fine concert, but I had the indignity of falling asleep at least four times, and being awaken by a poke in the ribs by my long-suffering companions.

Denmark 2026 - Day 3 - Frederiksborg, the canals of Copenhagen, and Tivoli

We bought a Copenhagen City Card for each one of us, and have free rein over the public transit system and more than 80 attractions. Géraldine likes palaces, so we went as far north as the metro would take us to visit the Frederik Palace. The palace was built by Fredrik the IV (son of Christian V) in the early 1700's. Fredrik was a great admirer of Louis XIV, the Sun King, and like him established absolute monarchy in Denmark, and demolished and rebuilt the old royal palace to be a grandiose affair.

We reached the gardens by taking a small ferry, and as we crossed the lake I had in my mind visions of Hogwarts. To my untrained eye the gardens look a bit different than those at Versailles, but my traveling companions recognized the baroque layout of the main garden, the lakes and water features, and even the small Bath Palace.

Inside the castle is opulent, but you quickly learn that most of it was reconstructed after a devastating fire in 1859. The palace does not belong to the Royal family, but to the nation, which has turned it into the National Portrait Gallery, with hundreds upon hundreds of portraits of prominent citizens (you could almost hear the paparazzi screaming "wait, wait, photo opportunity"). Denmark is a Parlamentary Democracy, but the King is still the ceremonial head of state. Unlike their British counterpart, the royal family has fallen into hard times. There is still a royal complex of four comfortable houses near the shore of one of the canals, but all other assets belong to the state of Denmark.

Speaking of canals, our next attraction was a tour of the canals of Denmark, which have some resemblance to the canals of Amsterdam. The story goes that one of the kings wanted to re-create the ambiance of Amsterdam to try to convince some of those rich Dutch merchants to move to Copenhagen, but it didn't work (they already had Amsterdam, didn't they?). Today the canals are very much gentrified, with expensive apartments lining their sides, the royal residence, a beautiful opera house, Parliament, and other public buildings.

We did pay homage to the Little Mermaid, which together with the Mannequin Pis in Brussels, shares the dubious merit of being the two least imposing pieces of art in all of Europe. The poor mermaid has been decapitated twice, lost an arm, and has been covered in paint any number of times. Yet, the city has renovated and cleaned it every time, and now is a mandatory stop for every tourist who comes to Copenhagen.

After taking a small break at the apartment, we went to visit the famous Tivoli Garden. Tivoli was established in 1843, and has the honor of being the second oldest amusement park in the world (the first one is in Dyrehavsbakken, 10 km north of Copenhagen). The amusement park is in constant evolution, as the park management aims to refresh the attractions and restaurants in the comparatively small area they have to work with (15 acres). It makes for a fun stroll through the walkways lined with restaurants, county fair arcades and games, and the different types of rollercoasters and carousels (you pay separately for the rides). We had dinner there and left when the night lights were coming on. It has been a full day!

Denmark 2026 - Day 2 - Around Copenhagen on bicycles

A friend had told Géraldine that the best way to visit Copenhagen was on bicycle, and indeed there are hundreds of people in bicycles taking advantage of the flat terrain and the many lanes reserved for cycling. So, we rented bicycles and right away I started having problems. For one, in these bikes you cannot pedal backwards because that engages the back break; pedaling backwards is the way we have to set our feet for slowing down and coming off the bike, and for starting from a still position. Instead, with this type of bike one has to jump flat-footed on the ground to stop, and push forward to get enough impulse to get going. Second, I had twisted my ankle, so my ability to stop flat-footed was zilch, and on starting I could not press down with my right foot to get me going; my starts were thus very wobbly and dangerous to other cyclists. Third, there are a lot of cyclists on the bike lanes, many of them rookie tourists, which considerably increased the chance of a collision. In short, it was the ride from hell.

We cycled past a beautiful canal, a la Amsterdam, with well-tended house boats lining the sides and a happy throng milling along the quay. From there we went to Christiana, the hippie community of Copenhagen, where in the 1960’s hippies established communal living, where all would share whatever they had, raise children as in a small village, smoke pot, and do artistic work.  They have their own council that deals with the city to buy power, water, and sanitation services in bulk, but otherwise they deal with everything else internally as a community. Surprisingly they have managed to have their autonomy for 60 years now, have built houses (they have a goodly amount of recycled building materials), and are happy to welcome visitors to their happy home.

Lucas took over the guidance from here, and led us in a not-so-crowded path to the docks and the small beach of Copenhagen, where we had lunch, but after that the crazy guy took us far north of the city to the grounds of the Hermitage Palace (a very small palace surrounded by thousands of acres of forest and open grasslands). Unfortunately for me, it has some topography and I was having troubles with the uphills with my aching foot. The palace has a fabulous view over the ocean, and on the surrounding grasslands we could see a flock of what seemed like very large geese. On closer inspection we realized they were a band of reindeers, maybe a 100 strong, who were taking their leisure in the meadow and appeared as a dwarf forest of palmate antlers. Six of the reindeer were white.

The way back to Copenhagen was long, included several uphills, crossed through lovely neighborhoods of single-family homes, and I struggled to keep up with my friends. Géraldine is in excellent shape and took the front to soon disappear in the distance. Lucas hung up with me out of concern, but clearly this was an easy ride for him. Me, I was dying with the pain in my ankle and was all too glad when we came into the center of town and returned the bikes.

Mercifully Géraldine has suggested that for the next three days we use the Copenhagen City Card, that for 72 hours will give us access to all public transportation and free access to over 80 attractions and places to visit. It is not cheap, at 135 euros per person, but we will try to visit as many museums and attractions as possible to milk it to the dredges. And I will be full of Iboprufen so I will be able to keep up with my friends. 

Denmark 2026 - Day 1 - Arrival at Copenhagen

I managed to pass my cold on to Géraldine, and I think Lucas is not far behind. Pobrecitos :( I feel so bad about ruining everybody's health while in vacation, but viruses don't take any holidays.

Today we woke up earlyish to return the rental car at the airport by 10 am. My flight is at 12:30 pm, so I will just stay at the airport and wait. Géraldine and Lucas don't take off until 4 pm (and ultimately with delays they took off at 5:40 pm), so they put their luggage in storage and went by train to Helsinki to wedge in a bit more tourism.

I landed at about 1:30 pm (gained an hour because Finland and Denmark are in different time zones), exchanged the 250 Swedish kröner I had for 170 Danish krönen, and figured out that the best way to get to our rental apartment was by metro. The metro costs 21 krönen (about 3 euros) and very smoothly takes you to central Copenhagen in a matter of 20 minutes. It doesn't have a driver and runs completely automatic, like the shuttles you see in airports!

From the metro station I walked 12 minutes to our apartment, which is in the core of the Latin Quarter of Copenhagen. It is an old building, with floors formed by heavy wooden beams slightly deformed by the passage of 300 years. Unfortunately it is on the third floor, at the end of several flights of narrow, ancient stairs, which will ot be appreciated by my traveling companions and their heavy luggage.

The Latin Quarter is full of life. It has tons of restaurants and pubs, and as I was approaching our residence I met a manifestation protesting racial discrimination with the slogan "No human being is illegal". I also walked through an art flea market, and along one of the big shopping streets loaded with people. A friend told Géraldine that the way to move in Copenhagen is with a bike, and indeed I saw hundreds of people riding bikes, some of them at dangerous speeds. We plan to rent bicycles, so I walked to a place I found in the internet to make a reservation for the next four days, but the owners are there only from 10 am to 2 pm, so we will have to come back tomorrow (and hope they open on Sundays).

I also did a bit of shopping for breakfast stuff (bread, milk, butter, granola, fruit, yoghurt, and marmalade). Always fun to explore a new supermarket :)

Géraldine let me know their flight was delayed, so I am now in a holding pattern here at the apartment because I have the keys. It wouldn't do for them to arrive tired from traveling and have to wait for me at the door. Once she told me they had landed I gave it half an hour and went down to seat in front of the house, in a comfortable bench that some good soul had built to give tired passerbys a break. Great spot for people watching. Finally, at about 7 pm, they arrived hot and tired. After lugging the luggage upstairs Géraldine told me they had lost their way in Helsinki and by the time someone pointed them in the right direction it was getting late. They ran to the train and barely made it (but without having had the time to buy tickets, and riding "black" is a big no no in Europe). Then they had to rush to pick up the stored luggage and the elderly person helping them was super slow. Run again to deliver the luggage and rush to the security line, which was as long as it can be (Géraldine tried to get permission to move to the front so they would be able to make the flight, but this stern woman, likely of Soviet blood, flatly refused. They finally made it through security and had to run to the distant gate 11 to barely make it at the scheduled board-in time of 3:30 pm, just to find out the flight had been delayed. All that running for nothing :(

Finland 2026 - Day 7 - Porvoo (with a badly twisted ankle)

Ouch, ouch, ouch ... I mis-stepped and badly twisted my right ankle. Unfortunately, it was insult added to injury because that is the same foot that has been hurting with plantar fasciaitis. A bad thing to happen on a trip of discovery :(

Today we went to Porvoo, about 30 minutes away from Helsinki. Porvoo claims to be one of the oldest cities in Finland, although most of the old buildings were destroyed by fire in 1730 and what one sees is the rebuilt 1800's town. There is a small hill west of town, overlooking the Porvoo River, which was occupied by folks from the Iron Age as far back as 700 AD, and on the same hill one can see the ground where a fort stood. The fort was built by the Swedes in 1250, and expanded by the Germans in 1350, but in the many changing of hands was torn down and the only thing one can see are the levees that delineated two deep moats, and a platform at the very top where the fort presumably stood.

The walk along the river was very charming and full of flowers, and many of the old warehouses have been converted to residences without losing much of their character. The Lutheran cathedral occupies another high point in the town, and by it are the House of the Bishop and the Chapter House, but even though we went inside the yard we convinced ourselves that they were now private residences and left quietly.

Inside the cathedral there is a statue of Czar Alexander I, who came to Porvoo to talk to the elders with regard the annexation of Finland by Russia. He assured the Diet that Finland will keep all the rights it had enjoyed under Swedish rule, including considerable sovereignty as a Duchy. He must have been a convincing orator because the Diet accepted his assurances and offered him a ball, at which the Czar graciously danced with the daughter of the Burgermeister.

Lucas and I went into a couple of museums (one at the house of the richest merchant of the 1600's and the other at the old City Hall). Both buildings were burnt in the fire of 1730 and were later reconstructed in stone. They were odd collections of old furniture and utensils, and once again we wondered at how short these folks had been to fit in those old beds.

At about 1:30 pm we finished our visit, so we headed to Helsinki to visit the Rock Church. This church was excavated in the solid rock (basically they dug a cylindrical quarry) and was built in such a way that the walls are the bare rock, still with the traces of the drillholes used to split the stone. For a geologist is a great opportunity to look at high grade metamorphic rocks that are in the process of being partially melted to form a migmatite.

We criticized the fact that to visit the church you have to pay 8 euros per person! Géraldine told us that after the reconstruction of Notre Dame in Paris the government suggested a fee should be paid by tourists visiting the church, but the diocese categorically refused because a church is a place where anyone should be free to pray. Of course Lutheran churches might have a different opinion.

Géraldine then took us on a long walk back to the port, so we could stroll by the seaside. I would have been very enthusiastic about it, had it not been because I have been gimping all day on my twisted ankle and by then my foot was throbbing. I kept going on massive doses of Iboprufen.

On the way we saw a robotic box making food deliveries. It was the size of a small refrigerator and was crossing streets like a pro. In one instance where there was no traffic light it seems to have followed a person as he or she crossed the street. Quite a show by the small box!

Finland 2026 - Day 6 - Back to Helsinki

We enjoyed a slow sunny morning, but by 10 am had to get busy replacing the wood we had used, stripping the linen from the beds, washing the breakfast dishes, vacuuming, and moping the floor. We were done by 11 am but had to wait for the ferry until 12:30 pm, to carry us to firm land. Did I already mention that the ferry is free? Probably supported by the municipality to keep two islands connected to the rest of the county.

I have managed to give my cold to Géraldine, so in reaching the bigger town of Pargas we had to make a pharmacy stop for her to load on decongestants and cough syrup, and by then it was time for lunch, at a little pizzeria in downtown Pargas. I had what I thought was a pita with kebab, but instead turned into a giant folded pizza with the traditional thin-shaved lamb, lettuce, and chipotle mayo. Yumm, yumm.

We were a good 200 km away from Helsinki, so while Lucas drove I took another extended nap in the back seat. Closer to the city Géraldine took the wheel and we came to our rental apartment right at 4 pm. This reminds me of a weird dream I had last night. I was moving into a room in a community that kept growing as the dream progressed. I arrived sometime in the morning, with shining sun, but when the door was opened to welcome me in the place was in penumbra. I asked why the common areas were kept so dark, but nobody gave me an answer. In the darkness I stumbled into what I thought was my room, turned on the light, and instead of light I got grayness. Not that anyone else cared, but I declared then and there that I was not going to live in darkness, was cancelling my contract, and stormed out into the light. I wonder if this is the consequence of changing rooms so often during my travels.

I have a Zoom meeting at 7 pm, so I am going to stay here for that, while Géraldine and Lucas go out and forage for food.

Finland 2026 - Day 5 - So this is what being retired is like?

We spent a delightful but low energy day enjoying our island. It is a small island, with only a couple of roads and a couple of trails, so after walking them three or four times there was not much left to do. Basking in the sun over a rock has limited appeal to me, so I read, listened to an audiobook, started a fire, and yes, got a bit of island fever.

There is a community building with a good number of books, but they are in Finnish and I was not ready to start decoding any of them. There are also horses, sheep, and chickens roaming around, so the whole place has a very pastoral feeling to it.

Crazy Lucas decided to go for a swim in the Baltic Sea and when he came back he told me that it was very cold when he first jumped in, but after a moment his whole skin was frozen numb and he was actually able to swim encased in a protective suit of frozen skin (a bit like a wet neoprene suit).

Later in the evening I helped him start the sauna, but we put a bit too much wood in it and both Géraldine and him lasted only 10 minutes in the extreme heat.

We had a nice dinner of grilled salmon, grilled zucchinis and plain rice.

Finland 2026 - Day 4 - Living the life in a Finnish island

Alas, our time in Tallinn came to an end and at 8 am we took the ferry back to Helsinki. For some reason the return trip took an hour longer than the way in, and the ferry took us to another terminal far from where we had left the car. Fortunately, an Uber car appeared almost instantaneously and for little money took us to our parking garage so we were able to recover our wheels (the parking fee was pretty high).

Right away we drove out of Helsinki to the west, because Géraldine had booked us in a cabin in the woods on the small island of Björkholm, 250 km away. I wish I could describe to you the beauty of the country we drove through, but the truth is that I slept for most of the trip, only now and then getting glimpses of young shimmering forests and of farms surrounded by an apron of cereal fields. We made a short stop half way there, grabbed a bite to eat, and Lucas got behind the wheel, with Géraldine shifting instantly into her Mom role.

Once we got close to our goal, we had to stop at a supermarket to buy enough food for two dinners, two breakfasts, and one lunch, because we were going to spend two nights in our cabin in the woods. We got grilling stuff (baby pork ribs, salmon, zucchinis, and corn on the cob), rice, pasta, and lots of bread. But we took a bit too long in our shopping and all of a sudden found we only had 30 minutes to get to the ferry. First, we had to figure out where the ferry docked, which by pure chance I found in Google maps at a small anchorage 20 km away. Lucas was a master driver, taking us there in record time so we had 5 minutes to spare.

The ferry is free (probably run by the municipality to keep the small islands connected), but you need to make a reservation for the car, which we had done, so the crew was expecting us and quickly signaled us on board. The ride took maybe 20 minutes and we and a family that was clearly planning on spending their time here fishing debarked and were happily greeted by our hostess, who directed us to our very own piece of the Finnish paradise.

The cabin is comparatively large, and could sleep six people. It has electricity and running water, but instead of toilette has an outhouse. It has, however, a sauna room with a shower that Géraldine has been dreaming about. I was given the duty of starting the fire in the grill and the sauna, and within the hour we were grilling our baby pork ribs and the corn on the cob. We complemented the meal with a big pot of spaghetti al pesto and very much enjoyed eating under the sun and surrounded by trees and water.

The sauna heated to perfection while we were having dinner, and we had a relaxing half hour sweating our hearts out. I must confess I fail to see the attraction of locking yourself in a hot and very humid small room "to sweat away your worries" but will gladly go along with my traveling companions to get the whole Scandinavian experience :)

Finland 2026 - Day 3 - Tourists in Tallinn, Estonia

We woke up early enough to be at the ferry terminal by 8:30 am for a 9 am departure. It was an uneventful but very windy transit; fortunately, the MS Finland is a huge ferry that didn't sway at all. We landed in Tallinn at 10:30 am and right away started on the serious business of being tourists. We started with a visit to the KGB cells, which made us dive straight into Estonia's troubled past. It was a bone of contention between Denmark and Sweden for many years, but at last Sweden won in the 1700's. In the mid 1800's Estonia fought to become independent, and no sooner had the Swedes agreed to its independence when Russia nabbed the young state and held on to it through the Bolshevik revolution, when it became a part of the USSR. The Germans invaded Estonia during World War II and managed it for a few years, but at the end of the war Estonia went back to the USSR, and suffered its fair share under the dictatorship of Stalin and the terror of the KGB. Finally, in 1989, as the USSR fell apart Estonia regained its independence and became a member of the European Union. The country is prosperous, and the capital city, Tallinn, is a real gem of a town.

Seems to me there is no love lost between Estonia and Russia. We walked past the Russian embassy and the sidewalk was crowded with posters calling for Russia to stop the genocide in Ukraine, stop working toward a nuclear war, and generally stop abusing human rights.

We spent most of our time in the very charming Old Town, which is the medieval core of the city. Unfortunately, it is Monday, when a lot of the museums are closed, but we had fun visiting the old City Hall museum and climbing the 140 very steep steps of its tower. I almost died but had to agree that the view was worth the effort. We also visited the Lutheran Church of the Holy Spirit, which as Lutheran churches go had a lot to show, and St. Olaf's church, which was rather non-descript but which had a huge tower that Géraldine and Lucas climbed to get some great shots of the city. We finished our museum spree with a visit to the Maritime Museum, which was very well done. It is housed in one of the very fat towers that mark the entrance to the old walled city, and is developed over four circular levels. The bottom level is devoted to the prize of the collection, a cargo cogg that was discovered buried in sand in the bay, and which upon recovery yielded a sample of a varied cargo of pots, clothes, hides, and other common merchandises from the Middle Ages. From there the museum climbs through the evolution of sailing vessels, steam ships, and motor-powered ships, with all sorts of hands-on displays to illustrate the art of navigation, and the role that maritime traffic through the Baltic had from the Middle Ages to the Hansa Trade, through modern times. By the way, Tallinn got hit by the Bubonic Plague during the Middle Ages on a couple of occasions.

The rest of the time we just walked through the old town, admiring its many plazas and quaint buildings, which in tradesman fashion had the living quarters in the bottom floor and the warehouse space in the upper floors. Tallinn was part of that trade route established by the Vikings between England and Russia (which in turn extended its own traffic network through the middle and far East).

Outside of the Old Town Tallinn is a modern European city with an excellent system of trams (I know because we took one to go to dinner and I later rode another to its terminus and back), a neighborhood with Russian-style wood houses, many commercial centers, big blocks of modern apartment buildings, and lots of glass-fronted company headquarters. One could definitively live here. 

Finland 2026 - Day 2 - Tourists in Helsinki

In a by now regular pattern, I slept poorly. I think the cold compounded with my sleep apnea is causing me to wake up often during the night so I cannot get proper sleep. That is why I keep falling asleep everywhere. Anyway, Lucas arrived at midnight, he and Géraldine had some sleep and a good leisurely breakfast, and picked me up at 10 am to go explore Helsinki. We started with a very cool cruise through the hundreds of small islands that dot the bay, some of which were heavily fortified during the times of King Gustaf (late 1600's) when Sweden had to defend its colony from the Russians and the Poles. War continued during the 1700's, and eventually, in 1808 Russia won and the country became a part of the Russian empire as a duchy. We think it was from this time that the city was laid out in grand Russian imperial style. When the Bolshevik revolution came, in 1917, the duchy fought for independence and became its own country, Finland.

Going back to the boat tour (and I am sorry to have to confess that I fell asleep for short periods during the droning commentaries), the islands are coveted by the Finns both because they are crazy about nature, and also because the height of well-being is to own a cabin by the shore and retire there for a few days every summer (a bit like having a cabin by one of the lakes in the Sierra, a much coveted piece of real estate). The cabins run the whole spectrum of simple wooden affairs with a small dock and a row boat, to architectural pieces of art with wide waterfront windows and swanky motorboats in the dock.

Finns are well to do, although we couldn't figure out why. They manufacture electronics, manufacturing machinery, nuclear reactors, textiles, and a few more things, but when was the last you bought a product "made in Finland"? We googled trade with France and Géraldine was quick to note that it amounted to 20 million euros, rather than billions. Somebody must be buying a lot of Finnish products, however, because the per capita average income is one of the highest in Europe. By the way, Finland is a member of the European Union and is considering joining NATO, which I am sure it will not be looked upon kindly by Russia.

Our boat tour also showed us some of the many bridges that connect some of the bigger islands. The Finn architects and civil engineers are very proud of their bridges, which combine functionality with graceful design.

After the boat tour we hopped on the tourist bus to take a good look at the city. It was a perfect sunny Sunday to do it because everyone was out having fun. Helsinki has many parks by the waterfront, which are used for bicycling, strolling, bathing, and just having fun. I mentioned before the many food festivals, and there was also a lively flea market going on.

The city is small, but fiercely proud of its neighborhoods and boulevards. Unfortunately, I was traveling with two dyed-in-the-wool Parisians who had to laugh at the claims that the Esplanade was like the Champs Elysées, or about the highest concentrations of Art Nouveaux buildings in Europe. National pride is probably one of the causes why Finns are ranked as one of the happiest populations in the world.

The city has plenty of monuments and museums, but I am afraid that we didn't have time to get down from the bus and visit them. We sat under the sun for a while, and to avoid falling asleep I went and got myself a cup of frozen yoghurt. There are lots of wild berries in these high latitudes, and I got a mix of berries sweetened with honey that was very tasty (but, alas, it didn't last long).

Going back to the challenge about remembering, when was the last time you bought a "made in Finland" product? If you didn't come up with an answer it is probably because you were not shopping for an ice-breaker ship, for apparently the Fins build the finest of these specialty ships. Also, you may not have been looking for a telecommunications system for your company, city, or state, because such systems are one of their specialties. Nokia may have lost its market share of cell phones, but they are still masters in the realm of telecommunications.

Another funny thing is that Finland has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish. Swedish-speakers are a definite minority, but because the two languages are official, all state signs are printed in both languages. This is a blessing for us, because Swedish is a Germanic language, and if you blur your eyes you can make sense of what is written. Finnish and Estonian are Uralic languages, and there you don't have a chance.

Tomorrow we need to leave early to catch a ferry to Tallinn, Estonia, so we called it a day early to give us enough time to pack a small bag and get some rest. 

Finland 2026 - Day 1 - Stockholm to Helsinki

Géraldine and I were a little shocked when we found we would be making the early morning flight in a propeller plane. Nothing wrong with propeller planes, but in this age of jets you cannot imagine a plane carrying 100+ people being of this kind. I fell immediately asleep and only woke up when we were getting ready to start our descent, which gave me a chance to look over a landscape full of small lakes and green forest clusters.

What started as a runny nose in Germany has now developed into a full strength cold, with coughing and lethargy to boot. I got some medication at the pharmacy in the Stockholm airport, but it is that "bio" stuff that doesn't have the punch of synthetic drugs.

We rented a car at the airport and headed for downtown Helsinki right away, parked in an underground garage, and went around to look for the City Information office to get some suggestions on what to see and do. We looked from the distance into the magnificent white cathedral of Helsinki, which sits in a hill and can be reached through a colossal staircase of 200 steps. It reminded me of Sacré-Coeur in Paris. The cathedral was closed for renovations, but according to the young lady at the information desk it is nicer to see from the outside than from the inside.

We then headed for the port, and in the way passed several rows of street vendors offering all sorts of delicious food, to go or to eat in their sitting areas. I think this is a weekend tradition among the Finns, because the place was packed. We saw two other plazas taken by a Thai Food Festival and an Italian Food Festival, respectively, where lots of folks were sitting down to the serious task of getting lunch.

Our steps took us to the Central Library, the pride and joy of Helsinki. This modern building is immense and has three stories devoted to providing a space for reading and for the creative arts. The second floor includes computer facilities and all sorts of printers to create posters, design plans, and 3-D prints. It also has recording studios, music practice studios, study rooms, conference rooms, and everything is for free to library members. Not a member? No problem, just move to Helsinki and you can become one. The third room is the book collection, which is spacious and bright, and includes many corners for readers of all ages to curl around a good book. It also has an amazing view of the city, a cafeteria, and an open terrace where you can enjoy the view, the breeze, and the sun. We made the mistake of sitting on a couple of comfortable chairs and it was so lovely and pleasant that I immediately fell asleep!

After my impromptu nap we went back and recovered our car (parking is so expensive here), and went for a drive to locate the ferry terminal we will be using in a couple of days to take the ferry to Tallinn, Estonia. We found out that we will be leaving from the West terminal, which has a good parking garage, but will be coming back to the East terminal, 5 km away. Rats! That means we will have to take a cab to get back to the parking lot we let the car at. Reminds me of Paris, where you may arrive at the Gare du Nord and have to cross the city to transfer to the Gare de Lyon to continue your trip.

By now my cold was reaching alarming proportions, so Géraldine decided to drive me to the apartment I had booked for the night to get into bed and try to get better. She has to pick her son Lucas at the airport at midnight, so she decided to book another room for themselves both to be close to the airport and to let me suffer in peace. After she left I walked 5 minutes to the local supermarket, walked down the corridors (always a pleasant adventure) and got some pasta and herring in a mustard sauce for dinner. Finland uses euros as its currency, and I had some left in my wallet from the start of my trip, so the transaction went smoothly. Home at last I had dinner and promptly went into a catatonic sleep.

Sweden 2026 - Day 7 - Back to Stockholm .. the Viking Museum

We were late leaving out little cabin in the woods because part of the deal is that we had to do a thorough cleaning job after ourselves (vacuuming, moping, wiping all shiny surfaces, etc.), but at last we were off and around 1 pm we parked near the Viking Museum, which we were both interested in seeing. It was very well done, but it was comparatively small and maybe we could have used our time better in the Museum of Nordic Life. You get what you get.

The age of the Vikings generally extends from 700 to 1100, or what was in Central Europe the first half of the medieval age. I mentioned before that the Vikings were Scandinavian people interested in trade, moving merchandise from the west to the markets of the Middle East. One of the most precious commodities were slaves, which is why the Vikings were known as plunderers and pillagers. Most of the time, however, were farmers that only took one or two exploration/trade trips in their lives,

Géraldine, who is blond and has blue eyes, was happy to see that the Vikings had come into northern France and Bretagne (even as far as northern Spain), thus explaining the blondes found in France and Spain, where otherwise people tend to be swarthy in complexion. I think she should do one of those genetic tests to see what percentage in her ancestry comes from Scandinavia.

After the museum we went for a walk along the waterfront, ate a hot dog like everyone else seemed to be doing, and walked to the cathedral, which for some reason we had not visited before. It was decorated with some pretty impressive statuary art (e.g., Saint George laying the dragon) and has a beautiful organ, but seemed a bit small for a town the size of Stockholm.

On the way back, somehow, I took a wrong turn and we ended stranded on a small island facing the Viking Museum. The only way to get there was to take the regular boat bus service, so we got an extra ride through the harbor as part of my mistake.

Finally, we drove to the airport hotel where we are spending the night, I dropped Géraldine off, and went to return the car. I had booked a ride back to the hotel with the hotels shuttle and manage to catch it just in time. By 6:30 pm I was back, we had dinner, and braced for an early ride to the airport to take our 8 am flight to Helsinki. 

Sweden 2026 - Day 6 - The Baltic Sea

Yesterday we got our fill of the grand city of Götborg, so today we drove to the mouth of the estuary, in Langedrag, to put our foot (or Géraldine's foot to be precise) in the Baltic Sea. Everybody seems to have had the same idea, because all parking lots were full, and a stream of people was walking toward what I imagine was the beach. We went around the marina, found a parking spot, and walked along the rocky sides of the marina until the street turned into a hiking path. Some crazy old people were swimming in the sea like it was a warm tub, but when Géraldine dipped her toes in she almost turned blue.

The coast of the Baltic Sea is bound by rounded knobs of granite and gneiss, sculpted by the glaciers, in between which there might here and there be a tiny beach. Swedes of all ages were happily splashing in the water, or stretched over the boulders to catch some sun. Reminded me of the coast of Main or the coast of Brittany in France. For us it was a lovely walk, but the idea of getting in that cold water seemed like insanity (cruel parents tossed their toddlers into the frigid waters like if they were seal pups).

On the way back to the car we stopped at a tiny café, where the chatty owner was full of wisecracks. When we asked for cappuccino he answered he only had Swedish coffee ... then, after some reflection he added that it was not true Swedish coffee because that would imply a cup half full of coffee and half full of vodka. So we took our simple coffee to one of the outside tables and soon the old timer came to sit with us while trying to repair a fan. He encouraged us to look for strange things in the marina, such as someone falling from a boat or rookies getting tangled trying to launch a sailboat. Then he attempted to guess where we were from (failed miserably) and on knowing I was Mexican told me of the years he had spent working by the Mexican border in Texas, and the fun times he had in Cd. Juarez and Matamoros. The conversation then drifted into fish and I mention I had not been able to taste a real Swedish fish, like herring. He jumped up from is chair, went inside, and a few minutes later came back with a small filet of smoked mackerel, which he had smoked himself and two dollops of his self-made mayo. So I finally tried some local fish! Then, as we were saying goodbye he asked me if I wanted to try pickled herring, and on hearing my affirmative answer again went inside and brought out a jar, which he gave me as a present "because you are Mexican and I like you". He was indeed a very kind man.

After our visit to the coast we had to drive 350 km on the way back toward Stockholm (altogether too much driving in this trip). We are spending the night at a horse farm where the owner rents some small cottages. She breeds Icelandic horses, which I always thought were short, but the ones we have seen so far are full size. Tonight we plan to go for pizza to go and bring it to eat in our wonderful terrace.

Sweden 2026 - Day 5 - A long drive to Götborg

Maps are deceptive. Sweden does not look that wide on a map, but getting to Götborg (or Gothenburg as shown in Google Maps) took a good four hours (350 km). Part of the slow progress was the maddening tendency of Swedish highway managers, who keep lowering the speed limit around every crossroads. Fortunately, we can both drive so we took relays.

We only did one stop along the way, at Trollhätte, to take a look at the canyon of the Göta river, which is the outlet of the giant Lake Vänern. The canyon is a good 100 m deep, and was likely carved through glaciated granites and gneisses by large floods as the ice dams of the Ice Age broke down. The city, which announces itself in a large set of tall white letters as "Trollywood", was the playground of hydraulic engineers, who built several dams and canals to take advantage of the gradient to generate hydroelectricity. The Göta river is navigable, so to facilitate the passage of boats between the lake and the river two sets of locks were built (although by the look of them they have not been in use for a long time). It was a welcome way to stretch our legs.

Götborg is Sweden's second largest cities and its most important port. It is a prosperous and modern city, with lots of freeways and complicated turns and turns (happily for me it was Géraldine's turn to drive). The city is located across the estuary formed as the Göta river empties into the Bay of Kattegat. The city has thus developed on both banks of the river, but the southeast bank is where the old city is, and the northwest bank is where most of the port facilities are located.

The "old city" suffers from a modernity wash that has made it as generic as other modern port cities such as Oakland or Rotterdam. We walked all around it looking for quaint corners but mostly found big commercial pedestrian walks bordered by the same swanky brands you find all over the world. The "old city" is crossed by a couple of canals along which green corridors have been preserved, and which are clearly a favorite spot for locals to sit in the grass and enjoy their sack lunches.

Looking at what were the signature dishes of the city we found that seafood is reputed to be very good. I was particularly attracted to the idea of getting some herring. In California we can get pickled herring or herring in cream sauce, but the specialty here is a fermented herring which reputedly has a very strong smell and delicious flavor. So we went out of our way to find a fish restaurant for dinner, but they looked down their noses when I asked for herring (obviously a low-quality fisherman's fare), and we settled for cod fish for Géraldine, and a  shrimp smørrebrød—an open-faced rye sandwich piled high with a small mountain of shrimp—for me. They were very good, but I was still stuck in getting some herring, so I dragged Géraldine to a supermarket to buy myself a can of herring with a zero result. I will have to wait until I get back home to have a proper Swedish fish dinner. 

Sweden 2026 - Day 4 - Uppsala to Ervalla

Today was a driving day through lovely landscapes. The relief of the land is low, with the hills being crystalline basement rocks scoured flat by the passage of the glaciers of the Ice Age. Most of the "hills" support fairly open forests, and in between pasture and wheat are being grown. To me the wheat looks ready for harvest, but I imagine the farmers are letting it get as dry and dense as possible.

Our first stop after leaving Stockholm was at the Dream Park in Enköping (self-proclaimed city of parks). The Dream Park is a smaller portion of a bigger park where a landscape horticulturalist went crazy planting any imaginable flowering plant in Sweden. Not being flower aficionados we limited ourselves to enjoying the kaleidoscope of colors and pushed forward to visit the Church of Notre Dame (Vårfrukyrkan in Danish), which is a 12th century Catholic Church that was converted to Evangelic during the Reformation. The glass windows and wall paintings are very nice.

We then drove to the Ship Museum near Vasteras. This open-air museum is someone's private collection of full-size replicas of boats from the Viking time (which to us looked smaller than what the movies represent--but let's remember that the Vikings were traders, and probably had a greater need for cargo boats than for fighting boats), an amazing replica of a Hansa trading boat that you could visit, and toy versions of trebouchets and other medieval tools and technologies.

We were getting hungry, but before going to Vesteras we stopped at the Anungshög (meaning Anungs Mound) archeologic site. This was a Viking royal burial site, where after the burial folks piled dirt to a height of 10 meters or so, and then planted a dolmen with all sorts of beautiful runes and built fine "ships" by marking the oval outline of ships with large stones. Archaeologists speculate that the mound was the meeting location of the people's council, or Ting, where disputes were aired in public and conflicts were resolved by the elders of the community. 

Vasteras, the largest town in our itinerary, claims to be one of the oldest towns in Sweden, going back to the early medieval period. We thought the center would be defined by narrow alleys but were disappointed. Old houses have the same aspect of heavy log constructions painted in dark red we saw in Viby, but the whole area around the cathedral was rebuilt in later times as public buildings. By this time it was too late to think about lunch, so we stopped for a coffee and Géraldine bought herself a chocolate ball, which is some type of pastry loaded with chocolate and coated with coconut shavings. Great if you are looking for a sugar high!

We took a small detour to see the Hljesta petroglyphs, which we visited taking advantage of an old "law" of Sweden: The Right to Wander. This "law" gives anyone the right to wander through fields and farms (as long as no damage is done) at your will. In this case we wandered behind a barn to look at two granite floors, leveled by the glaciers, where close to 100 petroglyphs have been painted. There are several dozen ships represented, as well as several human figures and all sorts of geometric designs. The site is a registered historical landmark, but I have my suspicions because the red paint looks suspiciously new and bright. The petroglyphs are not scratched unto the rocks but simply painted on them, and I find hard to believe they have withstood several hundreds of years of exposure to sun and rain.

Géraldine booked a B&B at Ervalla, and when we got there our friendly hostess, Christina, welcomed us with open arms. She is so cute. Her English is good but not great, an she has the strong accent that we have heard in the movies, with many interjections of "Ja, ja". But her smile was beautiful and we will spend a very comfortable night here. We have two bedrooms but the flat is pretty much ours because there are no other costumers. Through the windows we have a fabulous view of rural Sweden, which on a sunny day like today would be hard to beat anywhere else.

At the suggestion of Christina we drove 20 minutes to Nora to look for our dinner. Nora is a pretty town, by the side of a lake, and in comparison has a bustling afternoon life. Even though it was already 6:30 pm the sun was shining brightly and people were taking a boat out or simply basking in the sun at the center plaza. We ate on the terrace of one of the restaurants by the plaza, fully enjoying the sun and the people watching.

Sweden 2026 - Day 3 - Sigtuna and Uppsala

Turns out that Uppsala is not that far from Stockholm, so we decided to make a small detour to visit the town of Sigtuna. It is a small town that in some way reminded Géraldine of a cowboy movie set, with its small wooden houses so different from the palatial architecture of the capital. But its current bucolic character belittles the important role it had in Viking and early Christian times, when it vied for supremacy with Uppsala.

The small museum has a good time line connecting the remains that have been found from seal hunters of the stone age, early farmers spanning the bronze and iron age, to Roman times, the early fiefdoms, to the Viking age when trade with the far east increased considerably (500 to 900 AD), to the Middle Ages, and finally to the kingdom of Sweden in the late 1500's. Interestingly, we all think of the Vikings as plunderers, but they were in fact merchants that used their fast ships to move products of Scandinavia through the Baltic and Caspian seas, in exchange of the silver of the far east.

We also saw some fine examples of stone stele covered with runes of pre-Viking times.

To stretch our legs we made a half-hour hike to the hamlet of Viby, which is a frozen in time collection of farms from the 18th century, when rural construction was based on the use of heavy logs painted on a uniform dark red color, animal husbandry in close proximity to the farmers, and little input from the outside world. They built the enclosures for their animals by stabbing young saplings diagonally to the ground and piling them on each other with the guiding help of a couple of stakes every two meters or so. They form a very attractive pattern that extends throughout the hamlet.

We had lunch in Sigtuna (I had a type of Swedish bouillabaisse with fish and shellfish that was very tasty) and after that Géraldine took the wheel and drove us to Uppsala while I dozed by her side. Once in Uppsala it took us a while to find a good parking place where we could park for 4 hours, and from there went directly to visit the cathedral. Sweden was a Catholic country, but during the Reformation the king decreed that the state religion would change to Evangelic-Lutheran, so the cathedral is a peculiar combination of Gothic Catholic and stern Evangelic architecture. The cathedral dates back to the 13th century, but after the Reformation several of the side chapels were converted into tombs for the Swedish kings, and all saints were removed leaving behind empty platforms (more about this later). High bell towers were added in the 15th century, but a fire in 1702 destroyed all the glass windows and the bell towers. The cathedral was reconstructed in the early 1800s, at which time a new pair of towers, this time in harmony with the initial Gothic style were added. On the inside of the cathedral there are some fine mosaic murals.

The cathedral looks a bit empty because of the missing saints, so an enterprising minister decided to use the whole building as a gallery for an exposition by a British sculptor, Sean Henry, who represents the people you might find along the street in metal, and painted in very realistic colors. Very fine exposition, but weird to see a majestic cathedral used for this purpose. 

After that we meandered through the buildings of the University of Uppsala in direction to the castle. Unfortunately the castle itself was closed (Monday closure), but we were able to visit the outside, the fortifications, and the garden (which is now the botanical garden of the university). We ended our walk on a bench at the edge of the Fyris River, to share with many happy locals the fresh calm atmosphere of the afternoon.

Sweden 2026 - Day 2 – Stockholm

I woke up to a message from Lufthansa to the effect that my luggage had been located, giving me the location number, and telling me to await further instructions for pickup. Géraldine once again wanted to go to the airport and shout at them, but I convinced to go do our tourist visit to Stockholm and in the evening, after receiving the pickup instructions, go to the airport. I would have hated to miss one sunny day to visit Stockholm.

A 30 minute drive brought us to the heart of the city, where we found a parking garage and left the car for the day (at a very steep parking fee), and walked to the front of the Royal Palace, where the hop on-hop off tourist bus and boat stops. We started by taking the boat to get a panoramic view of the core of Stockholm. This medieval city grew considerably since the 1500's and the waterfront is now lined with imposing public buildings.

Stockholm is located in the estuary formed by the confluence of two or three rivers with unpronounceable names, so every piece of land is either an island or a peninsula surrounded by water.

Stockholm was part of the Hanseatic League which conducted trade throughout northern Europe, and many German and Dutch people lived here, considerably influencing the medieval architecture of the old town. Prosperity attracted trouble, and from 1200 to 1500 the city was the bone of contention between Swedes, Danes, Dutch, and Polish. In 1520 King Gustav Vasar finally defeated their enemies and a brief period of peace followed, just to be followed by the 30 year war (1618-1648). King Gustav II decided to protect Sweden at all costs and built a large war fleet. But they were not very good at designing ships, and on August 10, 1628, their first two-deck warship, the Vasa, listed shortly after being launched and sank in the harbor (it was too narrow, top heavy, and not properly ballasted).

The sunken ship was forgotten, until the 1960's, when a group of marine archaeologists found it stuck in the mud of the bay. Years of hard work followed, and the Vasa was finally lifted from its mud grave, brought to dock, and for years has been the object of careful reconstruction. We went to see it at its museum, and I was shocked at its enormous size (it would have accommodated 150 sailors and 300 soldiers) and a patina that gave it the impression of being a ghost ship.

The bus tour through the city was informative both about the old history of the city, and its dynamic modernity. It has horrible climate, with short summers and long winters, but the inhabitants seem to enjoy being outside year round. Now it is summer, so everyone seems to be taking the chance to go biking, jogging, or play with the kids in one of many parks. In the winter they like ice skating in the frozen lakes or playing in the snow.

The Swedes are very amiable people, all of who speak perfect English. They have an obsession of charging for parking, however, so I was a bit weary about stopping at random for fear of a traffic ticket (but I think it is more the reputation than the reality, because I saw very few uniformed people). Thank God I have Géraldine with me, who keeps me grounded when I look at prices. The Swedish krone is about 10 cents of a euro, so it is easy to covert prices on the fly, and every time I gasp at a price she assures me that it is not so different from what you pay for the same item in France (still, I think that a 6 euro caffe latte is outrageously expensive). Gasoline is cheap, however, at 1.60 euros per liter compared with 2,20 euros in Germany.

I didn't receive a message from Lufthansa about my luggage, so I finally followed my friend's advice and went to the airport decided to fight for my backpack. Turns out that Lufthansa uses a contractor, Aviator, to handle luggage issues, so after not finding a Lufthansa counter I stopped at the Information desk and was directed to the correct door, which was firmly closed. I had to call Aviator and explain what brought me there, gave the luggage ID number to the guy who answered, and was told to wait by the door. Ten minutes later I was ready to call again when this old guy comes to the door carrying my backpack! I was so happy I forgot to show my displeasure at the whole incident (on getting back to the precariously parked car I got the riot act read to me for not asking for proper compensation from my troubles). But all is well that is well, and I hope I have learnt a valuable lesson from the whole episode.

Sweden 2026 - Day 1 - The village idiot on the way to Stockholm

I woke to my last half day in Germany just in time to say goodbye to my dear Chrissy, who is going on the annual adventure tour several friends organize. One of the couples choses a 2-day itinerary that is fun, and the others follow in their cars without a clear idea of where they are going. They do this once a year on the last weekend of July.

For the rest of the morning I lounged around with Gustav, watching the prior to the last day of Le Tour de France, which is basically a brutal uphill route across the Alps. Those guys are crazy but they are also amazing athletes! We waited for a good stage to be finished and took off for the airport.

Frankfurt airport is huge, so it pays to get there with enough time to wander around. I was just entering the airport around 2 pm, for a 4:30 pm flight, when I get a message from Lufthansa letting me know the flight is full and offering to check-in my hand luggage for free. Cool! Like the idiot I am I went to the automated kiosk, printed the label, and deposited my backpack in an automated container that swallowed it into the depths of the luggage-eating monster. I was feeling very good, ambling myself toward the security check when, imagining I was going through passport control, I realized in a panic that my passport was inside my backpack! I broke in a sweat as I went back to the counter, to look for some human to help me. The nice lady at the counter told me the only thing to do was to call the luggage back. She got busy in the phone, and after 10 minutes wait in the phone she told me that not having my passport would not be a big deal, because there was no passport control in either Frankfurt or Stockholm. But she persisted on the phone, finally got someone, and after talking with him told me that my luggage would be delivered in carousel 3 of the Arrivals hall in about 30 minutes. She gave me precise instructions on how to get there and reminded me that I probably would not have time to check my backpack again so I should carry it with me in order not to miss the plane (it was 2:30 pm by then, so it seemed I had plenty of time).

30 minutes went by. Then another 30 minutes. So I left the hall and went to look for some additional help from the Service Counter of Lufthansa. Another nice lady listened to my plight, and went to check on what was known about my luggage and how much time I had before boarding. She told me the bag had been scanned and I should give it 10 more minutes, but the boarding time was approaching and I would be quite in a hurry.

I went back to the Arrivals hall, and 10 minutes later a nice man called my name and told me his colleague from upstairs had called, and he was going to try to see where my luggage was. Five minutes later he tells me that my bag is by the airplane waiting to be loaded. "Fine", I said, "can you please tell them to load it and I will pick it up in Stockholm". He assured me he would do that, but now I really had to trot to the departure gate, which happened to be the farthest in Hall A. I did have a photo of my passport in my cell phone, and I was ready to beg for understanding from any official who demanded to see my travel document. God protects idiots, and I miraculously boarded a flight to another country without a valid passport on me. I figured I would tell the Swedish officials that my passport was in the arriving luggage, and if they would just let me go retrieve it everything would be in order.

Alas, there is no passport control at the Stockholm airport, at least for flights coming from the EU, and I was starting to relax when I got a message from Lufthansa letting me know that my baggage had been left behind at Frankfurt airport, but "not to worry" we will put it in the next flight to Stockholm arriving at midnight. Somehow I was able to rent the car I had reserved, reached the hotel, and waited for midnight, because I had to pick up Géraldine who was arriving from Paris. Stockholm airport is really screwed up, and only has about 100 m of curb in Terminal 5 where arriving passengers can be picked up. But again we had good luck and met, and then I poured my tale of woe into my friend's ear. Géraldine is a true Parisian, and was ready to go fight with Lufthansa but I convinced her that there was not much we can do at midnight and we will have to come back in the morning to pick up the missing backpack. Of course everything I needed was in that backpack: passport, medicines, emergency money, clothes. It was going to be a rough night, but there was not much to do about it but bare my teeth and grin.

Germany 2026 - Day 7 – Darmstadt

Today we did something new for both Christine and me, and went to visit the city of Darmstadt. Following the German language propensity for fusing two words into one, Darmstadt could be translated into English as the Large Intestine City. Almost as musical as our own city of Manteca.

But Darmstadt is a city where the last Duke, Ludwing IV, was a supporter of the arts and several new buildings were built at the start of the 20th century in Art Nouveau style, which here in Germany is called Jugendstil. This style became very famous because of the work of Gaudi in Barcelona. In Darmstadt is very prominent in the district called Mathildenhöhe, where the Wedding Tour extends its five colorful tops high into the air and can be seen from a long distance (it is called the wedding tower because it was built for the marriage of Ludwig). The tower is surrounded by an art museum fountains, sculptures, a peculiar park where trees are arranged in a geometric pattern, and a small but very beautiful Russian Orthodox church. This cluster is called the Artists’ Colony and is recognized as a UNESCO site.

Christine was in tourist mode, so we walked quickly to the Herren Park (unfortunately very dry and dusty because there is no irrigation), the downtown area, along one of the sides of the large Technological University campus (which includes the Operation Center of the European Space Agency, and the GSI Center for Heavy Ion Research), and under construction an accelerator Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR)), and the Hill of the Roses, which is a combination of (dry) park and a well-tended rose garden, where a very large variety of roses are collected.

Darmstadt is also famous because the Messel Grube Eocene fossil site. Today the Grube Messel is a hole in the ground, from which oil shale was mined starting in the 1880’s and until the 1960’s, to distill kerosene out of it by heating it under pressure. The leftovers, which were now enriched in polyaromatic petroleum hydrocarbons (PAHs) as a result of the heating, were then accumulated in a gigantic pile by the side of the mine. Well, it turns out that PAHs are carcinogenic, so five years ago Gustav had the task of evaluating how bad the problem was, and then figuring out a way to remove those contaminated soils to a hazardous substances landfill. The most interesting aspect of the site, however, is that the black shales, although very thick, had a limited geographic distribution, and the company mining them concluded that they had been accumulated in a deep lake during the Eocene (56 to 34 million years ago), and by looking further at the geology concluded that this deep, circular lake had been born as a maar during a phreatomagmatic explosion. Now that is not something you see every day, but … wait … there is more to this story. Germany at the time was this warm, sticky place, and the lake was chocked with algae (that is where the petroleum hydrocarbons came from) among which swam crocodiles, otters, turtles, and a few frogs and fish. The frogs attracted some waterfowl, and the surrounding trees were teeming with lemurs, snakes, birds, and insects. There were so many insects! And all of these critters duly died and sank to the bottom of this euxinic lake, where they quickly fossilized among the black, stinking mud that accumulated relentlessly on the bottom of the lake. The unique conditions thus led to the formation of one of the most amazing fossil treasures ever, which have provided us with beautifully preserved fossils of the dawn of the Age of Mammals. 

Germany 2026 - Day 6 - The Emperor's New Clothes

Today we explored Seligenstadt, a very pretty medieval town on the south bank of the Main River. The place has an interesting history. It seems that one of the emperor's advisers, a certain Einhard, was thinking on retirement when two of his representatives in Rome discovered the tomb of Martyrs Marcellinus and Petrus, who in the 4th century refused the order of emperor Dioclesianus to recant on their Catholic faith and were put to death. The remains of the two martyrs became the key to Einhard's retirement plan: In 827, he had the bones spirited out of Rome and brought to Germany, where he had built a basilica to host them. The presence of the relicts attracted many pilgrims and the corresponding good income.

Unfortunately, through different signs the martyrs indicated that they didn't feel comfortable in this place, and a year later their remains were moved to a place where the main Roman way crossed the river Main (a much better site to ensure a constant flow of pilgrims), and there Einhard built a second basilica that soon gained a reputation for the many miracles performed by the patron saints. Him and his wife were eventually buried there. A town grew around the basilica, Selingen, and by 1675 it was a regular and prosperous medieval city. In 1730 the basilica became part of the local diocese, and over the following 100 years was expanded into the Benedictine convent of Selingstadt. The convent has beautifully tended gardens and is a favorite place for families to walk around and buy some of the local ice cream.

Later in the afternoon our good friend Raymond came to the house as part of the group that was to get together to go to the theater in the early evening. Raymond and Christine are traveling buddies, and I have also had a chance to travel with him to Lake Baikal, Georgia, and the Camino de Santiago. He is about my age but stays very fit and is always a good conversationalist. The first part of the afternoon program was to go across the river Main and go to the site of an old basalt quarry, Dietesheimer, where the quarry pits have flooded to form a cluster of small lakes that has been converted into a park where people enjoy walking or, like we did, having dinner at one of the small restaurants that are always found in recreation areas.

From there we headed toward Hanau, a city that happens to be the birthplace of the Brothers Grimm, well known for the folktales they collected as part of their work as linguists. All around the city are small bronze sculptures that celebrate Snow White, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and the many other famous stories we all listened to as kids. Hanau also has a castle, Phillipsrhue, with vast gardens that are now one of the big green areas of the city. In this green area an open-air theater has been built, and every summer there is a series of theater pieces that celebrate the folktales tradition of the city. Tonight it is one of Hans Christian Andersen stories that is being represented, The Emperor's New Clothes.

The other members of our group were our friend Shousha (another traveling friend from Lake Baikal and Georgia) and her partner Mathias. Shousha is a biologist, and has recently completed her Habilitation (a type of high-level PhD) and with that secured a teaching position at the University of Ulm, where she is conducting research on medication to reduce the effects of arthritis. I believe Mathias is in the same field, but I am not sure.

The representation of the folk tale was very good, and I got most of it (partly because I know how the story goes and partly because actors and actresses speak very loud and clearly). Some pieces of the dialog bring the story to date, like the emperor thinking he could put a tariff on the air we breathe, a clear reference to the crazy and irrational behavior of a certain world leader. I was very glad for the chance to see the play and seeing old friends again.

Germany 2026 - Day 5 - Walking through the forest top

I am very lucky that Chrissy knows hundreds of cool spots and doesn't mind being my very own tourist guide. Today she figured out that we could go for a walk in the clouds near the town of Bad Camberg. The town, with the idea of increasing tourist traffic has built a forest attraction: Der Baumwipfelweg. It would be Chico's building dream, with massive wood pillars supporting a timber ladder and high path that meanders up and down the tips of the trees in a mixed oak and pine forest near town. It is a massive lumber structure whose ramps and stairs brings you 100 feet above the forest floor, where you can observe trees, birds, and insects to your heart's content.

To increase its educational value all along the trip, which must be at least half a kilometer long, you find little challenges to help you learn more about the forests of the world and their amazing inhabitants. My favorite was learning about mushrooms that can turn insects into zombies. One type invades the brain of some ants, and then controls them to seek a particular type of bush and tightly clamp their jaws into it. The mushroom then multiplies in the brain of the ant, kills it, and is able to spread into the right type of plant to continue its zombie-creating career. Another mushroom does the same thing with wasps, and thus propagates itself over long distances as the infected wasp flies to his death at a farther location.

The structure is so skinny and tall that it sways in the wind, giving you a bit of a start. The whole thing is kept within modest limits by guy wires of heavy braided steel, but I for one would not like to be up here during a storm. Outside of these brief moments of swaying it was a delightful experience to be so high in the forest, with magnificent views of the surrounding land.

Once you are on the region you feel compelled to visit Bad Camberg, another of the hundreds of medieval towns that sprung left and right in this part of Germany. The old town was built around 1665, but many of the houses were renovated in the 2000's and make a colorful mosaic to celebrate its old history. The right place to enjoy an ice cream cone.

For the evening we were invited to the birthday dinner of an old friend of the family, Christiane, offered to her and friends by her husband Michael. I was glad to see there my old friends Gaby and Dieter, and to catch up on their life as grandparents. Gaby is an architect, and is the fifth generation to run the Fischer architectural firm, which apparently has built most of the town of Dörningheim. Her daughter Sandra is now slowly getting ready to obtain her architect license and eventually will take over the firm. It is slow work because in the meantime she has married and now has two kids, who are the joy and constant headache of their doting grandparents. Dieter was a computer security consultant, but is now retired (in fact, except for me everyone at the table was retired, because Germany has a mandatory retirement at age 65. Folks can still work as consultants or on their own companies, but most chose to enjoy the break. Food for thought.

Now that he is retired, Dieter has taken on a very interesting hobby. He is a Formula 1 enthusiast, so he has bought a Formula 1 simulator that allows him to seat in the very narrow cabin, has hydraulic controls that simulate the stirring and vibration of the wheels, and the resistance of the pedals, plus video access to any Formula 1 track in the world. The simulations include horrendous accidents where he has to let the stirring wheel go or he could break a wrist. The simulator can also use other vehicles, so he can test new or vintage classics like Mustang or Camaro. Kind of fun, isn't it?

Germany 2026 - Day 4 - Exploring Celtic and Medieval spots near Frankfurt

Dear Chrissy is doing her best to keep me entertained, so she suggested checking out a pretty medieval town 40 km away named Büdingen, at the very edge of the Vogelsberg, where the basaltic lava flows bank against Triassic red sandstones with prominent cross-bedding. Castle and city walls are built of these sandstones, which gives them an attractive firey aspect. Medieval times are considered a Dark Age with respect to the humanities, but these folks were accomplished engineers who built amazing fortifications and castles. A common design, like in Büdingen, was a form of "8", where one of the circles was slightly elevated and more heavily fortified to host the castle of the lord. The other circle is where the daily life of the castle took place, the men at arms trained, and the servants did their daily chores. In case of attack, the first line of defense was this "lower" court, and to enter the "upper" circle the enemy would have had to go through the narrow passage connecting both, where they could be stopped by a portcullis or rocks thrown from the ramparts above.

The houses of the common people outside the castle were also well engineered, rising four stories high and standing today, thanks to a solid skeleton of massive timbers. The walls, as I understand it, were little more than adobe but well protected by plaster and slate roofs. There was also an old water mill, reminding me that these Dark age folks were also excellent hydraulic engineers that harnessed the energy of flowing water to operate all sorts of ingenious processes, such as the fulling of wool.

While in Büdingen we noticed that there were images of frogs everywhere. This fascination with frogs comes from the time when the lord of the castle married. There was a big celebration, lots of wine, and coming the night the lord fell asleep immediately and started snoring. The frustrated bride couldn't get any rest and went to open the window, only to add to the snores the croaking of hundreds of frogs. The following morning the angry bride told the lord that he had to get rid of all those frogs, who inhabited the moat of the castle. If that was not done immediately, she would have the marriage annulled and depart. In desperation the lord gave instructions to his second in command to mobilize all the inhabitants of the town to gather the frogs. Everybody came, with buckets, sacks, pots, and wallowing through the muddy floor of the moat gathered hundreds of frogs. What to do with so many frogs? The suggestion of burning them in a big fire was considered to cruel, so finally they dumped them in a nearby river and allowed the current to carry them away. The bride was satisfied and everybody lived happily ever after.

Stepping back in time, Chrissy took me to the Keltenwelt am Glauberg (literally "the World of the Celts"). Once we got there I recognized the place as one I had visited with friend Kerstin 10 years ago. It is one of the important archaeologic sites around Frankfurt, dating for the first millennium BC, when the linguistic group of the Celts extended from Ireland and Spain in the west to Türkiye (Anatolia) on the east. The heart of the Celtic world was France (the Gauls were Celtic people), Germany, and Poland. They could be considered the original inhabitants of Europe from about 1000 BC to 100 BC, when first the Alemanni and other Germanic tribes started to invade them, followed by Julius and his Roman legions.

Anyway, Keltenwelt was discovered in the 1960's when the farmer that grew corn on the flanks of a small volcanic plateau took a flight over his land and saw that the corn was not doing that well on the periphery of a perfect circle. He mentioned that to the municipal authorities and in the 70's an archaeology team discovered a burial at the center of the circle, and somehow speculated that a mound or barrow a good 10 meter high had covered the tomb (mind you, the land was flat, so the barrow that stands there right now is an archaeologic reconstruction). Geophysics also identified a series of ditches that went around the footprint of the barrow, and in one of them found a statue of a warrior wearing a padded vest and a headdress that looks like he had gone to Disneyland and gotten a pair of Mickey ears. He was immediately hailed as the Prince of the Celts, and a very fine museum has been built around this find. I visited this museum 10 years ago, so we didn't go in, but later Kerstin reminded me that at the time I had thought they really knew very little about who this fellow was, or who had been buried under the (imaginary) barrow.

However, Chrissy, Leo the dog, and myself took a very fine walk up to the plateau that overlooks the site, where all sorts of artifacts have been found spanning the first millennium BC, and at a later date the remains of a Medieval village. The archaeologists did not try to reconstruct the village, but they exposed a series of cellars that made me think that this village must have looked like the street where Chrissy and Gustav live, with pretty orderly houses in close succession. The view was amazing, so this must have been the heights where the nobility and rich merchants could look over the fields and valleys around them. Very nice!

For dinner we did something special. We got together we Andrea and Frank, Kerstin and Alex, Heidi and Titus, and went to this little train-station restaurant that seemed a little modest for going out with friends. Ah, but they are locally famous for their steak tartar, a dish much appreciated by Germans, French, and Italians. You start with a good cut of lean beef, chop it into little bits (or grind it like ground meat), and serve it raw with an accompaniment of delicious things like capers, chopped onions, pinion nuts, herbs, and a raw egg yolk, add salt and pepper to taste, mix the whole thing at eat it with slices of good bread. I had the piamontese style, with wine vinegar, olive oil, arrugula, onion, tomatoes and shaving of parmesan cheese. Try it; I am sure you will like it.

I do steak tartar at home when I find a good piece of tender beef in the market, but I am going to have to try some of the different variants. Gustav tells me he has his father's secret recipe, and I will have to remind him to give it to me. Yumm!

Germany 2026 - Day 3 - Easy day to rest and say hello to the kids

We are all pretty tired, so we agreed today Monday we would take it easy. For me that meant waking up at 7 am, having a cup of coffee, and taking my imaginary Cooper for a walk in the nearby forest. It is a narrow strip of forest between two of the city streets, but it is long and has many trees, so you can really feel you are in a deep and relaxing forest. I also did the daily ritual of stopping at the bakery to buy some Brötchen (breakfast rolls).

When brunch time came I was delighted to have a chance to chat with Anna, Chrissy and Gustav's 30-something daughter, whose life seems to have changed significantly over the last couple years. For one, she has become a health and well-being trainer, and over the last couple of years has been taking classes and perfecting her delivery through seminars. In fact, she is here today because yesterday she led a day-long seminar at one of the local churches, where she rents the hall and works with half a dozen people at a time. She hopes to grow the seminars to 10 to 20 people, but it is not that easy to break into that market, as the most effective way to get recruits is by word of mouth (helped by fliers and some You Tube freebies.

The really big change, however, is that she is in love and she and her marinovio, Jürgen, have set house in a town to the south, almost at the border with Bayern. Together they have concocted a plan that involves buying a rural property of about 40 hectares is Sardinia, the Italian island south of Corsica. They have already made the downpayment, so it is a serious plan. The property has a good number of olive trees and varied fruit trees, some grapevines, and plenty of room for growing vegetables and fruit, which they will continue growing using organic ag methods. Jürgen is excited at working the land, but I warned Anna that he will need a tractor and some workers or he will dig his way into an early grave. The business part will include leasing construction plots to other enthusiasts of organic farming and Mediterranean living. The pioneers will lease the land for 99 years, build their own houses, and live in some sort of commune to pursue happiness and well-being, and Anna will build her own seminar facility so she can continue to offer her classes to Germans needing a sunny break from the cold of the northern latitudes. The farm is about 15 km from the beautiful north coast of Sardinia, so the seminar will be an excuse to stay and extra week and have a nice vacation.

I plan to be one of the first to visit them and will take the opportunity to say hello to my friend Lino in Orgosolo as well!

After brunch Chrissy, Anna and I went to say hello to Oma Inge, the mom of Gustav and Klaus. She is 92 years old now, and has been a widow for 30 years, but she still keeps herself entertained inviting friends for a Kaffeeklatsch, learning new languages, and just chatting with her two attendants. She recognized me immediately and was really pleased that we had come to visit her. Like the good hostess she is she immediately made sure we had nice cups of coffee and a slice of strawberry cake, as she reminisced of old times growing in Berlin, meeting her husband and staying in Frankfurt. Out came the photos of baby Gustav, baby Klaus, baby Anna, and baby Phillip, which of course embarrass everybody (but then again, I believe that is one of the reasons she enjoys doing it). We kept the visit short, not wanting to tire her too much, but I was very glad that she is still as lively as when I first met her, 35 years ago.

In the afternoon Gustav and I were sitting in the garden, shooting the breeze, when his son Phillip came by, to drop off his battery drums after The Grand Slam. Finally, I had a chance to chat with him in peace, and I was very glad to see him happy and well established. I did mention that he works with an engineering company, but I was not sure what he did with them. He is the "draftsman" in charge of preparing the plans for all the different things the company prepares. All is done with the computer, of course, but engineering plans are particularly challenging because they have to be exact and clear enough for the building contractors to build the whatever-it-is precisely so it will do its job. I think their services span the range from designing the building to designing the different machines to do the work. For example, he was telling me that most poly-carbonate glass (the type that covers your cell phone) is manufactured following a procedure his company developed (although Chinese manufacturers have now copied the process without sharing the credit).

For now Phillip enjoys his independent life working, going out with friends, and playing the drums with his band (although I get the feeling that their gigs are spaced far between). I find great delight on seeing Anna and Phillip get on with their lives; I have known them since they were babies and love interacting with them now that they are young adults.

Germany 2026 - Day 2 - The Jagdgebiet of Lord Klaus

Today, Sunday, we have a picknick (German spelling) at the Fürestentum (the principality) of Lord Klaus, brother of Gustav. Klaus is a very cool guy, who for the last 50 years has started his day riding his horse (several generations of horses), then managing the Parfumerie Kobberger (the family industry established by their father after World War II), and playing Lord Klaus during the weekends. The last statement requires some explanation.

Thirteen years ago he had the opportunity of leasing 800 hectares in the Vogelsberg (northeast of Frankfurt) as his very own Jagdgebiet (his hunting preserve). As Lord of the land, he has the responsibility of protecting his farmers (serfs in a Medieval sense) from the depredations of deer (Rhe) and wild pigs (Wildschweine), by hunting down any excess of wildlife that can ruin the crops of wheat, corn, or hops. I should point out that Germans have very cleverly checkerboarded the land into woods and agriculture, so the land looks beautiful and fulfills its environmental function, while still allowing for the development of agriculture. So the blood-thirsty hunters build blinds on stilts at the edge of the forest, and patiently seat on them until a Wildschein or a deer walks unto the agricultural land and happily shoot them down.

This sniping of wildlife goes against the dominant eco spirit of Germans, so there is all sorts of ethical points to cover, such as eating what you kill, gauging the take with the observable population of prey and predators, and helping the framers to do their thing. Klaus is as eco as the next guy, so he keeps strict records on what he and his guests shoot, and is in a way happy that three wild wolfs have made his hunting preserve part of their range (he has about 800 hectares or about 8 square kilometers, whereas a wolf has a range of 100 to 200 square kilometers, so they see the deer become very shy every three months or so.

I got the VIP tour of the Jagdgebiet, and Klaus told me everything there was to know about being an old-fashioned feudal lord. He took me in the four-wheel drive truck all over the boundaries, we sighted a couple of deer (we are in the pairing season), and even drove through his serf town, Wolferborn, in the heart of the only basaltic shield volcano (Miocene) in Germany, The Vogelsberg.

The high point of the day was, however, the picknick, where I had the pleasure to meet again old friends like Andrea and Frank, Aurora and Peter, Siglinde and Lord Klaus, their daughter Catherine (the same Catherine of The Grand Jam), Kerstin and Alex, Titus and Heidi, and friend Sabine. Everyone had brought their dog, so we had more dogs than children, and they were totally spoiled. Europeans in general dote on their dogs, but if I had to be reincarnated as a dog I would like to become Chrissy's dog, who has the best life in the world (being any other German dog would be just fine, as I saw from the way in which my friends look after their dogs).

A German picknick is something to behold. First of all, there is plenty of good beer and good wine, and everyone brings an amazing variety of good bread, vegetables (paprika, cherry tomatoes, and grapes), excellent cheeses, and a wide spectrum of sausages, salami, Presskopf (head cheese), Blutwurst (blood sausage), Leberwürst (liver pathe sausage), and Zungenwurst (pressed tongue). Sometimes there is a grill, but in this case we ate everything raw (preserved in salt and herbs) and I can tell you it went very fast. I love all this kind of food, particularly when it is liberally irrigated with cold beer, Apfelwein (a type of German hard cider), and wine!

I have been struggling with speaking German. I can understand most of what is being said to me, but finding the words and the grammatical structure to participate in the conversation is hard. However, I found that by the third glass of Apfelwine the answers came faster and a bit smoother. Maybe it is all there and just needs a little help to come out. Everyone was so patient and welcoming. Thanks!

In the evening we sat in front of the TV, to watch the final match of the World Cup. Spain was particularly strong in defense and attack, whereas Argentina was not able to sneak through the defense and mount an organized attack. At the end Spain one 1-0, which was their just recompense for a game very well played.