How to do Stockholm in a Day

Stortorget, Gamla Stan's oldest square

The first thing to know about Stockholm is that it can’t be done in a day.  So just forget it.  You’re going to have to focus. If you want to get the most bang for your time, however, then that focus should probably be Gamla Stan, the city’s Old Town. And this is especially the case if, like me, you have come to this city for the architecture.

Stockholm is a beautiful city no matter where you go, and when I take a 20-minute ride on a city bus to the medieval Old Town, I’m already salivating just looking out the window, where almost every building that flashes by looks like a work of art.  But when I step off the bus in Gamla Stan, and find myself looking up at the narrow wrought iron spire of Riddarholmen Church, the oldest surviving church in the city, I feel momentarily dumbfounded.  Built in 1270, it is the final resting place of Swedish kings and queens, the first king having been buried here in 1290.

Riddarholmen Church

Such deep history is common here in Stockholm’s oldest island quarter, and I wonder if I can do it justice in the limited space of a single day.  Thankfully, Gamla Stan is small and walkable, replete with narrow cobblestone streets (that Swedes are able to drive on quite remarkably) and Medieval architecture framing the scene around every corner.  Founded in 1252, Gamla Stan is one of the best preserved Medieval city centers in Europe situated in the midst of the 14 islands and 57 bridges that make up this Scandinavian “Venice of the North.”

No tour here would be complete without a visit to the Stockholm Cathedral, originally constructed in the 13th century, though its current incarnation reflects the Baroque architecture of the 17th century.  The local parish church for Gamla Stan, this is where Sweden’s royals are married, the most recent nuptials having taken place here in June with the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria to Mr. Daniel Westling.  The Swedes love their Royals almost as much as the British do, and images of them can be found in every gift shop in the city.

Yes, they passed one another...just barely

I decide to get a taste of Royal Swedish life by visiting the Royal Palace, the official palace of the Royal family.  The palace as it exists today was completed in 1754, and most of the interiors reflect the tastes and styles of the 18th and 19th centuries, though there are several rooms featuring elaborate Baroque style ceilings rich with a mixture of paintings and sculpture that meld into one another like a 3-D landscape.  The palace also has its own Hall of Mirrors modeled on the one at Versailles.  The palaces are typically crowded with visitors, particularly during the changing of the guard and in the Royal Apartments.  But among the best places to visit in the palace complex is the Royal Armory with its collection of coronation coaches, personal armor, christening cradles, and royal wedding attire.

You can make a day-long tour of Gamla Stan especially easy (and cheap) through the purchase of a Stockholm Card, which provides free access to all the historic buildings, museums, and also free transportation, including use of the city’s Hop-On Hop-Off boats, which ply Stockholm’s waters, providing tourists easy access to attractions all over the city, including the Vasa Museum, home to the world’s only surving 17th-century ship.

The beautiful streets of Gamla Stan

Wondering where to grab a bite to eat?  It’s rather hard to go wrong here with so many lovely cafes fronting the cobblestone streets, but if you happen to tour the Nobel Museum, consider lunch at their Kafe Satir, where all the chairs have been signed by Nobel laureates. The food is divine–oozing Swedish sandwiches loaded with meat and cheese accompanied by a salad bar, flat bread slathered in butter, and some divine pastries.  And the best thing is the fare is inexpensive.  Two can dine here for lunch for about $20 USD, and if you know anything about Scandinavia, that’s a steal.

A Bavarian Holiday in North Georgia

If you’re looking to add a little extra twinkle to your holiday season, consider a December weekend getaway to Helen, Georgia. Nestled in the Chattahoochee National Forest a couple of hours north of Atlanta, this recreated Bavarian village is something of a winter wonderland this time of year with its towers and turrets bedecked in white lights, polka music filtering out into the streets, and its scenic location along the slowly meandering Chattahoochee River.  You can read all about it in the December issue of Disney’s FamilyFun in my latest travel article, “Spend a Day in Helen, Georgia.”

Dukes Creek Falls

Of course, there were a ton of things that didn’t make the editorial cut, including the steep (on the way back) but lovely hike to Dukes Creek Falls, a double waterfall near Helen that, in winter, is half frozen.  It is perhaps not as startlingly beautiful as the more popular and accessible twin falls of Anna Ruby, but you won’t meet a soul on this trail…not in December anyway.

Heidi, already an experienced hiker at age two

While my suggested itinerary in FamilyFun is focused on what to do with the kids in tow, be sure to pick up a copy of Blue Ridge Country in July for a very adult itinerary for the lovely mountains of North Georgia, as I take you on a tour of the region’s best wineries and waterfall hikes.  Just make sure you hike before the wine tasting….

Helen after dark

Fjord Norway in 24 Hours, Part I: My Journey Home Begins

The farm near Gundevagen that served as our Fjord Norway headquarters

It was my husband who nudged me out of bed at 4:30 a.m. on a chill June morning, the sun already shedding a gray light over the tops of the fjord walls, striking the waters of the Naeroy Fjord a deep metallic blue, the goats (or sheep as our host called them) neighing already, the low tinkle of their tin bells rousing ravens from rest, who came, as they had each morning of our stay here south of the famous Sogne Og Fjordane, to beat their wings against the glass of the kitchen door.  They ensured, along with the never darkness, that I would not sleep this whole visit.  But it didn’t matter because I was endlessly awake—the persistent daylight keeping me roused, this strange Norwegian landscape that let me read books till midnight by the light of a window.

Something made me not want to get out of bed, uncomfortable as it was this narrow cot in an old farm cottage.  Perhaps it was the desire to perpetuate a little longer the sense of not quite being there yet, not quite being in the place where history for me began.

View of Naeroy Fjord from Ramsoy Farm

But I knew I had to rise.  We had a roundtrip journey of some 700 kilometers ahead of us, a five-hour drive just to get there…to the little village below Naerem Mountain where my great-great-grandfather was born, the same village where his future wife was baptized, she who would cross the ocean four years after him, carrying a folded wedding dress in her trunk, waiting to start life anew.  And they never came back, never looked back.  I was to be the first—the first in our family to come home and see the graves of their fathers and mothers, my ancestors, the ones who, no doubt, had prodded them to go.

Knud Knudson Nerem, the man I knew only from yellowed black and white photographs, with the dapper handlebar mustache, straight white hair poking out from under a driver’s cap, and that always near mischievous smile, came to Anne Township, Minnesota, in 1884,  when he was 31 years old.   When he died at age 82, escaping the Great Depression that would test the mettle of his American-born sons and daughters, he was a prosperous landowner and farmer, celebrated in his obituary as one of the community’s first pioneers.  Yet back in Norway, he was only a simple cotter’s son.

Naeroy Fjord

I think of him and of his wife, Locina Andersdatter, and how brave they must have been to leave their families, cross the Atlantic, knowing there would never be any coming back, not for them anyway, and enter a world as foreign as is Norway sometimes to me.  Yet what it must have been to see that black soil of southwest Minnesota and the endless flatness.  No, not beautiful as was the place where they were born, which must be one of the most beautiful places on earth, but rich, as rich as anything they ever could have imagined even from all the letters that came across the water claiming here was a land where all men had a chance.  No mountains, no cliffs, no rocks—just acre after shimmering acre of flat ground rife with some of the world’s most fertile soil and waiting for a willing man and a willing woman to take a plow to it, carve it open, and unleash the generations that would follow, each one standing a little higher than the last.

And today, today perhaps, I thought, as I lay blinking into the silver light streaming in the window over the bed, staring quietly at the steel and shadow dappled walls of the fjord walls outside, will be the day when I can stand before my great-great-great grandfather’s grave and say, “Thank you for sending your son across the sea.”

Stay tuned for a full recounting of my 24-hour road trip through the fjord country of west-central Norway, including visiting the Boyabreen Glacier, Romsdals Fjord, the Trollstigen, Geiranger Fjord, the stave kirke at Lom, Jotunheim, the Tindevegan, and famous Laerdal Tunnel. Think it can’t be done?  You just haven’t had enough caffeine….

Scandinavia on the Cheap: Tallinn, Estonia

Andrew Nevsky Cathedral and Town Wall

While I was fully prepared to be amazed and delighted by the architecture of Northern Europe’s oldest capitals when I toured along the Baltic last spring (spending a day strolling the narrow streets of Stockholm’s Gamle Stan and then enduring the crush of crowds in St. Petersburg, Russia), I was pleasantly intrigued to find another often overlooked architectural gem on this Baltic tour–Tallinn, Estonia. If you’re old enough to have some sense of the history of the Baltic States (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), this may perhaps surprise you.  Likely you associate their names with the gray and concrete world of so many former Soviet bloc countries. But Estonia, not unlike some of her former Soviet Socialist Republic neighbors (the Ukraine comes to mind) has slowly regained her identity (and prosperity) in a re-imagined Eastern Europe where capitalism, not communism, rules the day and rules it beautifully.

Walking the streets of Tallinn's Old City

Less crowded by far than Stockholm, which draws throngs of visitors each year to its exceedingly well-preserved Old Town, Tallinn is a destination in her own right…and significantly cheaper.  Rich in Nordic and Germanic culture, this capital city on the Gulf of Finland has one of the best preserved 12th and 13th century city centers in Europe. And being rather compact, it’s easy to explore on foot in a day. But make sure you’re in good shape because to fully appreciate all Tallinn’s architecture has to offer, you must be willing to climb lots and lots of steps.

Sanctuary door at Oleviste Church

The climbing began for me in the tower of Oleviste Church, once the tallest building in the world, where I mounted 258 steps for amazing views of the Old Town, including the city’s dozen or more defense towers, numerous delicate church spires, and tiled rooftops. You can gain similar views (though not quite as grand) by climbing the Town Hall Tower, where some of the stone risers are more than foot high, making for quite a workout to reach the top of the belfry tower at 34 meters.

Shopping in Town Hall Square

One of the best things about Tallinn, however, is how wonderfully inexpensive it is compared to its Scandinavian neighbors. Street vendors will sell you gorgeous handwoven linens for a quarter the price you’ll find them in Norway or Sweden, and they’re every bit as lovely. And the locals absolutely adore tourists–the idea of expended effort equaling financial gain is refreshingly alive and well.  Don’t hesitate to haggle for that fine wool cape or fur-lined cap.  A fine lunch can be had here as well at places like the Saiakangi Kohvik Cafe for little more than $10 USD a person with scrumptious eats like smoked salmon and lamb open-faced sandwiches with beer followed up by cake-coated pastries with chocolate cream centers.

You can read more about my adventures in Tallinn at Military Officer magazine online as well as gain additional insights for traveling internationally on a budget in my article “Travel Abroad — For Less.”

New Review of Moon Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains

Moon Blue Ridge & Smoky Mountains

Dan Smith, editor of Valley Business Front, reviewed Moon Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains (Avalon Travel, 2010) in the October issue of the magazine. I had the pleasure of making Dan’s acquaintance at a writer’s conference last spring. See what he has to say about my new book on page 52 of the digital version of Valley Business Front.

Pick up your own copy of Moon Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains at your favorite bookseller, or purchase a copy online.

Check Out the Latest Reviews of My New Book

Moon Blue Ridge & Smoky Mountains

As fall color season moves into full tilt along the Blue Ridge Parkway and in the Great Smoky Mountains in the next couple of weeks, be sure to pick up a copy of my new book, Moon Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains (Avalon Travel, 2010), to help you plan your autumn road trip through the southern Appalachians.  Wondering if it’s a good buy?  Check out the last reviews of Moon Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains in The Salt Lake Tribune, Our State, and The Wichita Eagle.

Don’t forget you can order discounted, signed copies through my web site!

How To Take An Overnight Hike With a Toddler

Okay, I’ll admit taking an overnight hiking trip with a two-year-old sounds a little scary.  But the fact is there is nothing most kids like more than spending a day or two in the woods–water, dirt, leaves, and bugs–what’s not to like?  By age one, my daughter was already a veteran hiker (albeit on Mommy’s and Daddy’s shoulders), so when we decided to make the 11-mile roundtrip trek to LeConte Lodge in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, she already had a bit of experience in these matters.  You can read the fully story of trekking to the park’s only hike-in lodge in the September issue of Disney’s FamilyFun.  And read about more fun hikes in the Smokies in my new book Moon Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains (Avalon Travel, 2010).

Purchase Discounted Signed Copies of My Latest Book

Moon Blue Ridge & Smoky Mountains

Help me clear my office bookshelves of my last several copies of Moon Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains (Avalon Travel, 2010).  I’m selling signed copies directly from my web site for $11.00, and yes, that’s actually cheaper than Amazon.com.  The first edition of Moon Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains is part of Avalon Travel’s popular Moon Handbook series and provides an insider’s perspective on where (and where not) to go when traveling along the Blue Ridge Parkway and in the Great Smoky Mountains.  What overlooked sights should you be sure to see?  What mob scenes should you avoid?  Where are the best uncrowded hiking trails?  And where can you find the most delectable dishes in the southern mountains?  My book is an ideal companion for independent travelers looking for real advice (as well history, culture, and commentary).

They Love to Fly…And it Shows!

No, I’m not talking about Delta.  Far from it.  In fact, I’m not talking about any U.S. airlines, most of which I’ve flown, and none of which, so far as I can tell, love to fly (or at least love to make their customers happy).

I had the opportunity to fly to northern Europe aboard Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) earlier this summer, and I was shocked by the service.  How could I be shocked, you wonder, after paying $6 for a plastic tray with two cheese slices and three grapes aboard Delta Airlines earlier in the year or standing in line for four hours after my Christmas flight on AirTran was cancelled and they then sent me racing to another airport (3 hours away) to catch an alternate ride?

I was shocked by the superior service.  Yes, I said superior. Here I had been dreading my 8+ hour flight from Dulles to Copenhagen, knowing it was surely going to be hell.  After all, I’d flown cross country (Richmond to Juneau) eight months earlier and was certain I’d never had such a long and miserable flight in my life, and this one was going to be across the Atlantic!

SAS set out to startle me.  First, the seats were comfortable (and no, I was not in business class), and there was actually some leg room.  My knees were not jammed up against the seat in front of me, and get this, all the food was free.  And we’re not talking stale crackers and dried up prunes but full meals–truly steaming hot chicken with mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls with butter, cheese and crackers, chocolate cake for dessert, plus complimentary wine and beer.  Yes, you read correctly.  I said free alcohol.

And then, they offered free snacks throughout the flight, a lovely morning breakfast consisting of a ham and turkey sandwich with yogurt, hot moist towels, free movies, free music, free games.

I was utterly placated.

And that’s the idea.  SAS has obviously grasped the notion that if you provide fine customer service you’ll have a lot fewer grumbling passengers making flight attendants’ lives miserable…and gasp, repeat business.  (Did I mention I’m trying to figure out how to avoid flying in the U.S. ever again?)

Oh, yeah, and SAS didn’t raise a big stink about carry-on luggage either.  No weighing.  No extra charges.  No telling you you couldn’t have that carry-on bag because that book you purchased at the airport counts as a carry-on, so either toss the book or check your handbag.

And what’s even more remarkable?  On my one-hour connecting flight from Copenhagen to Oslo, I received breakfast again for free, of course.  It was like flying in the 20th century–remember those days?

Who ever heard of starting a vacation (involving a flight) pleasantly?  Thank you, SAS….

The Light After the Storm

View south of Blue Grass Valley

A typical Highland County whirlwind thunderstorm with pounding rains and wild winds whipped through our farm last night, but it came with rewards–10 minutes of stunning light and gorgeous rainbows afterward.  Enjoy the views….

Rainbow over Devil's Backbone