Tag: vacation

Berlin 2014

We traveled to Berlin over the weekend to see Måns and his friend Anders perform as Sine City at a club in Berlin called Urban Spree. There were 4 bands performing Saturday night.  The show didn’t start until 11:15 and we didn’t leave until around 03:30 in the morning.  They were amazing as always.  They had some records for sale and one German guy came up to buy one and paid double price because he said, “This is the best thing ever in Berlin!”  Nice compliment. 🙂

While in Berlin, we ate a lot of good food, visited the Computer Game museum and took a Trabi Safari.

A Trabi is one of those little cars they used to drive in East Germany.  They couldn’t have Western cars behind the wall and so you had to order these, paying lots of money and waiting years on a list until one was made (it took a long time to get the parts).  It must be one of the worst cars ever made. It’s almost hollowed out inside except for the seat benches, it’s so loud you can’t hear yourself, and it reeks of gasoline.  That being said, it was a lot of fun to ride in one for an hour.

We followed with a group of 8 cars around Berlin just seeing the sites.  At Checkpoint Charlie (of all places) Måns got stopped by a news crew who shoved a camera in his face to ask where he was from.  When he answered Sweden, he was suddenly asked, “So what do you think about the situation in Crimea?!” Måns was smooth as always and had plenty of answers.  If it would have been me, I would have just said, “Uh, I just wanted to drive the Trabi.”

Enjoy the pictures!

Lake Como

We are back from 8 days on Lake Como in Italy.  Wow!  We understand why Clooney has a house there.  The views are amazing!  We had a whole floor of a house to ourselves above the town of Menaggio with a beautiful balcony overlooking the ferries travelling to Bellagio and Varenna.  We spent our time overeating and reading, while the boys looked for lizards and bugs outside.

We visited a lot of little towns on the lake.  Pizza seems to be the main dish unless you want seafood.  Of course we stuffed ourselves with ice cream every day.  It’s going to be salads for a week now that we are home.

We hopped over to Switzerland for a day, not realizing that it was a holiday and all shops were closed.  The restaurants were open but it turned out that all we could afford was Burger King.  They even charged extra money if you wanted a ketchup packet.  I had to tell the kids, “Sorry kids, we can’t afford ketchup.”  Must be a valuble commodity over there.

We were able to visit SwissMiniatur which is a little place with all of Switzerland done in miniature (you could have guessed that from the name).  I spent a lot of time filming the lizards climbing over cars and houses.  Dragon movie coming soon.

I think the pictures tell the rest of the story:

A week in Provence, France

We have just returned from a wonderful week in Provence to celebrate Katarina’s 60th birthday.  There were 8 of us on the trip and Katarina rented a beautiful house for us all to stay by the small hillside village of Claviers.

We had a wonderful time visiting villages in the area, as well as swimming in the local lake.  We even visited the city of Saint-Tropez, which was nice but a bit crowded.  After the city, we decided to visit the beach, which turned out to be “clothing-optional.”  The ultimate French Riviera experince, I suppose.  But since we had already paid for parking, we decided to stay.  At least it wasn’t a problem finding a changing room!  (We wore bathing suits.)  Sorry, no pictures from that part of the journey.  Had a feeling that cameras would not be welcome.  Don’t worry, you really didn’t miss anything.

Here are some pictures from the week:

Italy – Puglia – May 2012

We have just returned from a week in the Puglia region of Italy.  It was very beautiful and quite different from the other Italian regions we have visited.  Most of the buildings were white and we were close to the sea.  We stayed on a large property about 15 minutes away from San Vito dei Normanni.  The property used to belong to a shepherd before it was converted into small houses.  We even saw someone herding sheep one day.  They also had many olive trees and even a few lemon trees.  There were donkeys to wake us up in the morning.
We mostly ate orecchiette (local pasta), burrata (heart attack inducing cheese), mozarella and tomatoes.  Most of our meals were outdoors because the weather was so nice.  The boys spent most of their time in the kids’ pool, eating caprese, searching for lizards, and playing on the swing.
One of the best parts of the trip was celebrating Måns’ birthday!  We woke him up with presents and an ice cream cake (that lasted 5 minutes before melting).  Then we spent the afternoon in Lecce and Otranto.  A nice way to ring in a birthday!

Prague 2011

This week we visited Prague in the Czech Republic.  Prague is a beautiful city and I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about a vacation.  We were lucky to be there in December to see the big Christmas market.  The Russian president visited at the same time as well.  And I thought all those police and snipers were just for us.  Oh well….

Prague sells lots of fun warm drinks all over town in Christmas booths – hot wine, hot mead, hot rummy chocolate, hot cherry punch, etc.  I think the booths open up around 9 or 10 so I suspect many Czechs (or maybe just the tourists) walk around slightly drunk all day.

The prices were cheap, but I compare it to Ryan Air where it looks cheap on the surface before they add service charges and charge you for bread and water.  Shopping was quite cheap though, but not the food at the Christmas market.  Måns and I paid 400 czk for cabbage and potatoes!  (Look that up, it’s more shocking if I don’t translate the price.)

Anyway, we had a wonderful time and we plan to visit the city again!

Italy October 2011

We have spent the last week on vacation in Italy.  The weather was wonderful and it only rained one day!  We stayed in our own house high up on a mountain.  We met wild boars, goats, donkeys and mysterious monster goat creatures along with a scorpion who came to say hello in our bathroom.

We were by the Mediterranean Sea and took a day to visit Monaco and France which were both just an hour away.  Monaco was very pretty – a small city in the mountain facing the sea.  Lots of yachts, casinos and fountains.  Very pretty, even though our pizza and sodas cost 60 Euros.

Nice was much bigger than I thought.  There was a beautiful beach with smooth rocks and the most tropical blue color we’ve ever seen.  The boys had a great time splashing around there.

It was a great trip and we got in lots of relaxing at the house and by the pool.  Already planning the next trip!

Dublin 2011

We had a great time in Dublin!  The city was very nice. Small, cute and clean!  We were surprised by how good all the restaurants were and we really enjoyed the pubs and the Guinness museum. Could not understand a word people were saying though. They talk a bit fast.