Denmark: Vikings & Lego
On Halloween night 2018 we travelled midway through the week to arrive early morning in Billund, Denmark, home of Lego and heartland of the Vikings. We were greeted on the bus journey from Billund to nearby Vejle (humorously pronounced “vile”) by a bird of prey sitting on a fencepost. Travel in this part of Denmark was easy but pricey. Our bus ride was easy due to the prevalence of English-speakers, so we knew where to alight. We had to wait a few hours for the key to our guesthouse and so made our way up to the iconic white chalk…
A Farewell To South America
When guidebooks unhelpfully overhype attractions, they certainly don’t pull any punches when it comes to South America. The irritating and meaningless phrases “a tale of contrasts” or “a country of extremes” are thrown around mercilessly in a bid to passionately sell books, rather than dispassionately review and inform. So what makes South America so “extreme”? Is it the FARC guerrillas of Colombia – now emerging from their jungle coca fields with bloody noses and white flags – or the much-maligned slumdog goose-egg owners of Rio’s famous favelas? Is it the infuriating mounds of burning trash seen on EVERY journey taken…
Final Destination: Bogota
We arrived in Colombia’s capital on the 11th March 2015, and almost immediately noticed on the news stations that the Colombian terror organization called FARC were joining the peace process after decades trying to reach were we had finally gotten to. It was good to see that the journey to their destination, Bogota, was now going to be a peaceful one, and it was fitting that our peaceful journey would end here at the same time. Unfortunately for us, first impressions of the city were not so good. Bogota looks as polluted as Quito, with as much poverty as Rio.…