#scandinavian-summer

#scandinavian-summer

"The glacier itself has since 1996 melted continuously. Today the glacier is 300 meters (1,000 feet) from the original lift entrance, and there is now a large lake between the glacier and the original entrance. You would need a boat to access it in summer."

"The ruins from the Middle Ages are part of our common history. With these grants, we are strengthening the work that makes it possible to preserve them, not only as historical traces, but also as living sources of knowledge for both researchers, craftsmen and local communities."

Norwegians are a great lens to teach us about some healthy longevity practices. The Norwegian diet is a significant factor. It's been described as the cold-weather cousin to the Mediterranean diet.

Swedes celebrate the day before on Holy Saturday, with Easter services in the Swedish church often taking place in the evening. This tradition reflects a broader cultural practice of marking holidays the evening before the main day.

The term 'orangery' was introduced in 17th century Europe when a craze for citrus fruits swept the continent's nobility class, and many built lavish, light-filled buildings devoted to their cultivation.

The slower, grounded pace of everyday life in Scandinavia felt like a stark contrast to life back in the British metropolis, as if someone had hit the pause button.

Anki King's work suggests an intimate engagement with New Image painting, particularly the later work of Susan Rothenberg, but she took it in a direction that is recognizably hers.

The flagpole at the front of a house, just a three-minute drive from the handful of shops and restaurants, has become an advertisement for the exploits of Heimaey's most famous son.

Every one of these items takes up space and energy, but the use of energy here in relation to clutter is actually two-fold. The stuff you own requires maintenance and management, and when you pass, this management becomes shifted along to someone else (whoever is responsible for sorting through your Earthly possessions).

An increasing number of international tourists come to Finland searching for the secret to happiness, yet Lakeland is still an undiscovered gem for many. It's the region Finns themselves return to when they want to relax truly, and the perfect destination for anyone looking to step away from the noise of everyday life.

Instead, they practice something called "friluftsliv" - literally "free air life" - and in February, when winter feels endless, this practice becomes almost sacred. It's their secret weapon against the darkness, and after trying it myself during a particularly rough winter, I can tell you it works better than any supplement I've ever taken. The word itself sounds complicated, but friluftsliv is beautifully simple. It means spending time outdoors, regardless of weather conditions. Not despite the cold and darkness, but because of it.

When a city or country is in the spotlight, it's logical to expect an uptick of interest in visiting there. Each of the locations where a season of The White Lotus was filmed has seen a corresponding increase in tourism, for instance. Being the subject of news headlines and heated negotiations isn't quite the same thing as being the setting for a prestige TV series, but recent data suggests that Greenland is also seeing more international visitors than usual.

A week's hiking in Jotunheimen national park (230 miles north of Oslo) last summer brought me tranquillity and peace. During four days of challenging hiking and wild camping through the area we saw hardly anyone else, having entire lush green valleys and still glacial lakes to ourselves. We were fortunate to have stunning weather throughout and, despite it being July, still had a reasonable amount of snow to traverse.

You know the drill by now: large scale immersive exhibitions have gone from nowhere to ubiquity in London, with the last year alone bringing us big, tech-augmented, family-facing shows devoted to the likes of Tutankhamun, the Titanic, and the destruction of Pompeii.

CHARM is built around a large-scale survey of material connected to three major writing centres-Turku, Naantali, and Viipuri-in the 15th century. By comparing charters and book fragments together, the researchers aim to map how writing practices were adopted, modified, and localised, and what that meant for society and administration in a region that was then part of the Swedish realm.

Excavations carried out in 2025 by the Arctic University Museum of Norway revealed that the artefacts came from a boat burial. The grave contained the skeleton of a woman placed inside a boat measuring about 5.5 metres in length. She had been buried together with a dog, suggesting the animal may have been an important companion in life.

Greenland is currently making headlines, much to the chagrin of Greenlanders. U.S. President Donald Trump's ambition to seize this island, an autonomous territory of Denmark, a NATO founding member, has turned global attention to a corner of the planet they probably hadn't considered before, or to Wikipedia or AI tools, to find out who lives on that enormous white patch in a corner of the American continent, and how.

Although I often write about packing and have it down to a science, I decided to try a little travel experiment. Before our trip, I asked ChatGPT to create a packing list for seven days in Copenhagen. At first glance, it appeared to have great suggestions, and ones that were pretty aligned with my tried-and-true list. However, upon further inspection, there were some recs that I immediately threw out-plus, a few that I didn't realize were off-base until visiting Copenhagen for myself.