Over the hills, under the moon - and off the beaten path

How much can you achieve, when you are fueled by passion, will, and endurance?  For many Danes,  these abilities have the last few weeks led us to great accomplishments,  as we have managed to stay in our sofas or recliners for hours on end while watching on TV how the Danish Jonas Vingegaard fought his way to the front of the Tour de France. How awesome it has been for all of us to be able to lie around, while he scaled mountains during the heat of the day and dueled his rival Tadej Pogacar every meter of the way. Today, I  rose up from the recliner. Since the early afternoon, I have been standing on the Parisian Avenue des Champs-Elysées, in front of the Maison de Danemark,  surrounded by thousands of fellow Danes, all celebrating, shouting, and waving their flags. I arrived several hours ahead of the actual race, hoping for a front-row view  of Vingegaard racing towards the  Arc de Triomphe and into Danish sports history The first couple...

Last night, we sat on the slope leading up to the Sacre Coeur on top of the Montmartre hill. Surrounded by thousands of others - all looking at the vast Paris skyline and waiting for the July 14 fireworks to start. We knew the fireworks on Bastille Day were supposed to emanate from the Eiffel Tower, which wasn't in sight from this particular place,  but 10.000 Parisians can't be wrong! Since they had all gathered on this precise slope, something just had to happen here.  This was what we thought, but we were wrong! We didn't see a thing!  Nothing at all!  Just the twinkling skyline of La Ville Lumière and the thousands of spectators, who, like us, were sitting, staring into a black void. We sat for an hour in the almost tropical heat, drank a lovely bottle of wine, and experienced the thrill of being closer to a potential superspreader event than we had ever been since the start of Covid! Earlier in the evening, before climbing the hill, we went to the local Ba...

  During the last weeks, we located or revisited quite a few quirky spots, which you rarely read about in guide books, and we decided to place our findings on a map.  In this way, friends, who come to visit London, can see suggestions for experiences, which might be a bit secret or at least off the beaten track. (P utting them out here might eventually make them not so secret anymore, but, well - 'that's life!') See the bottom of this post for  how to use our map ---------------  o - o ---------------     --------------------------- o ------------------------ SOME TECHNICAL STUFF: This link gives a peek at our map of cool, quirky, and often hidden, places in New York, Paris, and Copenhagen: https://go.mapstr.com/kJx7W7py3mb -------- If you want to use our map, install the apps Google map and Mapstr on your phone (both Android and IOS) Create an account for Mapstr (it is free), and allow the app to access your location.   Now, press the ...

Behind a black door in London hides a subversive collection of beasts, freaks, decay,  self-indulgence, and outright falsehoods. And no - we're not talking about the door at no 10 Downing street, behind which you can still find Boris Johnson for a few more weeks! This particular door we just happened to pass,  walking down a quite common East London street not far from our apartment. A plaque on the door warns clients that the building is in fact "Not a Brothel, No Prostitutes Live at this Address."  The title above the door is 'Last Tuesday society'  and   - as we pass by on precisely a Tuesday afternoon - we dare to walk in. Inside the 'Tuesday Society', you find a gloomy bar where they serve absinth in all its forms, and behind the bar a hidden spiral staircase which leads down to the Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities. What a collection! The skeleton of a two-headed kitten, the skull of a unicorn, mummified fair...