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

Sometimes you don't have to travel the world to find adventures. Sometimes you can find them in your own back garden. We're back from Lyon and staying for a few days in our house in the Ardeche, where Michael always has wanted to do a trek up in the mountains just as we did when I was living in Greenland. With his birthday coming up, he made it his birthday wish to camp out and even though my broken knee forbids me to do actual rock climbing, we could always set up the tent on our small mountain terrace behind the house, overlooking the Mas river. The tent was an old thing which we had last used in the Paradise Valley outside of Nuuk and as it was almost ten years ago, we found it a little bit complicated to remember how to assemble it. Finally, it was done. Our food, the wine, and the water were carried down, and it was not a minute too soon. The thunderstorm that threatened to break loose all day, finally decided that it was time. I think it is the most wonderful fee...

Two days ago, we came back from Morocco. We landed in Lyon,  which we, during the years, have passed many times going to and from our house in the Ardeche. Every time we passed, it looked so lovely, spreading along the banks of the Rhone and the Saône - and this time, we decided to stay in the city for a few days and explore its wonders. With Bastille day and World cup final happening on two consecutive days, our stay has almost been one, long party. On the night of July 14, the sky above the Fourvière basilica explodes with the most fantastic fireworks and we sat together with thousands of Lyonnaise, on the banks of the Rhone river, gasping at the wonders above.  The next morning, we went to 'Les Halles Paul Bocuse', a wonderful food market named after the local, culinary giant, where I could let my inner foodie loose among stalls run by hand-picked food merchants of the region. We filled a bag with two beautifully crafted tarts, some pate, some bread...

We've now lived in Essaouira for more than a week and we feel a little bit sad about leaving. It IS a wonderful town, and we'll absolutely return. When we arrived, we found ourselves lost in the labyrinth of the old souks, but the medina is actually not that large and the big walls, the gates and the sea are great for giving you bearings. Now we walk through the alleys and take the narrow bypasses like old timers. You can see a lot of stuff about Essaouira in the guidebooks. The wast fortifications are exactly as beautiful and impressive as you can read  (or see on Game of Thrones or in the old Orson Welles version of Othello). Here  are some special tips we learned from a knowledgeable friend or had to experience ourselves Where to stay There are lots of riads inside the medina, but only a few with an actual view of the sea. We're staying in a place called Riad Dar Nor ( www.darnor.com ) just next to the city wall. Dar...

The last 24 hours we've experienced amazing contrasts. We woke up in our riad overlooking the sunbaked Saharan wastelands and - after packing our stuff - we drove by taxi for several hours towards the west through an endless desert. Underway we stopped at this surrealistic site - some goats defying gravity on top of an Argan tree. How did they climb up? And what were they actually doing up there? We'll never know. Now we're here - in the cool harbor city of Essaouira on the Atlantic coast, which some friends told us we just had to experience.  Coming from the furnace of the desert the coast feels almost cold. Here you have a 20-22 degrees Celsius climate all year round and a more or less constant breeze, locally known as 'The Alizee". The cool wind feels SO wonderful even though we have to put on our thermal jackets for the first time in many weeks. Essaouira has a bustling, vibrant medina surrounded by giant medieval-looking battlement...

Every Tuesday, the people from the small villages on the slopes of the High Atlas mountains, come down to the city of Amizmiz. Here they sell their goods and shop for the necessities for the week to come. For the past few weeks we've been living just half an hour from Amizmiz and we've enjoyed visiting the busy weekly market with its farmers, traders, weavers, and ceramists. The people of the Amazigh (what outsiders call the Berbers) are the descendants of the pre-Arab population of the Sahara, and Amazigh culture stretches back at least 4000 years.  They created several kingdoms before the Arabs made their conquests in the 7th century. During the following centuries of Islamization,  the language and the culture of the Amazigh almost disappeared until the French took over Morocco just before the first World War. The French used the distinction between the Arab majority and the indigenous people in the mountains as a way of  'Dividin...

  When Michael and I plan our travels, I'm always looking forward to the cooking. I love making meals inspired by what you see and taste in a local market. I cooked in Hanoi, on Bali, in the favela in Rio, in Paris. I try to cook everywhere, having my own take on some of the local dishes. Here, in the Moroccan riad, I wanted to do the same at least a few times a week, but I soon found out even relative simpel cooking is difficult to plan, when you're living way out in a desert.  You can't pop into a local shop, whenever you find out you need an ingredient. Here every buy has to be planned ahead and brought home by taxi. But still, I needed to try my hands in a Moroccan kitchen and I asked Fatima, a local cook, who was hired to make most of our meals, if I could help her preparing. The common way of cooking in the Berber communities, has for many centuries been doing tagines - dishes named after the earthenware pot in which they are cooked A tagine consist...

The sun is setting on our first day in Morocco. The Mu'addhin has just recited the Adhan, the call for prayer, from the pink minaret of the village mosque about two hundred yards away. - La ilaha, ill llah, muhammadun rasulu llah. There is no god but Allah. Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. The almost wailing voice marks that the day is about to end. We now live in Tizfrite, a small Berber village on the vast Saharan desert plain that stretches towards the High Atlas Mountains. Here, we're planning to stay for the next month, but this year has taught us that plans can change! We should actually have started 2018 with three months in Hong Kong. Everything was planned, the air tickets bought, the flat in Hong Kong rented, our flat in Copenhagen sublet. And then  I had a nasty fall, which almost destroyed my knee. Instead of strolling through Chinese alleys and markets, we went to our house in the south of France, where I ...

Who ARE our neighbors here on Cap Ferrat? Actually, these days, you don't find movie stars or glitzy celebrities - just the garden variety of usually Eastern European billionaires (with Paul Allen of Microsoft as one of the few Western exceptions). And, yes, President Putin of Russia, should, as far as the locals know, own one of the secluded palaces. No one knows exactly where it is.  Or they will not tell. When you're living on the Cap, you appreciate discretion! In the old days it used to be different and one of the few houses, which are actually visible from the outside, has experienced all the glitz you can dream of. The Fleur du Cap, lying just next to the bay, was once owned by Chaplin, and later, for many years, it was the home of the British actor David Niven. Standing on the small beach just next to the house, you can easily imagine the marvelous Old Hollywood parties, which have taken place over the years. Another famous and e...