Re-Visiting Christchurch before the Earthquake

They thought they were safe. Although New Zealand sits atop the "Ring of Fire," where the Pacific and Australian tectonic plates join, there were no known fault lines where 25,000 people lived for 160 or more years, building beautiful churches, universities and homes. One day, in 2010, that changed forever. Christchurch, located on the south…

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Christchurch Cathedral – Now Lost

The Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand, was an impressive piece of religious architecture and a tourist draw-card for the small city. Sadly it's now gone, due to two large earthquakes that occurred back in 2010 and 2011. I was lucky enough to visit just two weeks before the first earthquake. History of Christchurch For Christchurch…

Swedish Skansen Museum

Overlooking Stockholm, Skansen Open Air Museum is a walk back in history that every visitor should make when visiting Sweden. Skansen is the first open-air museum and zoo in Sweden and is located on the island Djurgården in Stockholm, Sweden. It was opened on 11 October 1891 by Artur Hazelius to show the way of…

First Trip to Nepal

Fellow blogger Pooja from Stories from Europe grew up in Nepal, so we've joined forces to write about a city located close to Kathmandu, called Bhaktapur. The individual accounts are about the same city, Bhaktapur, but written from a perspective of 34 years apart. What things had changed? What comparisons can we draw? Let's find…

A Little Polish Never Goes Astray

I took a walk through a small village in Poland, high up in the Tathra range near the Slovakian border. Come join me in Zakopane.

Værnes Church, Norway c 1085

Nidaros Cathedral One attraction that everyone comes to see in Trondheim, Norway, is Nidaros Cathedral and yet it is the nearby Værnes church in Storjdal that, for me, holds more fascination, at least in a historical sense. Not only does the Værnes Church have a purpose-built 'Weapons House,' that dates back to Viking times, but …