When you think of travelling to Finland you probably imagine snow, huskies, seeing the Northern Lights, swimming in ice pools and other winter fun. But I’ve been to Finland in summer twice now and found it’s a great time to visit. Tips for visiting Helsinki in Summer Last time I went on a 2000km road trip in Finland and really loved seeing other parts of the country, before spending a few days in the capital.…

Helsinki, ‘the land where Heaven meets the Sea’, that’s what they like to call it. This is a city that people live in for its design and culture, the art and nightlife, and for its quality of life. It’s getting better known on the international stage in recent years, and the strong food scene is a big draw. The steps up to Helsinki Cathedral in Senate Square are a popular place to meet, relax and people watch So how do the Finns celebrate all this?…

La Strada, meaning ‘The Street’ in Italian, is an annual festival of theatre, street performances and puppetry, that takes place for a week or more in Graz each summer. It began in 1997 with Werner Schrempf, who still directs the festival today. Together with his assistant Noemie and teams of helpers, they paint the cool city of Graz with an exuberant streak of orange before filling it with talented acts.…

In early August this year, I visited the Austrian city of Graz for the first time. I was there to check out the performance festival La Strada for the MustLoveFestivals project. Graz is Austria’s second city, but like me before I went, you may have absolutely no impression of it. In fact, I’d barely heard of it. I’ve been to Vienna three times on my travels, and despite being unimpressed with the capital at first (too many shops…), it is one of my very favourite cities of Europe.…

My impressions and photos of The Hague from visiting in June for MustLoveFestivals. The Hague, a place of idiosyncracies After Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Dutch city of The Hague, also known as Den Haag, is the 3rd largest in the Netherlands. They call it ‘the city that grew up around a palace’, but technically it’s not even a city. It did hold city-status once, during an overnight stay from Napoleon – but he promptly retracted it on his departure.…