About five hours away from our apartment in Pula is a small Austrian town called Hallstatt that you may or may not have heard of. But even if you haven't ( Okay, I admit, I hadn't heard of it) there are many, many people around the world who have. The village has a tiny population …
It's never too late (or early) to plan for ChristmasBefore the holiday season gets away from us completely, I'd like to share some perspective on the Christmas and Advent markets in the countries near where we live in Europe as well as the ones in Croatia themselves. As I'm sure many of you have seen, …
Continue reading Advent Markets in Europe: Are they worth it?
Licorice, Tivoli Gardens and Freetown Christiana. What do these three vastly different things have in common? Well, they are all located in Copenhagen, so there is that. But like the multitude of bike riders that roll through the Danish city each day, each offers a distinctly unique version of the Danish lifestyle, so I …
Continue reading Licorice, Tivoli Gardens and Freetown Christiana
Suppose I told you the raspberry Danish pastry that we know and love in the USA didn't originate with the Danish. Blasphemy, you say. No, it's true. In Denmark pastries are called Weinerbrød (which translates to "Vienna bread") after their origins in none other than Austria. In the 1850s bakers went on strike in Denmark, …
Continue reading Is the Danish really Danish? (And other facts about Nordic Cuisine)
One day it happened that there were no more excuses. Our kids were grown, my husband, 57, had retired early, there were no grandkids on the horizon, our house was paid off and we had something that had been missing for a long time in our rushed and hectic lives --- free time. We had …