All about Europe

Oct272019 by Penny4 Comments

5 Great Places In Europe To View The Northern Lights

One of the most frequent Bucket List conversations I have is about seeing one of nature's biggest light shows - the Aurora Borealis, aka Northern Lights. I love researching these sorts of dream trips, so today I thought I'd share what I consider to be 5 great places in Europe to view the Northern Lights from - they are all clearly wonderful so it's just which destination appeals to you personally. Pick one and do it, or do them all! :) 5 Great Places In Europe To View The Northern Lights The Northern Lights 'season' runs from September through March when the longer hours of night give you the best opportunity to view. Technically the Lights can occur year round, but obviously are only seen when it's clear and very dark. This spectacular natural phenomenon is created when charged parti...

Aug202015 by PennyNo Comments

10 European cities you didn’t know you wanted to visit, a mini-birthday and techy trauma

Europe, Other

It's been an interesting week. It started with a mini-blog-birthday, yup, OnePennyTourist is now 6 months old! I know, right? They grow up so fast *dabs away a tear* It was also the week my blog 'fell over', going offline for about 8 hours. Apologies if you couldn't access the site (more tears). The cause was a mystery, but hopefully just a blip. Despite this week being a little busy though, I found a new toy called Listly, which, (and you'll never guess this), allows you to make lists, hehe. But they are pretty lists, and I really love that I can make slideshows for you all now! So just for fun: 10 European cities you didn't even know you wanted to visit. You may be familiar with two as my ego meant I included myself, haha, but there are 8 other cool cities to explore. See some...

Aug142015 by Penny10 Comments

Kristiansand Norway: The surprising port

Cruise Ports, Cruising, Europe

The story so far. I've taken a Disney Cruise, I've been to Copenhagen and Oslo and I've been super impressed with both. Could our next port, Kristiansand Norway live up to it's predecessors? Read on to find out friends, read on. Our All Ashore today was an earlier 8:15 am, with All Aboard at 4:45pm. Once again, we'd opted to explore by ourselves rather than take an organised excursion (that's a bit of a theme for us) and we anticipated a rather relaxed day ahead. Of all our ports, for some reason this was the one I'd been the least excited about. I don't know why, I just guess somewhere had to be 'last'. Our plan was to have a short wander, visit Fiskebasaren, then take the opportunity to relax and enjoy the ship for the day. But let me not keep you in suspense. We docked with...

Aug52015 by Penny17 Comments

Oslo in 8 hours: Making the most of our day trip

Cruise Ports, Cruising, Europe

My Nordic Adventure continues with our first port of call on our Disney Magic cruise and a visit to Oslo. And what a visit it was - with blue skies and sunshine, even the weather seemed to welcome us to Norway's capital with open arms. Disembarkation was scheduled for 10:30am. It was nice to sleep in after our busy weekend in Copenhagen so were still enjoying breakfast when the gangway opened early, oops. Our All Aboard time was at 5:45pm, so that meant Oslo in 8 hours - we needed to get moving! Oslo in 8 hours: Making the most of our day trip Fortunately our ship docked central to the city, literally next to Akershus Fortress. No prizes for guessing where we were heading first. Akershus dates back nearly 700 years, and being a fortification it naturally res...

Jul262015 by Penny12 Comments

Adventures with the Copenhagen Card: 48 hours to explore the city

Europe

If you've already read about my stay at the Absalon Hotel earlier in the week, you'll know that I recently spent 2 days visiting Copenhagen. As part of my research, I'd obviously looked into whether it would be worthwhile to invest in a Copenhagen Card. This card allows entrance to many of Copenhagen's main attractions, offers discounts, plus covers train, metro and bus travel in the region. Used right, it can save money (they have a handy calculator on their home page helping you to 'do the math' which I LOVE) and is convenient to use too. The dilemma was that I knew that our time in the city would be tight for us. The Copenhagen Card can be purchased in increments of 24, 48, 72 and 120 hours. Technically speaking we'd be in the city for exactly 48 hours, but that included de...

Jul202015 by Penny10 Comments

Absalon Hotel in Copenhagen: A review

Europe, Hotels

It's surprising how quickly normality returns after a trip away, boo! We've had a fantastic time visiting Denmark, Norway, Iceland and Orkney, but all good things come to an end. On the bright side I now have 2 weeks of wonderful travel memories to write about, and what better place to start than at the Absalon Hotel in Copenhagen, our pre-cruise hotel for 2 nights. So grab yourself a cuppa and get comfy because I have lots of photos to share! Before I go further I want to mention that I did pay to stay at this hotel, but received a discounted rate. There were no conditions to write a favourable review and opinions, as always, are my own. Besides I'm way too opinionated to let someone else talk with my voice! Absalon Hotel in Copenhagen - a review The Absalon Hotel is located 5...