Alison Stewart's Blog, page 3

Lofoten Islands – happiness lives here

Basking within the icy flourish of the Arctic Circle is a jagged shoal of islands harbouring a secret. Happiness lives in this wild place, a calm contentment and sense of belonging nurtured by respect for 1000-year-old traditions.

The Lofoten Islands wallow off northern Norway. This warm-hearted Gulf Stream-bathed chain lies within the cold body of the Norwegian Sea. Only 24,500 people live along the 110-kilometre string of five main islands at the southern end of the Lofoten-Vesteralen archipelago in Norway’s Nordland.

Read my story published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller and online here:

http://www.traveller.com.au/cruise-norway-lofoten-islands-breathtaking-arctic-scenery-and-ancient-viking-culture-h1d12s#ixzz5oLQwpQv9

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Sir John Monash Centre – an expensive white elephant or a triumph?

Wars provoke strong emotion. The new $100 million Sir John Monash Centre, which tells Australia’s World War I Western Front story through “interactive media installations and immersive experiences” is a case in point.

Some feel this is a terrible waste of money; some feel it is a wonderful addition to the landscape of the Western Front.

Read my story published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller or online here:

Read more: http://www.traveller.com.au/war-stories-the-sir-john-monash-centre-villersbrettoneux-h1c8p2#ixzz5oLPoQ5tE

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Norway’s Telemark Canal – the stuff of fairytales

Norway’s Telemark Canal is hewn from rock that soars from sea to mountains and negotiates a challenging barrier of waterfalls. When it was completed in 1892, Norwegians referred to it as the eighth wonder of the world.

Read my story published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller and online here: http://www.traveller.com.au/norway-a-canal-boat-ride-in-the-telemark-region-is-like-being-in-a-fairtale-h1bq1m#ixzz5oLOtKGow

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Norway’s natural wonders – six of the best

Here are my six of the best natural attractions in that wonderful country of Norway.

The story was published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller and online here:

http://www.traveller.com.au/norway-six-of-the-best-natural-masterpieces-h1bo8w

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Norway’s Bergen – Australian composer Percy Grainger meets Edvard Grieg

It’s not unusual when travelling to encounter a small, sometimes surprising slice of Australia. Generally it’s home-comfort food – that life-saving flat white or ubiquitous smashed avo. In Bergen, it’s Percy Grainger.

Here’s my story about the relationship between composer Percy Grainger and Edvard Grieg, published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller and online at traveller.com.au  http://www.traveller.com.au/bergen-norway-composer-edvard-griegs-happy-place-h1c8ov#ixzz5oLMWsh6U

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Trondheim – Of Saints and Sinners

Our small ship has negotiated the glittering chain that is Norway’s Trondelag archipelago in the Norwegian Sea, threading through myriad islands, islets and skerries to sail into the elongated Trondheimsfjorden.

Visions of Norway generally conjure lacy fiord landscapes or Arctic Tundra, but Trondelag, and its capital Trondheim, wedged into the heart of the country, is Norway’s quietly achieving region.

This is the birthplace of modern Scandinavian democracy – Norway is the world’s oldest continuously functioning democracy whose heritage dates back more than 1000 years.

Here is a screenshot and link to my story published on February 16, 2019 in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller: http://www.traveller.com.au/trondelag-norways-quiet-achiever-h1b470#ixzz5gDheLXil

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Block of Ages – Egypt’s Unfinished Obelisk

It is a mighty thing, this massive red-granite obelisk, lying under a scalding sky in the open-air museum that is Egypt’s Aswan quarries. Some might thank the stars that Egypt’s 3500-year-old Unfinished Obelisk remained unfinished, forever attached umbilically to home soil.

It has meant that the legions of treasure hunters trawling the land of the pharaohs could never purloin it as they did so many of its siblings.

Here is a screenshot and link to my story published on February 16, 2019 in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller: http://www.traveller.com.au/legions-and-legends-aswans-unfinished-obelisk-h1b47d#ixzz5gDgRy0K8

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Ypres – where peace was born from hell

Ypres is not simply a city but a state of mind – a symbolic place of pilgrimage and memorial to resilience. Though German bombardment during World War I reduced it to rubble, it held out against invasion, a defiant corner of Belgian Flanders.

It stands today, rebuilt exactly as it had been before the war, now a place of peace in the midst of terrain still seeded with the bodies of war dead. If some had had their way, the town would have been left as a ruin in memoriam.

Here is a screenshot and link to my story published On February 9, 2019 in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller: http://www.traveller.com.au/ypres-a-living-place-of-the-dead-h1au9w#ixzz5gDfY6oEv

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Blue September – Skagen’s amazing natural light phenomenon

The charming village of Skagen in North Jutland, known as “the Land of Light”, sits neatly on a ragged finger of Denmark, which points rather accusingly towards Sweden.

This northernmost tip of Denmark and mainland Europe has produced a sand-and-moorland landscape of luminous light. This light turns an enchanted azure when sea and sky merge in the twilight to create a natural phenomenon called Blue September, celebrated with a dedicated festival.

Here’s a screenshot and link to my story published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller on February 2, 2019 : http://www.traveller.com.au/blue-september-denmarks-amazing-natural-light-phenomenon-h1ahk2#ixzz5gDdpf8YN

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Vietnam Airlines business class flight review

Here’s my flight review published in The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age Traveller on January 21, 2019 and you can also read it at the following link:

http://www.traveller.com.au/airline-review-vietnam-airlines-sydney-to-ho-chi-minh-business-class-h1a5ou

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