The main city center of Tromsø is actually on the island of Tromsøya (Romssasuolu in the Northern Sami dialect of its first nation inhabitants). In the photo above, the island and thus main city center is to the left, taken as we pulled into the port. Leaving, a few hours later, we passed under that bridge you see above, and during our several-hour port call we walked a bit more than halfway across that bridge, on the other (mainland) side of which is the iconic church you’ll see in some photos below.
This post is my reminder to any of us sweating in northern summers that we wanted more sun, back when the days were short and snow blanketed the ground e.g. during our flight from Kirkenes down to Oslo back in January 🙂
Ok so this post is a bit more about me than usual, because…well, it’s my birthday so why not? Plus, just one week ago as this post goes live, I was still in KL, wrapping up my lovely afternoon in which I explored first the Botanic Gardens (which we’ve shown you in recent posts) and then the remarkable Malaysian Museum of Islamic Art (which we’ll show you in future posts). Since this blog tends to show you photos I might have taken quite a few weeks or months ago, I thought I’d show you some recent posts featuring the fairly-current me, sweaty and happy from climbing up to the top of the Penang Hill two weekends ago, on the eponymous island of Penang in the eponymous State of Penang in the fabulous country of Malaysia. Quick comparison: as you see, there in Malaysia, land of true mountains, they call their 833-meter high item a “hill.” Down south here in my truly beloved adopted home of NL, some folks call the Vaalserberg and surrounding 322-meter high items “the Dutch alps’ … some of them, I think, with tongue in cheek. Or at least I hope so. This was, of course, a work visit – and generally a quite lovely and enjoyable one, I’ll say. But as you know, we don’t really talk in this personal space about the work, so instead I’m showing you various shots of one of my truly favorite MY weekend activities, walking in the heat and humidity (endurance test for an aging dude, eh?) of a Malaysian summer afternoon from the bottom to the top of this awesome hill. Pro tip: check for monkeys in the various photos below. And yes, Steve, there’s another special animal shot that’s just for you 🙂 — see if you can properly identify the one I took with you in mind…
And yes, however lovely the gardens, water lilies and architecture are wherever work or pleasure travel have recently taken me, I breathe a sigh of relief when I get home to my lovely lake views and my own bed & kitchen again :-). I’d been saving this May morning moon-set shot for either sky lights, or city lights, but I like how it pairs with the shot above.
Turns out I skipped Urban Garden on the last cycle: such things happen when I try to keep up with daily posts while traveling. Or maybe I knew that once I got home I’d have lovely shots like this, from Kuala Lumpur’s remarkable Botanic Garden, which I visited Saturday morning before flying home that night. These are all taken from or of the lovely and fun “Bamboo Playhouse” – which is not a theater but a house for kids (of all ages, if you count me) to play in – as you see from the sign below :-).
July 5, 2025 in Minden, Germany. A train re-routing due to track problems allowed me half an hour to walk around this mid-sized city en route between Berlin and Amsterdam, thus having the chance to appreciate how many more cultural and free-time activities might be available in such a city than when, say, I myself first spent time in Germany back in 1980. A further joy that day: my arrival in Amsterdam was still on time; nay, one minute early.
(so much world, so little time....) 