Park Life – Vigeland Park in Oslo, Norway

There are few things in life that I enjoy as much as a ramble in the park. Any city park will do. Maybe it’s being surrounded by greenery and breathing in fresh air. Or perhaps it is watching people and dogs of all shapes and sizes embrace their temporary freedom from the concrete jungle that most of us live in. Whatever it is, time spent wandering the grass-lined thoroughfares of any city park always rejuvenates me. I purposely chose to live just blocks from Balboa Park for this very reason and soak in its beauty as often as I can.

One of my favorite activities when traveling to a new city is to carve out time to explore the city park on offer. Throughout the years, I have logged a fair amount of miles roaming some of the world’s most fantastic city parks.

The park I would like to showcase this week is Vigeland Park. Vigeland Park has the distinction of being the world’s largest sculpture park all thanks to the talents of a single artist, Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943). Vigeland Park contains over 200 bronze and granite sculptures which can be found scattered throughout the park.

Name: Vigeland Park (also known as Frogner Park or Frognerparken)

Location: Frogner - a suburb of Oslo, Norway

Size: 80 acres

Park Highlights

The Big Reveal

Who knew that it would be so hard to compose a list of five destinations? Since I last wrote to you about our little experiment, I have been frantically working on my list; adding and removing places in preparation for the deadline this past Wednesday. About an hour before the big reveal, I was still struggling with what to put for my fifth selection. Time was running out.

The plan was to email our Top Five list to each other. At the appointed time, I made a last minute choice for my fifth destination, held my breath, and hit send. KJ’s email arrived moments later. I eagerly opened her email only to find that two of her destinations were the same as mine! We were off to a great start.

So without further ado, here is the final list in alphabetical order:

Columbia
Corsica
Croatia (on both lists)
Easter Island
Honduras (on both lists)
Iceland
Philippines
St. Petersburg, Russia

Each place on the list is a worthy destination. How were we going to narrow it down to just one? We had some hard choices ahead of us.

Bridges of Bankers Hill - San Diego

There’s a lot to love about living in San Diego. I could lie to you and tell you that it isn’t as great as its reputation, but why would I do that? I would much rather boast about the beauty of this fine city and gloat about the almost perfect year-round weather. All to entice you to come visit this pocket of California, of course.

When I first moved here in 2002, I was fortunate enough to settle into a great neighborhood near Balboa Park where I am able to be pedestrian and enjoy the eternal summer days.

One of my favorite parts of living in Bankers Hill is walking the historic streets lined with turn of the century homes and taking in the canyon views that are sprinkled throughout the neighborhood. Bridges provide the best vantage point for such views and Bankers Hill happens to be home to three of my favorite bridges.

Here are three unsung treasures of San Diego. Next time you are in the neighborhood, come check them out for yourself.

Travel Wish Lists

Tick tock. It is the beginning of March and I still haven’t figured out the destination of my spring trip. I realize that this is a fantastic problem to have and I’m certainly not complaining, just waiting for some travel inspiration to arrive.

Unfortunately, there is no method to my madness or surefire process that I use. Typically I have a few destinations in mind and I will start with some high-level investigation of the chosen places. I have been known to devour guidebooks as though they were some fast-paced crime novel and then supplement my findings with more in-depth online research until I cobble together the perfect combination. Some trips come together in a matter of days. The detail falling into place with such ease and grace that I know it is meant to be. Other trip planning sessions start down one path only to evolve into something entirely different.

Just last year, I chose Egypt for my spring trip and had completed my research to such a degree that I was ready to book my flights. It was at this particular stage that I realized that I was craving nature and the great outdoors; not chaotic city life or the dusty desert. I suddenly longed to escape somewhere where I could ramble up a mountainside. So Egypt was put back into the “places I want to go, just not now” bucket.

Days later I stumbled on an enticing article about Norway and it clicked. I must go to Norway immediately! Never mind that up until that moment I hadn’t ever thought much about Norway and in fact knew very little about the country. Turns out Norway met all my needs and was even more amazing in the flesh than I could have hoped for.

Right now my destination queue is empty or at the very least greatly unorganized. Sure I have my prerequisite list of must go to places, such as Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, India, and Africa. But each are places I want to spend a fair amount of time exploring and don’t fit the timetable for this particular trip.