Scandinavian Cooking attains Culinary Gold

The IKA World Culinary Olympics 2012  took place this October in Erfurt Germany. It ran for five days and  54 countries competed to make the most  visually appealing, sensationally tasting dishes.  The World Culinary Olympics were first held in 1900 and they are held every four years.

In the hot kitchen competition, team members are watched closely, as they prepare a three-course meal to feed 110 people in five hours. For the cold platter contest, the chefs prepare exquisitely crafted dishes, which are prepared in advance and judged wholly on their presentation.

Scandinavia proved to be the current culinary champions as Sweden won the gold medal and Norway attained silver. The Swedish winning entry included a cauliflower and broccoli terrine, herb-crusted venison with Scvecia (a Swedish semi-hard) cheese, porcini duxelles (finely diced mushrooms) and a dessert of autumn raspberries, yogurt meringue and almond cake.

If you want to explore Scandinavia, taste the fine food, see the beautiful landscapes and not forgetting at this time of year, enjoy the phenomena of the Northern Lights, take a look at our website or give one of our team a call to find out more about Nordic Experience.

Trondheim to Alesund via the Atlantic Coastal Road

The annual Norwegian Workshop presented me with the opportunity to take a short tour before joining the business sessions in Fredrikstad near Oslo.

I chose to go somewhere that I had not been before and met up with a group of fellow travel professionals from around the globe in Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city. Trondheim has managed to preserve the intimacy of a small town with impressive wooden buildings and colourful wharves and has many other options and excursions available. www.trondheim.com

After checking into our Hotel (Rica Bakklandet) we were whisked off to Norway's National Museum of Rock. Not knowing what to expect we arrived with intrepidation at a large unassuming building, with what looked like a suitcase perched on top - not quite what we were expecting !

The museum is called Rockheim (presumably a pun on Trondheim?) and despite the name is not limited to rock music, but excludes classical, folk and other non mainstream music over the decades from 1950 through to current day.

Rockheim in Trondheim

It's an interactive exhibit and is extremely technologically advanced, using motion sensors to activate the exhibits. For example on the top floor we were presented with a massive curved wall of video screens which we were able to control using hand movements to choose, start and stop music videos by decade.
This is where things became more obvious, in that, unless you are Norwegian you probably don't know any of the music on offer with a couple of notable exceptions. A-ha from the eighties and Elvis from the 50's. Why Elvis ? Apparently there was no "popular" Norweigian music at this time and they needed to shop where all the inspiration came from!

Despite this, you are able to see the changes through the decades as you move through the museum and you learn about Norwegian most famous music exports , other than A-ha : they even have the original drawings from the famous video (if you're old enough to remember).

Apparently Norway is famous for "Black Metal" and they are extremely proud of a band called "Immortal". Certainly not my style of music, and akin to a electric static storm at full volume shouted by a gentleman in black leather trousers & white makeup. Each to their own !!

Interactivity continued with us being able to record a hip hop rapping session, guitar playing in a recording studio, and many other things that we did not have time to experience.

Hunger set in, and we headed back and set out for a lovely fish restaurant just around the corner from the Rica Hotel called Havfruen (www.havfruen.no). Well worth a visit with fantastic food and a river setting.

Location:Trondheim, Norway

Journey to the centre of the Earth

Did you read or watch Journey to the Centre of the Earth when you were younger? It always intrigued me, and now you have the chance to see for yourself this summer in Iceland where they have opened up a new tour "Inside the Volcano".

As the name suggests you can lower yourself into a volcano. Thrihnukagigur is the only place on earth where you can go into a magma chamber of a volcano. Luckily this volcano has been asleep for the last 4,000 years but they still don't guarantee that it won't erupt again. I think it's a fairly safe bet though !!

Currently this is only available for a short 12 week period this summer this is an interesting addition to any visit to Iceland.

Located about 20miles from Reykjavik it is easy to reach and will give you a spectacular insight into the volcanic activity that forms part of Icelandic everyday life. For those that may be claustrophobic, there is no need to worry, the Magma Chamber is (in their word)s 'huge' and could fit the Statue of Liberty inside a number of times over.

More details can be found at Inside the Volcano or you can ask us to add this on to your tour.

Location:Iceland

Northern Lights in Tromso

Tromso Cathedral

I was recently given the opportunity to fly to Tromso to experience the Northern Lights in Northern Norway. There is never a guarantee that the aurora borealis will play fair and come out to play, but I was hopeful and set out with a DSLR, tripod and the instruction manual for the camera.

The flight to Tromso was with SAS via Oslo departing from Heathrow early in the morning with a quick connection in Oslo (where incidentally it is necessary to collect your luggage and re-checkin for the onward domestic flight) and by lunchtime I was gazing at the beautiful snowy landscape as we were on the final approach into Tromso.

The bus transfer into Tromso cost 90NOK return (about £10) and we were dropped outside the Rica with a short 100m walk to the Hotel With where we were booked into. The Hotel With is not the most attractive building from the outside, but it has an amazing position overlooking the harbour and serves waffles and cream in the afternoon! It also provides a basic evening meal as part of the deal - useful as Norway can be expensive to eat out. This is not meant to be a half board option but an opportunity to ensure that food is available if it is wanted. Odd way of looking at it, but the other hotel guests seemed to be happy enough.

Having been up early in the morning to drive to Heathrow we were not really of the mind to set out searching for the Northern Lights, but as our time was short we duly looked at our pre-booked vouchers and set our for the meeting point to go on a taster dog sledding session whilst peering into the sky for the Northern Lights - or at least that was the idea ! Dog sledding is rather like driving a car on skis, in the you need to pay attention to everything that is going on around you while maintaining your balance (and dignity).

The Northern Lights were spectacular that night (4th March) but it was a shame I couldn't take photos - though as I'd not taken the time to read the manual yet I suspect my photos would have looked very much like some of the others which I saw that night ...... black !!!

Speaking to the more experienced photographers it seems that the tripod is a necessity, with a long exposure (10-30 seconds) and a high ISO. I lost it at the ISO stage but thanked them warmly for their advice.

Husky Mushing in Tromso

The husky mushing was great fun though being a taster session it was soon over and we were back to a Kota (or Lavu) for a basic warm meal before transferring back to Tromso by bus, not before seeing the final dance of the Aurora before the clouds obscured the stars and any further chances of seeing more solar activity.

What would the next day have in store for us ........

Location:Tromso, Norway

Can your smartphone survive the cold

Having just returned from yet another trip to Northern Finland I experienced a few issues with my iPhone and Android companions which complained against the cold.  Battery life on smartphones is not knonwn to be that good and the cold exasperated the condition.  I often wondered why all the local guides seemed to have "old" Nokia phones in their pockets and this got me wondering which phones were the best for the cold temperature.

A quick Google and I cam up with the following webpage Sub-Zero Weather and Smartphones.  Quite interesting to see which phones fared the best.

If you've got the latest iPhone then perhaps you should keep it warm !!

ICEHOTEL weekend

What are you doing his weekend ? I'm off to see the 22nd ICEHOTEL in Jukkasjärvi, Sweden, easily reached from the UK in a few hours. I'm leaving at 7am and will be standing at the Absolute bar early afternoon ready for some light refreshment and entertainment.

I'm choosing to stay one night in cool (a.k.a cold) accommodation at a steady -5c on a reindeer skin bed in a (hopefully) warm sleeping bag. The booking instructions say that I need to wear thermal gear and a hat !! Not entirely sure about this, but my mother always told me to try everything at least once, so I'm taking her advice ..... for one night !!!

My second night will be spent in the comfort of a heated hotel room thawing out from the days activities and hopefully taking some photos of the Northern Lights as I've just purchased a new F1.8 50mm lens for my camera. Previous photographic attempts have failed miserably so I'm hoping for better results. As a precaution I've looked at this guide to taking photos of the Northern Lights which I hope will help. Only time will tell and if I get any reasonable shots, I'll post them on our website.

Meet us at Destinations Travel Show London

For those of you who don't know, Destinations Travel Show is one of the largest consumer travel shows in the UK. We will be at Earls Court (stand E112) and look forward to seeing you there from Thursday 2nd Feb through Sunday 5th Feb 2012.

Our experts can guide you through your Scandinavian holiday decision making process and put together a Nordic holiday tailored for you, whether it be a weekend away at the Swedish ICEHOTEL, searching for the Northern Lights in Norway or and Iceland holiday getaway at the Hotel Ranga and beyond. Time is running out for a winter experience this year, but it's never too early to book for 2013 where the Northern lights in Norway are expected to be some of the best of the decade.

If winter is not your thing, then we have some interesting summer experiences to Iceland and Norway to name but a few.

Come and visit us on our stand, or if you can't make it take a look at our Nordic Experience website and give either Francesca or Ian a call on 01206 708888 where we can talk you through your Scandinavian holiday.

Location:Earls Court