Far far up north feels like a different world. It is magical, scary at times, stunningly beautiful and so underpopulated. Those who decided to live there showed us lots of care, kindness and great hospitality, we will miss them.

4000 km in 8 days, empty unpaved roads, moose and bears wandering around, never ending daylight, warm, and no tourists. Sounds like a paradise except for the occasional need for the rifle on the back. More bears than people live in Alaska.

We started from Whitehorse all the way to Alaska, half way up the Golden Loop. Valdez welcomed us with icebergs, bears and rain. Definitely one of the favorite parts of the trip. The big Alaska loop was at our feet through Denali, where we saw the Magic Bus, Fairbanks and finally long awaited Chicken, population 40 and 8 in the winter. That was part of the trip mom remembered very well from her hitch hiking trip 18 years ago. From Chicken we drove on top of the world highway to Dawson City.

Dawson City hasn’t changed since the Klondike days in 1896. We did try some luck looking for gold. I got a little flake, grandpa had to put glasses on to see it and mom was worried trying not to sneeze. Since we didn’t get a fortune we drove back along the Golden Loop to Whitehorse.
Grandpa was a great chef and mom a good driver, I was good at collecting firewood.
After arriving in Whitehorse we soaked our bodies in the hot springs. We were sad to leave the north behind, but we will be back …

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Together with my mom, Yvonka, Rhys and his bottle (it’s an inside joke) we went for a “Castles in France” adventure. On our first day in Versailles, having gone to bed at 4pm because of jet lag, we got woken up by loud explosions which turned out to be fireworks celebrating Bastille Day. We managed to arrive at the main plaza in front of the palace (in pyjamas!) exactly when the fireworks were over.

In Versailles Yvonka began our pedagogical lessons about the different types of columns, which lead to more lessons about Tristan and Isolde, Tosca, Othello, Marie-Antoinette and tons of other cultural things of great importance. In two weeks we visited stunning castles, parks and gardens. In Chaumont-sur-Loire we saw mom’s favourite artist Andy Goldsworthy, all the installation where made of nature. It was her favourite and least favourite day at the same time, as she forgot to put the battery to her camera, well there is always a phone camera.
After the Loire Valley and ten castles, we drove south. On the way to Castels we stopped by uncle Steve’s house for a short visit. I was very pleased. In Castels we stayed in a manor farm house with a dog, a cat, two donkeys, many ducks, and some bugs which liked Yvonka very much, (we like keeping traditions while travelling) After overdosing with squash we headed south to Carcassonne when we could “finally” see some tourists. We stayed at a mansion nearby where we surprised our host with our sardine breakfast diet. After two weeks we reached the Mediterranean sea and topless ladies on the beach.

After two weeks of castles, boat cruises, visiting the world famous Lascaux caves with the prehistoric art, countless cathedrals and cute villages, it was time for a big city trip – Paris via the TGV. We said goodbye to Yvonka, as her adventure continued in the Pyrenees with even more castles. Once mom, Rhys and I arrived in Paris, mom put on her fast forward guide hat and we had lots on our plate: Eiffel Tower all the way to the top, the Louvre, the Sacré-Cœur basilica, the Pompidou centre, and Notre Dame cathedral. We had a lovely lunch with mom’s lovely friend Pierre. Rhys found his long awaited Subway and lost his water bottle.
Enjoy 10 pages of pictures!

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