September 25, 2019

Big City hopping

Backpacking or roadtripping in Europe is something I haven´t done a lot, and started doing late in my travels, since the budget for a month in Europe can go a long way in Western Africa or Southeast Asia. Its also nice to visit Europe in the summer, which is prime work time, but early autumn or late spring is really the perfect time to visit. I got the excuse to go to Europe for 2 days of work, but extended it into a week long overland trip of big city hopping so I could try and justify my carbon emissions from Iceland and back.

Vor Frelsers Kirke

I started in Copenhagen, where I wanted to visit a dear horse-backriding friend Ditte, but that very same weekend she went to Iceland to ride so I borrowed her summer cabin for me and my favourite German riding friend. Michael had a bad knee so we didnt ride the Icelandic horses nearby in the town of Nykobing but we enjoyed the beaches of Sjaelland by bicycle and the weather was even good enough to barbeque dinner.

Copenhagen canals

We stopped in Copenhagen for a night to overlap with Ditte for one city bike ride and some touristic stops, and the next morning I flew to Hamburg, where I´d be meeting yet another horse friend Jana, for her birthday! We celebrated by scooting around town, day drinking and taking public transport ferries with roadbeers for a cheap booze cruise. We dined with some friends and sniffed some stuff that gave me a head rush, and the next morning we were finally off to ride. We rode Icelandic horses at a friends breeding farm called Bockholts-Hoff and rode thru a German forest on horses that had just arrived from Iceland. I wore my new yoga/riding/hiking pants that were a little too tropical for the rainy weather, but they must have been the reason the sun finally came out.

riding Icelandic horses in Germany

Next I was off to Rotterdam, via flight to Amsterdam and dinner with a Dutch horse friend, who rode those very Icelandic horses with Silke and I a few weeks earlier in Iceland. A short and sweet date before I checked into my Backroads hotel and was given a Backroads van to drive to Provence early the next morning.

Dijon

My ´work´ roadtrip took me 1,099km thru Holland, Antwerp and Belgium, then Luxembourg and into France. I drive past Moselle, Metz, Nancy, a bit of Champagne region, Dijon and spent a night in Beaune. Then I drove the Bourgogne trail, past the gastronomic capital of Lyon, along the Rhone and into Provence. We ended in Carpentras, where we keep our vans, and I spent a day bike touring thru Aubignan and Sarrians.

good thing our bikes have built in wine racks

Another day was spent traveling by train back to Paris, eating some moules frites on the streets of Montmarte, and left feeling like I had taken in an overwhelming amount of sights, tastes and culture from so many different corners of Europe. I had also managed to get a tan and feel the sun, so returning to a chilly fall in Iceland was very welcomed, especially since it was one of the first times Iceland was really experiencing a truly autumn season.

June 4, 2018

Bike Training in Provence

Provence is a place where the name alone triggers the smell of lavender and dreams of endless vineyards. I’d never been there before, but thats exactly what it was, plus some. There were meadows of red poppies as far as the eye could see, olive trees and strawberry fields, and picturesque villages on hill tops seemingly unchanged for hundreds of years.

Vines, poppies and an olive tree

I stayed between Carpentras and Pernes-les-Fontaines, visiting nearby Avignon, Monteux and Blauvac to name a few. Dinners included red wines from nearby Chateuneuf-du-Pape and freshly picked, local asparagus and artichokes. I stayed with 23 amazing individuals in our own Chateau, with a courtyard fit for a regal wedding, and we were all given performance street bikes that weighed less than my right arm to use as transport.

Practicing my French Duck face

During the days, we had a combination of hard and “soft” skills training, everything from bike mechanics to public speaking. We were on our way to become tour Leaders, not guides, since “leaders” implies we also have co-leaders and teamwork skills. We had to learn to be interested, not only interesting, and speak about our regions and activities with passion that couldn’t be staged. We learned how to use an intraweb interface that takes me back to the days of the internet in 1999 – its extremely mind boggling to filter through html links, url sites that cant be reached, tens of thousands of pages of information, and other trip resources without google.

My training group, aka Missy Elliot

Our group was mainly European, plus a few dual citizen North Americans, and about two-thirds female. Everyone spoke two or more languages, and the collective travel experience and skills in that group made all of us feel individually inadequate. I made some lasting friendships, and others I’ll never see again, and two of us didn’t even make it thru training and returned home with an abrupt end to their Backroads career.

Just another picture perfect Provence town

It’s funny how France keeps calling me back; first, a spontaneous backpacking trip in Bretagne over New Years, and now, the opportunity to get paid to learn about bikes and cycling in Provence. I thank Backroads for the opportunity, and can’t believe I’ve started making money while traveling to new places in my favourite countries.

April 11, 2018

Where in the world is Wallis?

I’ve traveled around the Pacific before and remember thinking Wallis & Futuna would be something like Pitcairn Island – totally unreachable and complicated to plan. When I landed in Suva from Tonga in 2015, I saw a Wallis flight boarding, flown by New Caledonia’s airline Air Calin, and found out it’s not that crazy to get to, or afford.

public transportation in Wallis

It was my main destination this time around in the Pacific. Direct flights go twice weekly from either New Caledonia or Fiji, and even thought the 1.5hr flight is overpriced at more than $200US each way, it’s still cheap compared to a lot of other pacific island destinations.

Jono and I in matching hats on our way to Wallis

It’s part of France, not a department or territory, but an “island collectivity” that still allows all residents to have French citizenship and all associated benefits. The population is just under 12,000 – 3,000 in Futuna and 8,000 in Wallis. Futuna is connected to Wallis by a tiny jet, but when the weather allows, flies multiple times a day, even though the distance to Futuna from Wallis is nearly as far as Samoa or Tonga. When the weather’s not so good, you can get stuck in Futuna for days, weeks even – the longest I heard was 6 weeks. With no ferry option, and the weather presumably too bad to sail, there’s no other option than to wait (Atleast they finally got an ATM and credit card payments working since November last year). Considering it was still the tail end of cyclone season, I decided not to risk it and visited only Wallis.

Couchsurf camp, when the mosquitos and heat are too much inside

I was traveling with a friend who lives in Suva, and though he’s “European” too, it was weird for us both to be greeted by French immigration. Apparently 5% of the island is employed in government jobs, and all the teachers, nurses, doctors, dentists, lawyers and police seemed to be métropoles, so atleast 5% of the island is actually French. The rest identify as Wallisian or Futunan, and there’s a minority of Fijians, mostly for their rugby team.

one of many impressive churches in Wallis

We couchsurfed, which was a feat in and of itself, since internet has been around for 10 years, but cell phones only the last 2 years, with barely enough bandwidth for smart phone apps. Our host was Michel, who had tan lines on the smile lines around his eyes. He was one of 3 dentists on the island, who had been working there for nearly 15 years and may retire at the ripe age of 55. He called himself a simple man, and lived in a shack with only mosquitos and giant cockroaches as roommates, and some retarded chickens and an extremely obese, angry pig as neighbours. We slept outside unable to bear the heat and bites without a mosquito net or fan, in a little shanty camp that atleast kept us breezy and scratch-free.

kayaking to Tekaviki island

He was an excellent host, picking us up at the airport (there’s no bus), and driving us all around the island in a day. It doesn’t take more than 15 minutes to get anywhere, but there is quite a bit to see on this 250sq. Km Island. Most of the main highlights are large, imposing churches (99% of the population are devote Catholics), and tourists usually make it to Lalolalo crater, a volcano that filled with water and is now home to the sunken machinery of the American army who refused to give it to the French after WWII. Not much to do, but plenty of water to see and explore by kayak. We went to two islands off the coast of Mata’utu, but the shallow lagoon meant Jono preferred to walk than row. There was plenty of rain too, but it’s hard to flood a rural island living sparsely dotted around dirt roads, in sync with nature for hundreds of years. But apparently the heat and mosquitos have gotten worse, which was a relief for my pride as a whiny traveler.

cava ceremony

We were extremely lucky to experience both Wallisian and Futunan culture, visiting the weekend when thousands of teens and youth were congregating for dancing and cava ceremonies with all their village chiefs. We met some expats our age that took us to the only nightclub on the island, which roared after 2 am Saturday night, and the traditional dancing kept going.

Polynesian dance, Futunan style

A cyclone was predicted to hit Fiji the day we left, and thought we may get rerouted to New Caledonia where our adventure could continue, but it seems my bad streak of flight distortions is finally over. Let’s see if I can get stuck somewhere in Fijian paradise instead.

January 11, 2018

Wandering France

Christmas is a wonderful time to be in Iceland, especially for the food and lights, and New Years Eve in Reykjavik is like nowhere else on earth, but this was also a nice time to travel since so many others are also on holiday now.

I met an American in Tuscany 6 years ago and we stayed in touch over the years. She came to Iceland in 2016 and met me in Mauritius for my birthday 2017, and we decided on meeting in Paris to celebrate 2018. It was going to be a cheap and cosy holiday, since we had my friends flat in Republique to house-sit, but when he dropped off the face of the earth without leaving any keys, we were pretty much homeless in Paris.

Girls night out in Paris

Luckily for us, Stef had a friend who was housesitting and we crashed with her for 2 nights. Those nights were well spent, eating cheese and drinking red wine. We ended up out for a night near the Moulin Rouge, and dragged a Christmas tree home with us on the 4am saunter back past all the open sex shops.

Mont Saint Michel

We had 10 more days in France without any attachment to Paris, so we decided to travel. We went to Normandy to see the infamous Mont Saint Michel, which looks unreal even to the naked eye. We carried onto Bretagne, where we visited the riche towns of St. Malo and Dinard and stayed in the capital Rennes.

Chateau du Vitré

Facebook told me I had a friend in Bretagne I had forgotten about – I couchsurfed with a metropole named Al in French Guyana 6 years ago and he lived in Corlay. It’s a village most have never heard of but they are famous for inventing their own breed of horse (who are great steeple chasers) and Al’s brother had a cottage there. We celebrated New Years Eve at midnight there, and barely missed it since we were the only 3 people in the village and couldn’t see or hear a sound of life from anywhere else. It was the quietest NYE party I’ve had yet, but the most champagne bottles drunk per head.

Dinard, on the coast of Bretagne

Our trip carried on thru some more charming places in Bretagne, like the Abbaye de Bon Repos and the lighthouse and pink rocks of Ploumenach. We found a cheap blablacar to Tours and thought “we’ve never been there” and went. It has a nice church and a yellow cobblestoned city center, but the most beautiful chateaus and wine villages around the region are more worth the visit.

Annecy in the Rhone-Alpes

My wandering in France ended in Lyon at a horse friends house. She works in a hospital and offered to photograph me with her x-ray machine. I picked my left shoulder as a subject, since it clicks sometimes and thought maybe we’d see why. She had a day off and took us to the mountains, Annecy at the edge of the Rhone-Alpes and up to the snow in Semnoz to have a snowball fight. We ate raclette, and bread and wine and more cheese, for most meals of the day, until my flight home the 5^th. But it was Alicia’s birthday the 5^th, so it was appropriate to have cheese and bread and champagne for breakfast and my last meal in France.

Alicia´s champagne birthday breakfast

Now its time to cheese and wine detox, at least a couple of kilos, and stop eating so much white bread. How do French people stay so slim?

July 14, 2017

Weekdays in Paris

A weekend trip to Paris isn’t so expensive these days, with budget air lines like Wow Air and Transavia flyin for around €100 each way when you’re lucky. A weekday trip is even cheaper, with a one way flight as low as €80, so me and my sister, who has never been to Paris or France, decided to hop over for a couple of nights, Monday to Wednesday.

Me and Kristjana at the Sacre Coeur

We were lucky enough to miss the biggest day of rain in years, just by a few hours, so happily the metros and gutters had just stopped flooding when we landed. It also seemed the sky had been rained out, so for the next couple of days, which had been forecasted for rain, we were lucky enough to have only cloudy skies, with small bits of sun poking thru. It was perfect – never too hot or too wet or cold, and we didn’t get burnt or heat exhaustion. Which we were kind of expecting after spending more than 8 or 10 hours of each day outside walking.

The Louvre

We walked everywhere. And only walked. The only train or metro we took were to get in or out of Paris/Charles de Gaulle airport . In 2 days we walked nearly 55km, and my sister is still slightly limping from a cramped hamstring. But it was all well worth it!

Getting our obligatory Nutella crepes

We saw nearly all of touristic Paris, even thru the battling crowds of other tourists and half evacuated Paris businesses (Parisians start to empty in July for their summer holidays). The Sacre Coeur, the Moulin Rouge, the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame, the Louvre, Champs Élysées, the shopping at St. Michel, Galeries Lafayette, and Chatelet, and the neighbourhoods of Montmarte, St. Germaine and St. Denis. Just walking thru the Louvre took half a day and a few kilometers, and I randomly ran into a solo Indian/American-dwelling female traveler I met a year and a half ago in Somalia. It’s a small world, even in crowded Paris.

February 9, 2013

French Gastronomy and Bocuse in Lyon

Lyon is an amazing city for gastronomy, with more than 20 Michelin stars given to its local restaurants. Food experts and lovers alike have even come up with a special term to refer to a traditional Lyonnais restaurant, a ´bouchon.´ I ate at Leon de Lyon, but not being a fan of pork, mustard or foie gras, it was hard to choose a traditional plate. My favourite restaurant was Au 14 Fevrier, a Valentine´s day themed restaurant where even the bread and butter are heart shaped.

the French are really good at making cute little coffees

Lyon native Paul Bocuse first became a legend in France with his innovatie nouvelle cuisine, changing traditional French cuisine into something fresher and healthier. He is one of the most awarded and famous chefs in the world, and the Culinary Institute of America named him the Chef of the century. His namesake restaurant, Paul Bocuse, has fully booked reservations each night months in advance. There you can try his famous truffle soup, probably the tastiest but most expensive soup you could ever try. He also established the Paul Bocuse Institute, a prestigious culinary school where 10 other cooperative universities around the world send their most promising chefs to study.

Siggi, 2013 Icelandic candidate, and Þráinn, his coach and 2011 candidate

The Bocuse d’Or is a culinary competition, kind of like the Chef Olympics, held every other year in Lyon since 1987. It gets more and more popular each year, and the competition itself has grown to include chefs from every continent. There is a regional Bocuse comptetition held every opposite year to decide who the qualifying chefs will be (from Europe, Asia, and the Americas) to compete for the Bocuse d’Or, and specially invited countries participate too (like Australia and Morocco).

sporting a chef hat at Sirha

The competition happens concurrently with the Sirha exhibition, a rendez-vous of all things restaurant related. Local chocolatiers and champagne makers offered free samples at their booths, and patisseries and cheese makers from all over Europe come too. We sampled our way through all the most delicious booths while 24 countries competed for the Bocuse d´or, until finally 2 days later, France was declared the winner.

For the first time ever, Japan won a medal with 3rd place. Iceland placed 8th, which is an incredible feat if you consider the fact that from a country with a population of only 320,000, we have the 8th best chef in the world. In 2011, my friend Þráinn from Iceland placed 7th, so we´re pretty consistent.

April 2, 2012

Martinique

I was couchsurfing in Fort-de-France, at a collocation of twenty-something metropole males and one French Guyanese girl. Heliott picked me up from the ferry terminal in the city center, which at 7pm on a Sunday was a total ghost town. Even the streets were carless, which was partly due to the gas station trike happening island wide. The few gas stations which were open had dozens of cars waiting patiently in line, some waiting over an hour just to refuel.

Fort-de-France, looking little different than other island cities

I was back in France, but it just wasn’t the same France. Algae grows on the rear view mirrors of every Peugot and Clio, stainless steel gates are somehow stained, concrete walls and houses crumble, wood rots, and any white paint turns to shades of brown and grey. Martinique is a department of France, but its also a developing, decaying island constantly battling the humid, infectious jungle overtaking all the manmade comforts we’ve tried to establish in a place that screams to stay wild.

I was in Martinique only 5 days, but it was the first island I visited and felt like doing nothing. It was not because of the appeal of the island, but with myself, my tired body,

wildlife on our waterfall trek

my exhausted mind from weeks of traveling. So many new places, people, sensations, and yet, a big blur of similar experiences, persuaded me to take an entire day to rest, digest. I sat still and relaxed for a day and a half, only seeing the balcony and my bed, and enjoying the people and things which passed by me. I met all the roomates, their boyfriends and girlfriends, tasted their rum, ate dinner with everyone, and talked in French and English about my journey so far.

waterfalls are much prettier than shitty-bat caves

By the second day, I still hadn’t looked at a map, and had no idea where I was except that I was in Martinique, but not even sure what or how big Martinique was. I was in Tivoli, near the middle of the country east of Fort-De-France. There is not much tourism in Martinique, and little infrastructure for a visting tourist. So the rest of my days in Martinique were equally relaxing, doing little else than fraternizing with my new household.

Julien, the other couchsurfer in the group, took me out of the house for a couple nearby hikes. We visited Chute des Didiers, a beautiful waterfall to swim under, so long

chutes du didier

as you don’t mind freshwater crabs and shrimp scurrying past your toes. And, you have to make it through a 200m, dark, bat-inhabited tunnel, walking along a narrow, slippery, waterpipe, that if you slip off, end up in knee-deep bat shit/mud. Luckily, we managed to stay on the pipe.

Me and his roommate, Jerome, explored another river which wasn’t trail marked, and decided to follow it down to a small waterfall which wasn’t quite deep enough to jump into. But, we were stuck on top of it and had to go downstream to return to the car, so we took turns lowering eachother down and keeping our fingers crossed that no blood baths would result at the bottom.

Another day, I went with their neighbor Alex to the north west part of Martiniqe. We visited his friend in La Carbet, who lived in a house with a beautiful 180 degree view of the ocean from high up on a hill. Together we went on to St. Pierre, the former Petite-Paris and cosmopolitan capital of the French West Indies. It was totally destroyed in 1902 by a volcano, wiping out 28,000 people and all the beautiful architecture, a story similar to the catastrophe of Pompeii, but survived by two who lived to tell the story first-hand.

March 25, 2012

Gwada, a.k.a. Guadeloupe

I booked a regrettable 7:30 am flight to Guadeloupe which had me leaving Julia’s stable at 5am. A few hours later, I had arrived in France. My Icelandic passport got me waved through immigration as if I was back in the EU, but I requested a stamp from the Police station in the arrivals hall which said “Guadeloupe,” not France. It was St. Patricks day, which apparently everyone in the Caribbean cares about despite there not being any Irish on the islands, so my host Francois had planned an exciting holiday excursion.

spices

the fish market

We were to tour all of Grande-terre, one of the two islands comprising Guadeloupe’s butterfly shape. We started in the capital, Pointe-a-Pitre, at a lively fish market. Nearby were stalls of fruits and vegetables, spices and hotsauces, pin-cushion dolls and home made rum. We tickled our noses through rows of smelly things, and bought some carambola, sting ray, habanero peppers and parsley.

fruits and veggies

Next we drove along the south coast, stopping in Le Gosier for a view of Ilet du Gosier, a tiny island off the coast. We carried on to the Club Med beach, where dozens of palm trees shaded the sandy beach and all the half nude frenchies lazing around. We bought tiny cups of juice for 3 euros each, and once again realized I was no longer in the cheap Caribbean but instead on a European island disguised by sandy beaches and warm weather.

Club Med beach

We arrived on the windy Atlantic side in Point des Chateaux, a narrow peninsula ending in the eastern most part of the island. Here herds of tourists took pictures of La Desirade, another nearby island, and ate hand-made coconut sorbet from a woman with a rusty churner. We finished the circumnavigation after reaching Pointe de la Vigie, the cliffy northern boundary of the island, and driving through Port Louis and Petite-Canal. Then we cut back east to La Moule, where friends’ of Francois had invited us for a bbq and some beachvolleyball.

Pointe des Chevaux

We played games in various teams, 4 on 4, 6 on 6, girls versus guys, and male only teams. We could never keep track of the score, and played to 15 or 25, depending on what we felt like. The bbq was potluck style, everyone bringing something different to share. We grilled our stingray in peppers, parsley and beer, and cooked some other fish that ended up tasting slightly better. After filling 3 garbage bags of paper plate, plastic cups, and empty bottles, we went sandy-faced to Maho pub, a grungy, hippy-esque shack with the strangest assortment of locals.

Chute du Carbet

I saw a black, 60 year old, toothless prostitute, blonde guy in Aladdin pants and embroidered vest, a beautiful young woman in a flowy, white satin dress, and the two brothers I had met in Antigua through couchsurfing. They were supposed to be in Dominica, but had changed their minds to spend the weekend in Guadaloupe, and of all places to be at that moment, were also at Maho.

We afterpartied at the Marina, and I crashed hard after 23 waking hours in Francois’ bed, since he’s that stubborn kind of couchsurf host who insists visiting strangers get to sleep in his bed while he surfs his own couch. The next day, we went the whole way around Basse-terre, the bigger but wilder half of Gwada’s butterfly. We stopped at one national park to see the Chutes du Carbet, hiking to the first of three waterfalls. A little further down the road, we hiked along an unmarked trail to a hot river, flowing down between large rocks and forming bathing pools of decreasing temperature. We soaked in one about 35 degrees, a perfect natural bath in the middle of the forest.

cliff jumping at Cascade Acomat

We met some friends in Bananier who had just finished surfing, and then had a picnic lunch on a dock in the city of Basse-Terre on the southwest corner of Basse-Terre. We hiked next to la Cascade Acomat, a beautiful waterfall pool that you could cliff jump into from any side at any height. We ended our day in Grande Anse, what Francois described as the most beautiful beach in Guadaloupe. We watched the sunset there, with a row of other waiting spectators, and as soon as it fell behind the horizon, stayed for the after show – a sky of pink and orange clouds in a darkening sky.

sunset at Grande Anse

That night Francois’ friend Francois (it’s a common name) hosted a pizza party. In true French style, we paired the home made pizza’s with red wine, and finally went home early for an early, good nights rest. The next day I stole some beach time and wifi from the Hotel Fleur D’Epee, to plan my ferry down to Dominica – my next island destination back in the Caribbean.

January 31, 2011

Lyon: Bocuse d'Or 2011

Bocuse d'or 2011

Every time I go to France, I make it as far as Paris and just stay there, romanticizing about all the wine, baguettes and delicious cheese I can eat without getting fat (well, thats what they say), but making it to Lyon was a special treat, although I have to admit the people do not get nicer. I had the spontaneous opportunity to go to Lyon for the biannual Bocuse d’Or competition last week because of some ties to the Radisson hotel. My flight was booked at 4pm on Sunday for departure at 7 am the next morning, and only with the help and organizational skills of others already going did I actually make it to France. I didn’t book any of my own travel or hotels, have any idea what was going on half the time, but blinldy followed around the others in charge and had such a great time just going with it.

painting the Icelandic flag on everyone's cheek

I didn’t get a chance to sleep til Tuesday, and we spent all day Tuesday cheering for Iceland’s candidate, Thrainn Freyr Vigfusson, and then all day Wednesday patiently waiting for the compeition results. Everything went down at Sirha, a huge exhibition self-proclaimed as the world’s rendez-vous for all restaurant and hoteling needs.

the crowds on day 2

Thrainn’s direct support crew were some of his closest friends, his coach slash former bronze Bocuse medalist Hakon Mar, and his comis chef Bjarni Jakobsson. Behind them they had a couple more kitchen helpers, namely Atli and Tomas, and then about 50 or 60 Icelandic cheerleaders, all friends, family or restaurant industry related people. We were only outnumbered by perhaps the French and Japanese spectators, although 50 Japanese cheering sounded like background noise compared to only 4 or 5 Icelandic men clapping, screaming “Islande!” in bass voices, and blowing off all sorts of noice makers. We had awesome tshirts, face paint, and viking helmets to make sure we didnt go unnoticed.

Mister Sevens, Bjarni & Thrainn

We spent the time outside of Sirha taking in the best wining and dining Lyon had to offer, eating at a bunch of different restaurants since Lyon is the world’s gastronomy capital. We partied at Wallace bar, a joint with over 200 whiskies, overrunning it with the same Icelandic people 4 nights in a row and probably giving them the best mid-week business they’ve ever seen.

We crashed a Norwegian techno dance party the night after the results, celebrating Thrainn’s 7th place finish; he was expecting better, and under a shroud of politics and suspicious dishonesty, he perhaps deserved 3rd or 4th, but 7th is damn good for a country of 300,000, competing with a small fraction of the budget that medal winners Denmark and Norway had (Denmark brought the Prince with him!).

Domaine de Clairefontaine

We had one relaxing day to be tourists, and took the day to drive out to Domaine de Clairefontaine, a beautiful chateau south-west of Vienne, where the famous Philippe Giardon runs a restaurant and catering heaven amidst the surrounding vineyards and countryside. I’ve never really traveled for food tourism before, or in a group of 50 people, but everything turned out so well, and ironically enough, I’ve never felt more like an Icelandic patriot.

Related Links:

Icelandic Newspage for food and wine, and Bocuse d’or reports (in Icelandic): http://www.freisting.is

Bocuse d’or: bocusedor.com or bocusedor.is