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Summer vacation 2006

The only bad thing about it; it is over :-(

I came back this weekend after 3 weeks camping around Europe. Total relax and "back to basics" with no work, blogs, e-mail, TV, mobile coverage or electricity. Had lovely weather until the end of the vacation which is great. Coming back to a "fresh" Milano is just fantastic as it can be boiling at this time of year sometimes.

Most of the first week was spent camping on the way up through Europe on the way to Røros. The first major stop was Euro Disney. It was a  fairytale like most Disney cartoons. Very well kept and organized. We also stopped in Hunderfossen to spend a day with my cousin which has kids that are the same age as mine. It has a Norwegian theme and it is a smaller than Euro Disney but we had plenty of fun anyway.

Most of the vacation was spent in the Røros area and in my mums cabin in Hessdalen. Røros is a nice small town and was the scene for (at least) one of the Pippi movies. The cabin in Hessdalen is a typical Norwegian cabin and left a lasting impression on the kids:

• it is in the middle of nowhere:




• in summer you have 15 min walking uphill to get there


• in winter you have 5 km by cross country skis to get there


• no water, electricity or plumbing. You wash yourself and brush the teeth in the stream running close by.


• they got fishing rods for their birthdays and both of them got fishes (small trouts) on their first fishing trip...

On the way down to Italy we stopped in one of the many great campings in Denmark; Billund FDM camping. It is just fantastic for kids and highly recommended. It is the only camping I have ever seen with a family toilet; a large shower that lets you have a shower with the kids, toilets for grownups and kids, sinks for grownups and kids. Legoland itself was even better. Smaller than Euro Disney but more suited for families with kids;

• each attraction with potential queues has a play area with Lego. The kids play while the parents stay in the queue. When it's their turn they can take a shortcut to join the parents.


• there are dedicated pic-nic areas

I came THIS close to buying the Lego NXT for playing with Microsoft Robotics but in the end I did not buy it. The store in Legoland sold it for Danish retail price of 2.499DK (~330 euro) but the suggested retail price for Italy is ~250 euro so I decided to wait a bit more.

Sorry, but I did not manage to blog anything in July due to my work on mobile services for the Football world cup and my vacation. Things will be hectic for another few days but my blog activity should increase again during the autumn. I have a couple of cool tools (with source) in the pipeline that I will release soon.