Throughout the years I have learned so much from other travelers I met online or in real life. This website is my way of paying it forward. Feel free to 'follow' and leave comments! I hope my website helps other travelers find general travel savviness and suggestions for cool places. It is also a way …
France 2023
Road tripping through the west of France by car and bicycle for almost 3 weeks in September 2023. I drove to an idyllic B&B in the Loire Valley. After 3 nights there I left my car at this B&B and spent a week cycling eastbound along the river Loire, visiting lovely towns and castles along …
Austria – winter 2023
Mid February 2023 I went on an active group holiday to Tyrol in Austria. Most people joined the trip to do cross-country skiing (langlaufen) but hiking was also an option. We all stayed in the same hotel in Brandenberg (Tyrol) the entire week and the bus driver took us to different snow regions every day: …
Denmark 2022
15 days in Denmark and a bit of Germany. A nice mix of big cities, tiny villages, cycling and hiking in nature, islands and ferries, and open air museums.
Cycling in the Ruhr area, Germany 2022
In May / June 2022 I spent a week cycling (on my human-powered bike, not an e-bike ;-)) and seeing surprising sights in the former industrial area Ruhrgebiet in Germany. Most of the city centers are quite ugly but there are cool industrial sites all over the place. Many former mines and factories are now open for visits. The whole region is very green, has picturesque old villages with half-timbered houses and some excellent bike paths.
Germany + Austria 2021
In September 2021 I finally went outside of the Netherlands for the first time in 18 months because of the pandemic. My own country is beautiful but I had missed real mountains. I was very lucky with dry sunny days for 3 weeks except a few foggy or rainy hours here and there. I hiked …
The history of my last name “Obertop”
The corona crisis gives me plenty of time to re-read the history of my last name, as investigated and written by distant cousin Frank Obertop in a work of almost 100 pages. Obertop stems from the name *Topp* in Westfalen, Germany and has traveled wide and far… My ancestors turn out to have been quite the …
Lapland, Finland 2020
Early January 2020 I made an 8 day trip to Ylläsjärvi in Finnish Lapland. See more here! Trip report and photos Practical tips about clothing, daylight, aurora and more I booked the trip as a package holiday through TUI Netherlands. I don't normally book package deals but for Finland it was a lot cheaper and …
Cecilia 