It was October. And it was +25C in Antwerp. For those using the Fahrenheit scale, +25C means the treshold to proper summer heat. I walked across town, from the railway station to the hotel, at 10 pm at night. It was me and couples, walking arm in arm or hand in hand, taking a late-night shopping stroll or returning home from a weekday dinner in town. Antwerp is a cozy town for romance.
Unfortunately for me, Antwerp means work, every time. Even on balmy late-fall nights.
(Antwerp, Belgium; October 2018)
After wandering through a military area, stumbling into deer hunting ground, and being attacked by baby ticks, a picnic lunch by the beach seemed like a good idea.
The pond in the Brande backs makes me think of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden. Perhaps it was more shaded by forest, but the size and tranquil feel is right.
Catching the last of the green before it is gone for the winter. And yes, there are forests in Denmark. Real ones, not just those plantations with one sort of trees planted in endless rows. 
But (unfortunately) one must go looking for the natural forests. To Silkeborg, for example. 
Oh, such a gorgeous backyard for the lucky people who live in Silkeborg. And how sad: this is what all of Denmark probably looked like before people got the bright idea to convert it into a flat, open-land agriculture nation.
(Silkeborg, Denmark; October 2018)
Japanese green tea, a chaise longue, and a Japanese-inspired view: this is all I had time to experience at the Yasuragi Spa in the Stockholm archipelago. Not the tranquil pools, nor the hot water baths in an airy outdoors-like indoor space, nor the saunas, nor the shiatsu massage and the lovely healthy snacks. Because nobody briefed me of the meeting location until a week before, and I had already booked my flights in and out, the same day. Unlike everybody else in the team.
(Hässleholm, Sweden; October 2018)
The sun set over the Tiber and the Vatican, like it has done for thousands of years. For us this meant good wine with spaghetti cacio e pepe, a traditional simple wonderful Roman dish with cracked black peppercorns and cheese.
(Rome, Italy; September 2018)
“Pantheon” means “of all gods”. Was this really a temple of all gods? Or many gods? One would like to think it was once a site of inclusion of faiths, not exclusion. But perhaps the Romans just had so many gods they built one to serve the most important ones?
(Rome, Italy; September 2018)
“Dress for the job you want, not the one you’ve got”, the (surprisingly effective) saying goes. If your career dreams include becoming a bishop, a cardinal, or even the Pope, this shop will help you fake it ’til you make it. If you can take the long stares from people you meet in the street, that is. And why not stare? This gear is absolutely fabulous.
There was rain throughout our meeting. And right before our walking guide gave up the sky cleared up just a little, enough for a stroll around.
At the age of eighteen I spent one day in Rome. During these two days I saw less of Rome than back then. And what I saw now was mostly the same sights as twenty years ago. 
But twenty years is nothing for the Eternal City. Two hundred years may cause a few major collapses, such as the one of the Colosseum. Two thousand years is possibly half of the age of Rome, if one adds the Roman population we know from history books to the Etruscans and other tribes who originally inhabited the seven hills of Rome. 
Today many of the ruins are under scaffolds. Either Italy has cash enough or it just seems so as in the city of endless ruins there is endless restoration work to be done. And sometimes new buildings are erected, too, such as the monument for the first king of the unified Italy: the Vittorio Emanuele II Monument from 1935 (also more fondly known as “the typewriter”). Today this humongous monument looks nearly modern. Perhaps two thousand years in the future it will be a heap of pillars and ruins, and a virtual reality as good as new.
(Rome, Italy; September 2018)
In this small town of 7,000 people there is one main street through town. It is beautifully maintained by town folk: street art and murals decorate houses, an art festival takes over the town in summer, hay bales and pumpkins are on display for harvest, and Christmas lighting and market cozy up the town in December.
The people here must be of a church-going sort as the bells toll every morning at 8 am and about twice an hour every Sunday until well past noon. And for us others it serves as a good wake-up call especially on work days.
(Brande, Denmark; September 2018)
This blue marble 