Northern Iceland used to play second fiddle to the Golden Circle around Reykjavík – but not any more. After Lonely…
Warsaw’s amazing neon wonderland
From the 1950s to the late 1970s, in the wake of a state-funded programme, there were neon signs on just…
Haute cuisine in Val Thorens
How Val Thorens, Europe’s highest ski resort, became one of the world’s least likely gourmet destinations (First published in N…
How we made: N by Norwegian, September 2015
For sheer variety of features, this one is up there with my very favourite issues of N by Norwegian… There’s just a…
Feeling the (Kung) Fury
Quite a while ago, in a place quite far north in Sweden, twenty-something FX artist David Sandberg quit his job,…
Croatia’s answer to Tuscany (minus the prime ministers)
It’s got record-breaking truffles, great local wines and more olive oil producers than any region in the world bar Tuscany.…
Vinyl’s groovy comeback
The return of the LP has brought the good times back to Haarlem, the Netherlands, where the world’s biggest vinyl…
The god of small beers
Mikkel Borg Bjergsø started home brewing as a science experiment – then became the original “gypsy brewer” and a craft…
Feeling swell in Portugal
In the late ’70s and early ’80s, a hardy group of locals and an American backpacker turned Ericeira, just north…
Hooked on Lofoten
Tourism may be poised to overtake fishing as the main industry in Lofoten – but it’s still fishing that forms…
The mission to save the world’s coral
With coral reefs around the world threatened by global warming, the pioneering XL Catlin Seaview Survey is creating a Google…
How neon lit up Vegas
Neon lighting may have been invented in France and popularised in Jazz-era America – but it reached its peak in…
Why Facebook went to northern Sweden
Facebook’s data centre in Luleå, northern Sweden, claims to be the greenest on the planet. It’s already created a local…
How we made: N by Norwegian, March 2015
The “Miami issue” was a good N by Norwegian issue, with subjects ranging from Lego hipsters to game-changing Hungarian piano-makers…
Hungary’s piano man
This piano represents the first major redesign of the instrument in over a century. Its Hungarian creator has spent more…
Miami: A hundred years young
The town of Miami Beach was created a century ago. Then the fun really started (First published in N by…
Michelin heads outside Copenhagen
With the Michelin judges finally going beyond five Scandinavian cities, why some truly astonishing restaurants should soon be getting the…
Tromsø: far beyond the Northern Lights
With more people, more tourists, more money and more big ideas, the capital of the Arctic is booming. We head…
Mountain, meet fjord
Until recently, Stranda didn’t have the infrastructure to match the off-piste skiing and stunning fjord views. Now that’s changed, could…
The man who saw the Lights
When Jussi Eiramo stopped his car here in 1973, Kakslauttanen consisted of two reindeer meat storage units. Over 40 years,…
How to make a ski resort
Canadian Paul Mathews is the world’s pre-eminent ski resort designer, having created more than 400 of them around the world.…
Madeira – and why it’s not just for cruise passengers
The Portuguese island of Madeira has been more readily associated with cruise ships and all-inclusive resorts. But with its consistent…
The mafia, Louis XVI – and the curious history of pinball
Europe’s largest pinball museum in Budapest is a fascinating primer on the game’s surprisingly colourful history – involving police raids,…
The most prolific writer on Earth
Sverker Johansson has created more than three million Wikipedia articles, around one tenth of the entire content of the site.…
How we made: N by Norwegian, August 2014
The August 2014 issue was a favourite of mine – mainly because I think we made a few quite bold…
