GREENLAND

Advantages: Wonderment
Disadvantages: None

...This year we cruised to Greenland via the Faroes and Iceland and back to Scotland stopping on the north side of Iceland and then the Orkneys. You may say WHY? Iceland was pretty much as you would expect, you know geysers, whales, dolphins, puffins (strange, strange birds whose wings are not very efficient) and a lot of tourist type stuff, but Greenland was magnificent. Great snow topped mountains fall straight into a blue, blue unpolluted sea, and occasionally there are tiny wee inlets with two or three houses, painted such bright colours, only accessible by sea. A sea, littered with icebergs that have broken off the enormous glaciers,that slide gracefully into the sea. Small rivers of water cascade into the sea down the sides of the mountains forging picturesque channels. We entered the iceberg-strewn waters at about five in...

polarbear 08.10.2000 · Read review
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Review of General: Denmark

QAQORTOQ greenland

Advantages: Explore the whole Capital on foot in less than 30minutes
Disadvantages: No night life!!

...Qaqortoq when translated means ?The White Place? and although there are only just over 3,000 inhabitants it is still regarded as ?The Big City?. It is also the hub of life in South Greenland. It is naturally centred around the harbour where you can find trawlers, cargo ships and some yachts belonging to the more adventurous traveller. The fact that icebergs are often found in the harbour is just a reminder of how far North we are and of the hazards of these Arctic waters. The black-tarred log building on the waterfront was shipped to Greenland log by log in 1797. It was designed by the Danish royal architect, Kirkerup and prefabricated in Denmark The blacksmith?s shop, which was built in yellow stone in 1871, now houses the Qaqortoq museum. This is one of the best museums I have seen. It shows Greenland culture right through...

polarbear 09.10.2000 · Read review
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Review of General: Denmark

A Great Holiday

Advantages: Hotel not too large, so you get to know everyone.
Disadvantages: Not by the sea, if the sea is what you're after.

......

lala95 09.08.2007 · Read review
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Review of Greenland Hotel Turkey

Incorruptible Ice (Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg)

Advantages: fascianting, beautiful, fun
Disadvantages: the techno-thriller resolution and action sequences might disappoint some readers

...-read it within couple of months of the first reading). Miss Smilla of the title is a daughter of a famous Danish doctor who fell for a Greenlander female hunter. She spent formative years of her life in Greenland but then, after her mother's death, lived in Denmark with her father; never integrated, never truly adapted, never really home. Half a Greenlander, half a Dane, pulled out of her mother's culture at 12 she is - in fact - alienated form both, she cannot kill animals but she cannot, not really, live in the world where mechanical order stands between Smilla and her perfect feeling for snow. She is a scientist though she never completed a degree, she is well-off but lives more from her father's guilt cheques than from any income she earns. But above all she has an amazing, uncanny feeling for ice and snow. In Smilla the natural...

magdadh 29.03.2009 · Read review
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Review of Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow - Peter Hoeg

More inspiration from Lonely Planet

Advantages: Great for ideas, choosing best time of year to travel
Disadvantages: Limited information, some of the dates may be slightly inaccurate

...there's an extra double page "the missing week" to make up the number of weeks to a total of 52; this features a variety of topics such as continents, summits etc. There's a wide range of ideas and experiences, which tend to be more on the adventurous side (and there's a few that 99.9% of people will never do - such as surfing a dangerous break in China, or Bell's Beach, Australia - think Point Break!). A lot of them are very active, some require specialist experience - e.g. rock-climbing. But it's good for bringing up ideas I'd never have thought of, such as dog-sledding in Greenland or visiting Chernobyl (not convinced about the latter!). Each idea is rated by fitness required. One slight flaw in the book is the limited information - while it aims to tell you the best time to travel somewhere, it's difficult to gain an idea with some...

cathy_m80 23.05.2008 (19.05.2008) · Read review
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Review of A Year of Adventures (Lonely Planet General Reference) - Andrew Bain

Chasing memories on the Atlantic shores

Advantages: a easy paced and informative read
Disadvantages: none

...roots in both these places. With that the gauntlet is laid down and the whole raison d`etre of the book is summed up. The opening statement of the book comes in the form of a confession. Many years previously Mowat wrote a book called "Westviking - The Ancient Norse in Greenland and North America" which supported the then current ideas that the Norse were the first Europeans to cross to the New World. Any good researcher will adapt their ideas and theories in light of new information and the fact that Mowat has written a book that by design supersedes his previous work, speaks volumes for the fact that he has the right attitude, to many authors these days are overly precious about their work. Academic research is by its very nature a fluid and malleable science and Mowat understands this only too well. Without giving too much away...

steerpyke 30.04.2006 · Read review
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Review of The Alban Quest - Farley Mowat

Ice, Ice, Baby

Advantages: Beautifully fuid prose, well crafted plot
Disadvantages: Deprived me of sleep for a couple of days!

...vividly thanks to reading this book. Of course there is special emphasis on descriptions of snow and ice, which probably doesn’t sound too interesting! However, the Inuit people of Greenland have an amazing number of words for all the different types of snow, and the unpredictable forces of the Arctic weather play a huge role in the development of the story. Just read the passages where Smilla describes the luminescent effect of snow during the Arctic winter, and you will see what I mean. However, this is far more than a simple murder story. There are many strands to this tale, as it deals with alcoholism, loneliness, love and fear, and delves deeply into the troubled relationship between Denmark and Greenland. In many respects, the history between the colonial power and its sparsely populated possession is a painful tale...

JVL 16.10.2001 · Read review
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Review of Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow - Peter Hoeg

Tom's Sense Of Snooze

Advantages: Good premise, fantastic locations, DVD is fair value
Disadvantages: Acting seems wooden and uncomfortable, no memorable performances or scenes, story loses direction a little towards the end

...I first encountered Smilla?s Sense Of Snow in a Media Studies lesson towards the back end of 2003. My group were analysing a trailer of the film, and I must admit I was impressed with what I saw; the unusual settings of Denmark and Greenland were accompanied by some breathtaking scenic shots, and would play host to a story of mystery and intrigue? It was some while later that I decided to check out the complete version of the film. I had no luck finding it on play.com but no worries, there is always playUSA.com as back-up, and sure enough this is where I discovered the Region 1 DVD for just £6.99, and I?m not the type to pass up on that kind of bargain! And so after informing my parents of the ?school-related? purchase, I had managed to get myself a copy of this illusive title to own. Based on Peter Hoeg?s novel ?Miss Smilla...

tom1clare 28.02.2004 (08.06.2004) · Read review
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Review of Smilla's Sense Of Snow (1997)

Ice and Fire

Advantages: a gripping and moving read
Disadvantages: could be a bit shorter

...better, or rather, I knew better already! Never again can I call back ‘my’ Smilla and that’s a pity because she’s someone very special and should forever remain an imaginary creature. XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX The German translation was published for the first time in 1994 as a serious looking, expensive hardcover novel; the English translation, however, appeared already in a pocketbook edition in the same year with a sticker on the cover >Winner of the Crime Writers’ Association Silver Dagger Award<. What is more appropriate for Miss Smilla? The answer is: she fits into both categories, in fact, her whole character is defined by ‘not only, but also’. She spent her childhood in an igloo together with her Eskimo mother, a famous hunter of seals throughout Greenland and, after her mother’s...

MALU 16.11.2002 · Read review
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Review of Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow - Peter Hoeg

Go Dutch

Advantages:
Disadvantages:

...that little bit longer for flying to Amsterdam first, they chose to show two flims, which were in English with Dutch subtitles, and quite up to date. The seats were as comfortable as you're going to get, with just about enough legroom, and I wasn't in too much pain when the time for touchdown came. Overall, I cannot recommend KLM highly enough. And if, like me, you're a big fan of the wilderness, this flight offers the added bonus of flying up and over Greenland - a priceless experience just by itself....

inspiralcarpet 26.06.2000 · Read review
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Review of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines