Pepperkakebyen. El pueblo de galleta de jengibre.
One of the food we normally associate with Christmas dates are ginger cookies. Along with rice pudding is one of the most typical christmas desserts that never miss in a table in Norway. Kids enjoy helping mothers to prepare cookies to eat them as a dessert with all the family.
Though the cookies with Gingerbread Man's shape –also known as Gingy- are the most popular, the true is that there are no limits when preparing these sweet creations made of ginger and aromatized with cinnamon or honey: they may be oven cooked like Santa Claus, christmas tree or even you may build up a whole city of them.
In Bergen they know this fact quite well. From Christmas in 1991, the city center -Torgallmenningen- becomes the sweetest place in the world with the creation of Pepperkakebyen- the Ginger cookie's biggest town in the world-. They create tiny little houses, trains, cars and ships made of ginger bread, candy canes and they use glass sugar to stick all together.
Everybody helps to make this ginger town grow up, from kindergarden children to school kids that contribute with their own creations. That is why every year Pepperkakebyen is visited by thousands of tourists attracted by its magic and who want to be wrapped with the christmas spirit. It will be open the whole month of December.
Makes you want to go, right? Do it! Check out our prices here!
more infoLe Hangar à Bananes
This former warehouse located at one end on the island of Nantes is a key point in the city nightlife. The name, Hangar à Bananes, is no accident. Since 1929 bananas were downloaded here arriving from the Netherlands and Ivory Coast, and stored to let mature. But with the independence of these colonies, traffic began to wane and eventually, the hangar was abandoned until it regained space because of the contemporary art biennial Estuaire 2007.
Taking Navibus that crosses the Loire, you get to this area where you will find a wide selection of stylish bars, restaurants, exhibition halls and nightclubs, as AlterCafe or Icone. Perfect to go any day of the week to eat or drink in the sunny terraces and enjoy a nice drink by the river Loire. In addition, the hangar environment preserves some interesting traces of its industrial past and other new works as the 18 rings by artist Daniel Buren, that light up in different colors at nightfall.
We’ll be there. If you want to come too, check out our flights here.
more infoNational Art Museum
The largest art museum in Rumania was set up in 1948 and includes both Rumanian and European art from the 15th to the 20th centuries. The museum houses the most complete collection of Rumanian art in the country and possibly in the world.
Located in the old Neo-classical Royal Palace surrounded by a large number of historic buildings, such as the Romanian Athenaeum, Kretzulescu Church and the Hotel Hilton Athenee Palace, the museum currently exhibits more than 100,000 pieces divided between two main sections. Its National Gallery houses the works of great Rumanian artists, including Grigorescu, Aman and Andreescu. There is also a hall full of the early sculptures by Brancusi (hard to find anywhere else) that show how he surpassed his master, Rodin, towards a more advanced form of expression. The European Gallery Space, which consists of 15 rooms, houses the jewels of lesser-known art by such great artists as El Greco, Monet, Rembrandt, Renoir, Breughels (father and son), Cezanne and Rubens.
Picture by Sailko
A place well worth discovering! Check out our flights here.
more info
Toykio. Come play with us
- If shopping is supposed to be an experience rather than simply raiding the rails and shelves, there are only a few places that can live up to your expectations and truly surprise and inspire you. Toykio is one of them. After some successful years as an online shop and a pop-up gallery on Königsallee, the guys from Toykio built their new headquarter in the Japanese district of Düsseldorf, just off Immermannstrasse. With its shiny black ceramic tiles and colourful neon signs, it is a hybrid between toy store, art space and a café where you can find pretty much everything your inner child desires.
- Action figures, robots, Qee bears, labbits, comics along with coffee table books, vinyl records and premium poster prints – every item seems to be hand picked by shop owner Selim Varol. The gallery in the basement features a variety of more or less known artists from urban- and pop-art, lowbrow, surrealism and photography, just as Banksy, JR, Shepard Fairey, Swoon, Ricky Powell, KAWS, and D*Face. And though it is unlikely – if you ever should get tired in Toykio, you can just sit down and enjoy one of the best coffees in town at the very Brooklyn-like pastry bar.
- By Lukas Blasberg from METAL
A place well worth discovering! Check out our flights here.
more info