Inspiring Travel Writing from Tim Bird
Tim is a 48-year-old Englishman who came to Finland in search of adventure and new horizons in 1982. He has lived in the Helsinki area ever since, marrying twice, working as a journalist and editor for the Finnair in-flight magazine, Blue Wings, and using this part of the world as a base for forays into the former Soviet Union and eastern Europe. His 1999 book, A Baltic Odyssey - Exploring the Baltic Sea Region, is based on some of these assignments. In 2003 he self-published the Hands-On Guide to Helsinki, a second edition of which came out in spring 2004.
Articles by Tim Bird
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Music and Romance Fill Verona’s Summer Air
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Tim Bird
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Italy
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Veneto Region
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Verona
There is a full moon over Verona’s magnificent Roman amphitheatre. A light breeze on the higher levels brings gentle relief to the gathered crowd, 25,000 strong, on this very warm July evening. The occupants of the more expensive seats, lined up in...
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Bear Faced Encounters in the Finnish Forest
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Tim Bird
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Finland
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other areas of Finland
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Suomussalmi
The headline on one of the Helsinki tabloid papers in mid-June catches my eye as I board the plane from the Finnish capital to the town of Kuusamo. A man walking his dogs in eastern Finland has come eyeball to eyeball with a female bear. Nobody was...
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Treasured Island
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Tim Bird
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Greece
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Cyclades (south)
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Amorgos
Far below and across the bay, a huddle of whitewashed houses and tavernas hugs the foot of a mountain, forming a crescent along the shore. A jetty extends a sheltering arm for a tiny fleet of fishing boats, moored in moody-blue water. The scent of...
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Magic and Myth in the Finnish Air
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Tim Bird
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Finland
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other areas of Finland
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Savonlinna
Karelia, the region of sprawling forests and lakes traversed by Finland’s eastern border with Russia, has the feeling of a true frontier. Few European landscapes are as wild and thinly-peopled, and few share such a powerful sense of being on a...
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Making the Case for a Baltic Odyssey
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Tim Bird
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Finland
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other areas of Finland
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Toija
I visited Troy on a cool and showery afternoon in August. I found it by a sultry inlet, its ancient walls buried beneath a creeping forest, its once teeming streets long turned to pasture, the view to the sea extended beyond the horizon by the...