This was a very entertaining mix of old map and nonsensical illustrations. The illustrations remind me of another circus, Monty Python’s Flying Circus. The map is indeed old, the capital of Norway is called Christiania instead of Oslo (it was called Christiania from 1624-1924, before and after it was / is Oslo). Loved it!

Ok, so this is my favourite Aimee Stewart image ever. So far, I should say. I loved it! This was one of those rare cases when I put away the box almost immediately to make the puzzle last longer. It didn’t help much, I still finished it in one sitting. I would very much like to have this in a larger piece count, and this got me thinking that I’ve never seen an Aimee Stewart in a really large piece count. Wouldn’t be nice to have an image in this style with 5000 pieces? I would definitely buy that.

I just realized, this is my third New York-themed puzzle in a few weeks. Not intentional! This was a gift from a friend, and it’s part of the Ravensburger Star Line, meaning that parts of the puzzle glow in the dark. In this case it’s the lightning as well as all the city lights. It looks really impressive, but you’ll have to take my word for that, since I couldn’t get a photo of it no matter what settings I tried.

I think this is my first image by Lars Stewart, known to puzzlers as husband of Aimee. I might not have gotten this at all, but it was sold as a set together with another puzzle I really wanted (a map with pirates by Heye). Well, I’m very happy I did get it, because it turned out to be very entertaining, and much easier than I expected. Also, while Ravensburger is, of course, usually great quality, this turned out to be especially smooth, somehow. Loved it!

Eight images with famous London landmarks. As expected, this was very enjoyable and quite easy. I did the texts first, and most of the skies last – there were only about 50 completely blue pieces, and even those had many shades. Loved it!

This was something different! A wooden Ravensburger puzzle. It’s manufactured in Poland, and it turned out to be very similar to the Trefl wooden puzzles. The cut is excellent, and the puzzle was a complete joy to put together. The pieces are a bit thinner than some premium brands, like Artifact, and they are also smaller (the finished puzzle is 40×27 cm, when a cardboard 500 piece Ravensburger is 49×36 cm), but the fit is great, and the price was very reasonable – I paid 24 EUR for this.

Here’s a close-up of the cut:

There were 40 whimsies, and with the exception of the wizard hat, I think every item can be found in the puzzle itself:

The owl whimsy is even part of the owl:

On the back, there was a pattern, similar to patterns on Trefl wooden puzzles:

It occurred to me that this sort of pattern would be really useful with a puzzle with an ambiguous cut, but it’s not at all needed with an excellent cut like this. Too bad the puzzles that need this never have it.

Hampton Court is a Royal Palace in the southwest of London, originally built in the 16th Century, althoug some parts were added in the 18th Century. The castle was a favourite of Henry VIII. No royals currently live there, and it’s open to the public.

As a puzzle, it was very entertaining and fairly easy. It seems to be part of a series called Historic Royal Palaces, but I’ve never seen another puzzle in the series, unfortunately.

The astronomical clock was my favourite part:

This was such a pleasure, especially after those King puzzles. As soon as I saw this puzzle, I knew I would love it, and I did! I like “vacationy” beach scenes in puzzles, although in real life I prefer to stay away from the sand – it goes everywhere and is very hard to get rid of.

For my puzzle challenge, this was #25, a puzzle with 1500 or more pieces.