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If It’s In Your Heart…
It seems just about impossible that my first trip to Padstow was over forty years ago, in 1979 in fact. Since then I have visited Cornwall, and Padstow, so many times that I couldn’t even hazard a guess, but I do know that it’s a very long time since the little harbour town, the surrounding Camel Estuary and the wonderful Atlantic coastline found its way into my soul. When a place gets you like that, it rarely leaves you. To this day, over 42 years later, I still give an excited shout as we cross the boundary into Cornwall, and get a sense of joy as we pass the signs…
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Greek Island Hopping: What’s Changed?
Guaranteed sunshine; hot days and balmy evenings; unbelievably blue seas and crystal clear waters; blue and white houses and cloudless skies – the Greek islands are still a beautiful sight with a huge feelgood factor. But these islands have changed. Island hopping has changed. These are still beautiful places to visit, make no mistake, nobody can change the dramatic scenery or those intense colours, but just a little bit of the magic has perhaps gone and the old pioneer spirit of island hopping is no longer really there. Let us explain. Over the last few weeks, and indeed over our last few visits, we have reached the conclusion that there…
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Athens & Kalamata: Tales From Two Cities
After eleven weeks in Greece and its islands we are into the last week of our journey through this sun soaked land, leaving the wonderful island of Milos and taking the short prop plane flight over the Aegean to Athens. Amusingly the bus ride from Athens airport to Syntagma Square takes considerably longer than the flight. It’s only two years since we were last here in the Greek capital so this visit is one of expedience and we are here just for a single night, in an 8th floor hotel room with magnificent views of the Acropolis. After so many weeks in an assortment of apartments and houses, a hotel…
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Nisyros And Its Amazing Volcano
Tilos has been wonderful, our best stop so far, and it’s not without sadness that we board the cool looking Stavros ferry and leave whitewashed, bougainvillea dotted Livadia behind. But we always say…move on while you still love a place, so we’re being true to our travel principles on this one. Unusually for islands in the Dodecanese, Tilos has a comparatively flat centre between its spectacular peaks, through which the main road of the island runs north to south. This fertile plateau was created by a gigantic fall of pumice and ash belching from a volcanic eruption of enormous proportions on the neighbouring island of Nisyros, our next destination. Nisyros…
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Into The Mountains: From Thessaloniki To Delphi
There is something very special about moving on when travelling. One of our travel maxims has always been: move on while you still love a place. For us, that mix of emotions of being sad to leave somewhere clashing with the excitement of heading to a new place, somehow encapsulates the very essence of travel. It’s an exhilarating feeling. But before we leave, Friday July 23rd marks our last full day in Thessaloniki and just like the previous four days the afternoon temperatures hit 37/38 degrees, but the ever present sea breeze just takes off the edge and keeps even the hottest time of day pleasant. For our last day…
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Travel Stories: The Nungwi Sunset
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Yet at the time it seemed entirely logical that if we were heading out on to the Indian Ocean to see the renowned magnificent Nungwi sunset, then it would be time for dinner by the time we came back to shore. So it made perfect sense to change out of beachwear and into something more appropriate before we made our way to the boat – got to be the correct decision, right? Wrong. “We’re here for the sunset cruise”, I called to the pre-occupied boat guys, trying to elicit some kind of response. A couple of them looked up so we gravitated towards them. “Where…
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Photographic Memories #16
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With lockdown incomplete and travel still on hold for a while, we currently have no new adventures to blog; we do though have many such memories… Photo #16: Sunset & Reflection Spectacular sunsets are always popular – there are places across the World which attract an army of camera carrying enthusiasts to capture that special moment as the sun goes down and fills the sky with colour. A great many such places are coastal, of course, but this one was different on both levels: not coastal, and, certainly as far as we…
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Photographic Memories #4
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With no current prospect of travel even domestically let alone worldwide, we will have no new adventures to blog, but we do have many such memories….. Photo #4: Thai Sunset Capturing a sunset on camera is something every traveller has done numerous times, but of all our sunset photos, this is probably our favourite. Michaela hasn’t done any doctoring of this photograph, not even enhanced any colouring, what you see in the photograph is exactly how it was. Just to make it even more special, we were drinking some very strong and very…
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Photographic Memories #2
As every traveller knows, when you look back through old travel photos, many of them trigger wonderful memories. With no current prospect of travel even domestically let alone worldwide, we will have no new adventures to blog, but we do have many such memories….. Photo #2: Skies Over Volos This is another photograph which for us captures a memory of a special moment. After splitting our time between the mainland of Greece and a handful of the Sporades islands, we were now heading back on board the ferry from Skopolos to the mainland port of Volos. In the final stretches of the Aegean, a few miles from port, we moved…
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Living In Side Turkey
As we approach the end of our sixth week in Turkey we also begin our second week in Side, with a few things moving on. October 29th is Republic Day here, Turkey’s biggest public holiday, commemorating the day in 1923 when Ataturk united this huge nation by declaring the existence of the Republic, although in reality the republic was effectively almost 3 years old by that date. In normal times, Republic Day is a nationwide festival with much celebration, but the Government has this year implemented COVID restrictions so the festivities are mostly restricted to draping of the Turkish flag over buildings and buses. Speaking of COVID, matters have changed…
