Month: May 2008
Istanbul
We have spent the last two full days in Istanbul and what an interesting and exciting place it is! In terms of geographical location and culture, it is a melting pot of east and west. The border between the continents is literally defined by the Bosphorous Strait which flows from the Marmara Sea (an extension […]
Read MoreTroy and Gallipoli
For the last two days we have been driving through Turkey. The countryside looks pretty much like what I had imagined. We have seen many fields of vegetables, olives and different crops. These seem to be cultivated manually by groups of women in peasant looking clothes with hoes and hand implements. Near the towns we […]
Read MoreCruising Through the Greek Islands
I haven’t put up a post for a few days as we have been on the Louis Line’s ship ‘Aquamarine’ for a few days. Internet access has been at the highest price that I have ever encountered (1 Euro per minute = $98 per hour) so at that at that rate I decided that I […]
Read MoreAncient Greece
Our last two days have been full of Ancient Greece. We are on our regional tour of Greece and spent our first night in Nafilon after visiting Mycenae. Our next day was to Olympia. We had an interesting drive over the mountains but it was difficult to get a lot of long range views as […]
Read MoreOur Introduction to Greek History
We were up at 5.00 am on Sunday May 18th for an 8.55 am flight from Rome to Athens. We had said goodbye to everyone on our first tour over dinner on the previous night. They had another day before the tour finished, but we had to be in Athens to begin our connecting tour […]
Read MoreRome
On Thursday, we travelled from Florence to Rome Our-first-stop was at the hill-top medieval town of San Gimnigano in Tuscany. Going here is like stepping back into the 14th Century. Built high on a hilltop for defence, you enter the town through one of three narrow streets . In the centre of the town is […]
Read MoreA Ride in a Toy Taxi
We have spent the last coupled-days in and around Florence. We arrived on Wednesday after having a long and relaxing lunch at a winery. The pasta was nice and the wine was excellent. Yesterday we planned to spend some time looking at the sights of Florence, but, Jill didn’t come as it was a long […]
Read MoreCinque Terra
Our day on Monday was filled up with a visit to the coastal area of Italy known as Cinque Terra. This is a dramatic area of cliffs and-little coves and the site of five famous villages The villages are connected by a series of terraced walking tracks from which you can get superb views of […]
Read MoreCote d’Azure
We’ve been very been very busy over the last few days with early morning departures and late nigh arrivals. Throw in dinners and the need to keep with some domestic chores, we have had very little time for keeping up with our travel journal. Last Saturday,we left Avignon to travel to Nice. This journey took […]
Read MoreOn the Road to Burgundy
Yesterday we began our tour and it only took a few minutes to get into the routine of leaving bags outside the hotel door, being counted onto the bus and on the road by 8.30 am. No rest for the wicked, but this is hardly very strenuous. We have 25 people on our tour; most […]
Read MoreParis
It’s Monday afternoon and we’ve taken some time off to catch up with some personal maintenance and some administration. Yesterday, we changed hotels to the one from which our tour of France and Italy begins. I have to say that our previous hotel in Rue Tranchet was hard work. Ruth was well established in her […]
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