here, there & everywhere

Photos: Italy

lisy — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:34:00 GMT

Italiano

lisy — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 06:13:00 GMT

We ended up in some random part of Italy in the mountains for the night...and in the morning headed for the coast again...we decided on Portofino - just for my Dad...or just to tease him!

It is a tiny little village right on the coast, that is very 'turistico' it was apparently once a fishing village, but is full of tourists, expensive pleasure crafts and restaurants. We decided to blow our budget and have lunch right on the water. It was delicious pasta! If you think parking is expensive in Adelaide....this place is 10Euro an hour!!! crazy! thats why the place is overrun with scooters!

We headed back to a swimming beach and had a nice dip in the Italian waters (ours are better) and decided to head for Bologna. We ended up in what we assume was a suburb of Bologna and had a tasty pizza..not the one we ordered but good all the same...they also kept trying to give us a 'free' pizza ...but it was seafood! Kurt was happy as the motoGP was on the telly, so he got to eat dinner watching that.

The next morning we got into town early to try and figure out how to get to the Ducati store/museum/factory...which we did - but Italians don't like working in August...apparently so it was all closed!! however we did get a souvenir ;)

Then we headed to Venice..and the rain! we didnt even really get lost - which I did last time...but St Mark's Square was not just flooded with people but water too...so shoes off and we walked in wet pigeon shit! hahaa! it was entertaining though.

Then up to the mountains again and into Austria....tonight a treat - a shower and a bed in hotel Romantika Post in Villach which is just in the border!

Photos: France....the 2nd

lisy — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 06:22:00 GMT

So Frenchy....so....bloody expensive to drive around!

lisy — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 05:59:00 GMT

We arrived in the wee hours of the morning from Dover into France...we took the 5am ferry as we are on a budget! joyous! After initially taking the wrong freeway - which we paid 3Euros for that pleasure, we finally made our way to Epernay - CHAMPAGNE country!!!

We took a tour of Moet et Chandon, which was very good - top tip Peety. We stole our tasting glasses, so it was really a bargain tour at 15Euros each with a glass of champagne (literally)....hopefully we don't smash them in transit. Then for the hours of driving and massive amounts of money we would spend on tolls in France, in one day we paid nearly 60Euro and made it to a little north of Nice, in the French Alps. We stopped for a traditional french meal of Pizza! which was delicious.

The next day we headed off the toll roads, but onto a very very windy, very slow road down the mountains. But it did lead us into Digne-les-Bains, where we had breakfast and they had a great local market on - not for tourists, so had some great stuff, lots of fresh produce. We finally arrived at Antibes on the Cote-dÁzure and went for a much needed swim. We were so happy to finally find sunshine and warmth after the wet misery of the UK. Then up the coast to Nice, where we strolled around, had dinner and watched many interesting people walk past us whilst we looked out over the beach.

We decided to make tracks and drove through Monaco at night and into Italy!

There was a Scottish man, and English man and an Irish man....and the Irish man couldn’t organise..

lisy — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 18:58:00 GMT

a root in a brothel!

So we headed off for our car-camping adventure....leaving Aberdeen and heading down to Edinburgh. On the way we stopped off at St Andrews..home to the famous golf course. A very pretty..and obviously expensive village, we looked around a castle and cathedral as part of our Heritage Scotland thanks to Paul & Alex. The castle was quite good...ruins again, but there were some tunnels that you could get into, I only went a meter, but Kurt did the whole lot. They were dug as some people were trying to invade, by digging through, but the castle people found out a dug a counter tunnel.

Then onto Edinburgh, the festival was in full swing, with the streets crowded with people and it was only a Wednesday. We headed to the castle (again thanks Alex & Paul), it is really large compound on top of the hill, with a great view of the city. Alas both our camera’s batteries were dead – so no photos at all. Then we had a wee wonder around and thanks to Kate from Woods Bagot, we had some hot tips for eating/drinking and headed to Tigerlily – a very cool New York kinda vibe restaurant/bar. We decided to splash out and I had duck and Kurt had lamb – delicious! Then to a fringe comedy show – Arj Barker. And then we drove through the night to our port of departure to Ireland!

The Ferries to Ireland were far superior to that of the Greek ones! And with internet...albeit slow. We arrived in Belfast and headed straight down to Dublin, where we stayed just out of the city in a seaside town called Howth. We had a traditional Irish pub meal and Bulmers (Irish cider) for Kurt. We managed to quite easily navigate our way into Dublin and Kurt went on the Guinness Experience Tour, while I had some time wondering the close by high street – which was a bit dirty and not much chop really, but I found a cute little cafe had a coffee and read Glamour – so I was well happy.

Then we ventured south to a little town called Dunmanway, where Kurt had discovered that some Irish Road Race (bikes) were happening. We did a mini pub crawl of most of the pubs in the town..we went to about 3 and I reckon there was at least 5 there...next day we waited and waited for this road racing, which was meant to start at 11am, but didn’t kick off til about half one!! And then it started to rain! The bike basically did a rectangle track through the town and the roads there aren’t that great – so I wouldn’t like to race it.

After drying out a bit, we headed for Rossguard where our ferry was leaving from in the morning, we managed to skilfully drive right past Jameson’s distillery in Cork, so had a look there and lucky Kurt not long after he declared his desire for MacDonald’s we passed right by one!

Now we are on a ferry back to Wales/England....

Highland Jig!

lisy — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 22:18:00 GMT

So we have decided to pack a bit of car-camping travel into the last few weeks before heading back to Australia for ‘Wedding Fest 2010’. Kurt managed to track down a bargain, a 1999 Subaru Forrester, in a lovely heritage green. Which we have decked out with a blow-up mattress, quilt and pillows – our new home on wheels.

Before our 3 week trek, we decided to do a test run so we headed north of Aberdeen, around the coast and over to Inverness. We popped into Glenfiddich distillery for a tour, which was free and Kurt got to drink free scotch too. Then we went to some wildlife reserve.....!?!....and saw this bird of prey. Then to Loch Ness, where we found the most ludicrously overpriced crap food in the whole of Scotland...possibly the world. Kurt also got a hot tip from our waitress that the nearby Urquhart Castle is lacking security...so we headed there and jumped the fence to have browse around, it was old stone ruins overlooking the Loch, it was fun running around at dusk with no-one else there!

Surprisingly our new carcamping riggup went quite well and once we were all rested we had breakfast at a place called Dalwhinne....which has nothing, but this shop that sells one quid bacon rolls!!! I added egg to mine for an extra 45p – well worth it. Kurt had this gigantic bacon, cheese, mushroom, omelette thing...that he didn’t even finish.

From there we went to visit my great Uncle Jimmy at Blair Athol and stopped at the very unique ‘House of Bruar’ to grab a cake to take...Bruar is like this weird Scottish department store thing...has lots of kilts for sale, deer horn furniture and a great food hall....the weirdest bit is that it is about 10 miles from anything....is just in the middle of nowhere off the highway..but it is busier than King William road on a Saturday morning. We had a cuppa and cake with my Uncle Jimmy and saw a Hairy Highland Coo (cow) that Kurt wanted to go pat..but I talked him out of it. Then we headed south to Perth, where we went to some highland games, rather like a country show/fair but with lots of tug-of-war, caber tossing, hammer throwing, jig dancing, bag piping bands – the whole shebang! Was a good arvo and I even got a Scottish tan!!

After Perth we headed for home, only to stop for some hot chips at Britain’s best chippie for 1997 – 1999! And they were pretty bloody good too.

So we just hope the next part of our car-camping is as successful.

Photos: Scotty Land

lisy — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 19:00:00 GMT

Honeymoon

lisy — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 23:11:00 GMT

PARIS!!!

We arrived, rather tired, in Paris on Sunday morning...I had big plans to spend the day shopping in H&M and Zara...alas Paris' shopping on Sunday doesn't exist...and I thought Adelaide could be backward!

Instead we strolled along the Champs Elysee and had a look at the Arc de Triumph and had a little nap before heading out for our big night of seeing gay old Paree...thanks very much to Miss Renton, Mr Lenzi and Miss Shallow!!! We headed to the Eifel tower for dinner on the first platform with a great view, took some happysnaps and then headed off on a river cruise which was great - got to see allsorts of sights Notre Dame, Louvre etc. and then to Moulin Rouge to see the Can Can!

The next day we had two flights...both of which were delayed...so we finally made it to Santorini at about midnight, our wonderful hotel had a snack waiting for us! Kurt was in heaven! Santorini and our hotel were just amazing - the best place we have EVER stayed, the pictures dont do any justice. We woke up each morning to breakfast on our patio with the most amazing view spending the next few days visiting beaches, the local villages, riding around on an ATV, taking a boat ride out to a crappy tourist attraction (if you go, dont bother climbing the 1.5km to see the volcano - it was shit...you can see my unimpressed face in the pics) and obvioulsly eating lotsa of delicious Greek food.

Then we caught this horrid olf Ferry over to Crete, where we are staying in a lovely old villa....but its in the middle of NOWHERE! so we have been driving around getting lost, getting flat tyres, nearly running out of petrol! But we did visit this cool 'hippy' beach whre the hippies used to live in caves and we had lunch at this ultra themed rasta type bar which was good.

Now we are gearing up for the next part of the adventure - SCOTLAND!!!

Photos: Crete

lisy — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 03:24:00 GMT

Photos: Santorini

lisy — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 17:58:00 GMT

Honeymoon in Santorini & Crete

Photos: Paris

lisy — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:07:00 GMT

Venice n Bologna

lisy — Thu, 4 Oct 2007 02:02:00 GMT

From Munich I jumped on a flight to Venice and the self portrait returned!

I spent the day getting lost, finally finding St Marks Square...as had many pigeons and tourists...2 of my least favourites. So after a drink at a swanky hotel...thanks to my Dad`s recommendation, I headed out to the Isle of Burano.

I managed to get a VIP visit to the captains deck and spent part of the trip on the top of the boat, with a pretty speccy view of the little fishing island.

From Venice onto Bologna, where Pasta was definately on the menu. Less tourists and better coffee than Venice I quite enjoyed wondering around the Piazza and did a bit of window shopping.

Oktoberfest

lisy — Thu, 4 Oct 2007 01:47:00 GMT

So after a lovely 36 hr flight from Adelaide to Basel in Switzerland I found myself back in Europe....for part 2....may the adventure never end!

A few days in Switzerland and off to Munich for Shambles plus at Oktoberfest with Krista.

We Durndl`d it up...watched the first keg get opened, fought crowds, ate wurst, drank Beer [well I drank Radler which is really cheating...beer with lots of Lemonaide, but hey u get to drink out of a stein], ate nuts, drank wine...straight from the bottle, sat in the sun, fought off photographers, ate more wurst and more nuts, danced on chairs to AC/DC being played by an Oompa Band, more beer, looked at all the pretty lights , made German friends, made Dutch Friends, saw ppl dressed in Lycra and piggy backs for those who found walking just a little too difficult!

Czech, Slovakia, Hungary

lisy — Sat, 18 Aug 2007 00:26:00 GMT

After yet another quality Polish ail journey we arrived in Prague....stupidity took over again and we decided to walk to our hostel...apparently gradient isn´t an important part of mapping, so we ended up trekking up some very unfriendly hills.

Had a lovely śquare Czech´meal...consisting of Sausage once again with dumplings! who´d have thought!

Strolled the lovely cobbled streets and checked out the main square, is a beautiful place at night...quite romantic if youre in to that sort of thing.

Splurged on a lazy tour...got driven round the old town in an old car. Spent the next 2 or so days drinking coffee and people watching.

Headed right next door to Slovakia, where we checked out cafe capital Bratislava. Quite a cute little place with cafes EVERWHERE! but no nightclubs?!? cannot quite figure out East Europe yet..is a strange place. Indulged in some more people watching this time we incorporated some Cocktails and wine.

Am now in Budapest which is rather big and busy...stumbled across the Red Bull Air Race...people everwhere!

Pole Land

lisy — Fri, 10 Aug 2007 06:01:00 GMT

After enjoying nearly a week in Berlin...both East and West sides...which are so different. Affluent Gucci and Prada compared to Ghetto graffiti.

We jumped on a train to Proznan, not knowing wat to expect we were surprised to find a touristy town packed with cafes, around a lovely town square.

From there we headed to Warsaw which ended up being quite miserable thanks to the weather, none the less we missioned it to their famous Citadel which thank goodness was free.

Next to Krakow...buzzing with tourists, we hit all the big spots Krakow Castle, the massive Salt mines which were fabulous complete with underground chapel and also took a rather sombering trip to Auswitch.

Gallery: Berlin & Poland

lisy — Tue, 7 Aug 2007 06:04:00 GMT

Morocco

lisy — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 05:29:00 GMT

From Lagos we hot footed it straight to Gibraltar....after finding out there is only one Ferry a week from there we headed back ...only 10mins..to Algeciras to catch a ferry over to Morocco.

We coughed up the cash for the quick and easy option of a taxi to Asilah...a little coastal town in the North West. We took a Grand Taxi...which meant we were in an old Merc, and our driver was cranking Cat Stevens.

After sorting out accom we had a quick stroll round town and a bite to eat...which turned out to be a full on feast, little did we know we were going to be getting Seafood platters...but thats how Morocco work...no menus - we are rich westeners after all. The next day we caught a horse and cart about 5 kms away to 'Paradise' Beach....which was quite nice, but paradise is a bit of a stretch of the imagination.

From Asilah we caught a train to Casablanca, where we only spent one night but got to check out a pretty impressive mosque, plus I can say I've been to Casablanca! Then another train ride to Marrakech - Tourist Central! The busy markets, beggars and heat were'nt really that much fun. But us Girlies did go to a Hamman...kinda like a day spa. You sit in a sauna...get hot...then they throw water over you and cover you with what I am sure is Vicks...let you get hot again then douse you with more water and scrub you down. Finally you get covered in what could quite possibly be bird poo...maybe mud and then doused in water again. Hey at least I got clean!

From Marrakech we trekked it out towards the dessert, driving for a good 8 hours in a hot bus to the Dades Gorge. The next day we got to go for a quick dip in the spring before heading off for a sunset camel trek of the Sahara. We had Berber guides...who we quite the 'Ladies' men propositioning some of the girls. We slept out under the stars and we up for dawn and sunrise camel trek back.

From the 15 odd of us who headed to the dessert 3 of us decided we wanted to make the extra effort and visit Fes. So another palatial Mercades Benz taxi ride it was. The boys were stoked to find beer...and going one better that night we even discovered a happy hour! Up early the next morning we hit the Medina and had a tour...glad we did cos it is a crazy maze. We visited Silversmiths, bakers, shoe makers, rug makers and a Berber chemist. From Fes we took the hottest and sweatiest train ride ever! Back to Spain!!!

Gallery: Van Tour 07

lisy — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 05:20:00 GMT

More Spain & Lagos

lisy — Fri, 13 Jul 2007 04:04:00 GMT

After Pamps we headed back to San Sebastian...which has great beaches and is pretty famous for its Tapas bars...which we tried out. We spent the first night just free camping in the car park right near the beach, but were politely told the next day by the authorities that we should move along, so we went outta town and stayed at a pretty cool camp ground. Which had the best views right out over a lovely bay.

From there we headed to Portugal...hitting Segovia along the way, which is famous for the Castle Alcazar and some Cathedral. Was kinda like stepping back in time...cobbled windy streets that cars cant use and planty of old buildings. We then hit Madrid....had a fun time navigating the van around...crazy Spanish drivers, tripple round abouts and traffic for Africa, not my idea of fun. But it was worth it for the Leather jacket i scored, whist shopping.

Lagos was hot! lots of little beaches with giant cliffs above, great bars and a dusty camp ground. Spent 4 days lazing on the beaches, eating fish and drinking cocktails in Pint glasses!

Pamps!!!

lisy — Thu, 5 Jul 2007 05:50:00 GMT

Running of the bulls....opening ceremony was crazy, stuff flying everywhere and Sangria flowing like water.

The Camp ground was just as mad as the streets, complete with a discoteque with dancing girls on podiums.

The boys ran...all survived, a fellow camper suffered a horn thru his arm though and another fell of the top of his van..losing his 2 front teeth.

Spent a few days lazing by the pool, trying to cool off and tan it up!