Category Archives: Europe

We left Brittany for the battlefields of Normandy… and all that jazz

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Mont-Saint-Michel

Mont-Saint-Michel

Saturday, 3 March 2018 to Saturday, 10 March 2017
It was Saturday and Philippe and family had a surprise in store for us. We were treated to jazz at the Chez Constance Restaurant in a little village by the coast called Plougrescant. And all that jazz was accompanied by an excellent dinner of too many things to mention. What stood out though was the cabbage… now who would enthuse about cabbage you may ask. But, that red cabbage was simply delectable, and the owner did not get why we were so enthralled by it. “It’s just red cabbage boiled slowly for six hours, nothing added, nothing subtracted… “ was his response to our recipe request. Be as it may, that stuff was amazing! Continue reading →

We bought a car in France… No seriously…

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Domaine du Dourvan

Domaine du Dourvan

Tuesday, 20 February 2018 to Friday, 2 March 2017
As I concluded in a previous post titled Waking up in beautiful Brittany, in the amazing Côtes-d’Armor, the fact that Philippe was so immensely generous to lend us his car, was to be a fatal mistake… But not in a negative way though!

Having had the use of Philippe’s car during the past plenty weeks there was no way of going back. When we originally came to France last year in March we had grand illusions of buying a car but decided it was premature and settled on getting to know and using the public transport systems on offer. And boy, did we! Continue reading →

South Africa – Finally – The Times They Are A-Changin’, with a touch of Neil Young thrown in for good measure

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Guingamp

Guingamp

Tuesday, 13 February 2018 to Monday, 19 February 2017
Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ came to mind as I watched the political drama unfold in South Africa during the next few days as they got rid of Zuma who called himself president for the last 10 or so years. Finally hope returned to a country that promises so much.

The changing times have been a long time coming, but was never guaranteed. Continue reading →

Applying for residency renewal in France… and more admin, and more…

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Brittany, Binic

Brittany, Binic

Wednesday, 7 February 2018 to Monday, 12 February 2017
Now you may be wondering why we find ourselves back in France, and more specifically, why in the midst of winter. And I can understand your concern; I would also have questioned such insanity. But, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this. You may recall that we were issued with our French visas – while we were in Bangkok – which were valid from mid March 2017 for one year.

On our arrival in France at the time we went through the Continue reading →

Waking up in beautiful Brittany, in the amazing Côtes-d’Armor

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Côtes-d'Armor

Côtes-d’Armor

Saturday, 3 February 2018 to Tuesday, 6 February 2018
It was Saturday morning and we were woken up by a loud TV bombarding of news directed at us in an “un-understandable” language; it wasn’t English, it wasn’t Afrikaans, which of course should not have been surprising. What was surprising though was that I did not request this TV news broadcast. Was the landlord above an early riser, I wondered as I checked the time… 03:30! Continue reading →

Wrapping up our road trip – From Italy through Austria to Germany, back to the Netherlands and on to Turkey… and South Africa

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Lindau

Lindau

Friday, 13 October 2017 to Wednesday, 18 October 2017
It was Friday the 13th… fortunately I am not superstitious. With a sad and heavy heart we checked out of our hotel on Lake Garda, what a beautiful area this is, what a beautiful stay we had, surely we will return here someday? Continue reading →

Road trip (Week 4) – From Croatia back to Slovenia and on to Italy, the cherry on the top of the trip

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Bled island or Blejski Otok on Lake Bled

Bled island or Blejski Otok on Lake Bled

Friday, 6 October 2017 to Thursday, 12 October 2017
Friday morning we woke up to one of the best views imaginable over Kvarner Gulf in Istria, Croatia, even though the weather was not wholly agreeable. We stumbled downstairs for breakfast which was, unlike the weather, very agreeable; actually, it was rather amazing. It was the first time we had a choice of bacon on this trip… it had to be amazing, right?

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Road trip (Week 3) – We got re-acquainted with Croatia, and she is as charming as ever

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Rovinj

Rovinj

Friday, 29 September 2017 to Thursday, 5 October 2017
After our harrowing but most enjoyable day yesterday, 100% up and 50% down, and then 50% up and 100% down the Triglav Mountain, we slept in rather late. I would have thought Adri’s first words would be “Let’s stay put for another day”, but my thoughts must have been tangled, it was “Get up, let’s go to Croatia”. We got up and we went to Croatia.

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Road trip (Week 2) – Settling down in picture perfect Slovenia… but only for a while…

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Kanal ob Soči

Kanal ob Soči

Friday, 22 September 2017 to Thursday, 28 September 2017
On Friday we woke up to an amazingly blue-sky day in Budapest. This is what we came here for but unfortunately we had to move on… but we will be back… We had to be out of the hotel by 10:00, we were out by 11:00 thanks to a lovely and understanding young receptionist.

We drove towards the Slovenian border with this vignette thing still restless and murmuring in the back of my head – as you may recall from last week’s blog – but once again I chose to ignore its pleas and stick my head in the sand… Continue reading →

The start of our road trip – Six countries in six days… exhausting but exhilarating!

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Prague

Prague

Friday, 15 September 2017 to Thursday, 21 September 2017

It rained most of the day in Amsterdam, no surprises there; it had been the norm for the last week or two. But, we were okay with that, we had to start packing in order to write the next chapter of our journey. We were scheduled to pick our rental car up at Schiphol Airport tomorrow for our month long road trip to the east of Europe. Our main destination would be Slovenia where we intended to visit friends Marina and Steve whom we met on Koh Samui. They came to visit us in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and again in Budva (Montenegro), now it was our turn visit. Continue reading →