Tag Archives: Travel

Leaving my country of birth for the country of my ancestors… once again

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Guingamp (Brittany, France)

Guingamp (Brittany, France)

Wednesday, 31 January 2018 to Friday 2 February 2018
It was time to say goodbye… once again. “Nooooo, not agaaain!” I thought as I travelled north on the N1 highway from Johannesburg to Pretoria for a final few farewells.

But how did it come to this? In June 2015 when we left South Africa on a yearlong sabbatical it was going to be just that, a year long absence from SA. We ended up staying in Thailand for 18 months, then moved on to Serbia and Montenegro and finally on to France, the country of my ancestors. 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 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 →

Amsterdam blessed us with more water than expected, but we had a swimmingly good time

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Van Gogh

Van Gogh

Friday, 8 September 2017 to Thursday, 14 September 2017
A grey and gloomy looking day greeted us Friday morning. It was misty all around; it was raining felines and hounds out there. Late morning the rain petered out to nothing and then repeated the same cycle… over and over again throughout the day.

During one of these lulls we slipped out to the Jumbo Supermarket for some sorely needed food stuffs. By the time we finished shopping it was raining on our parade once again. Fortunately Adri, the one with the good sense, took an umbrella along, we got home mostly dry. Continue reading →

Amsterdam, a wonderful city filled with amazing architecture, culture and canals

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Red light district

Red light district

Friday, 1 September 2017 to Thursday, 7 September 2017
It was freezing today; I closed the sliding door behind me to keep some warmth close to my body, hugging that hot coffee mug close to my chest had zero effect. We spent the day coopd up inside the apartment busying ourselves with admin and blogging, with plentiful breaks in-between for reading and such, a thoroughly relaxing day.

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Amsterdam, our new temporary home in Holland, or is that the Netherlands?

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Weesp

Weesp

Friday, 25 August 2017 to Thursday, 31 August 2017
We had to wake up at 05:00 in order to leave the hotel by 06:00 to be at the bus station at 06:30 to get on the bus to Amsterdam at 07:00. Easy… did I just say easy?

The Paris metro was never designed with Adri and I in mind, we were not about to carry those heavy bags up and down metro stairs… again. So we opted for a taxi this time. Last night I tried to reserve a taxi for 06:00 this morning but was told it was not possible, I had to make the reservation at least 12 hours in advance. Hmm… okay? I let it go. Continue reading →

Friends came to visit us in Lyon, and then we moved to Paris

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Musée des Confluences Lyon

Musée des Confluences Lyon

Friday, 11 August 2017 to Thursday, 17 August  2017
As you may recall, Estee and Dries rolled into town yesterday but we decided to give them the day off to recover from their trip from SA as well as the copious amounts of beer and such that was consumed last night. Continue reading →

We got into traboule, then we got into more traboules, but we eventually found a way out

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Théâtre gallo-romain on Fourvière hill

Théâtre gallo-romain on Fourvière hill

Friday, 4 August 2017 to Thursday, 10 August  2017
It was mid afternoon when we took the metro to Croix Rousse for supper, but of course it was way too early for that, we had less important things to do. Lyon is the silk capital of the Europe so a stay here would not be complete without a visit to one of its silk related museums. We chose the one closet to our selected restaurant for the evening which happened to be La Maison des Canuts (House of the Lyonnais silk workers). Continue reading →