The weather, stray dogs and more kite flying

So to be truly British its about time for a weather based blog! Yesterday in Coimbra we awoke to a temperature of just 1 degree, this morning it was 14 and the walk to the unheated shower block seemed a lot more appealing (I chickened out yesterday!) The last few days have been more like an English spring than anything else, glorious sunshine and heavy showers, and its quite strange to think its only 4 days to Christmas.

Tonight we are in St Pedro de Moel on a brilliantly cheap campsite on the coast. We have spent the day wondering along the beach and flying Chris's big kite. The wind was so strong I was almost pulled off my feet a couple of times and found myself running along the beach to avoid falling over several times, great fun though.

Since my last entry we have spent a couple of days in Luso, and had an interesting walk around the Mata Nacional do Buçaco, a large forest laid out by monks in the 17th century, its a beautiful if somewhat neglected spot, full of lovely old trees, hermitages and chapels. The only slight draw back to the area was the number of stray dogs on the streets around town. Of all the countries we have been on this trip, Portugal has by far and away the worst problem with stray dogs, and I have to admit it makes me feel very uncomfortable. Not being a huge fan of dogs anyway barking mangy creatures on the streets do not help me form a good impression of a place!

From Luso we went on to Coimbra, where we spent a fun day Christmas shopping. It seemed a lot less manic than I remember the Saturdays before xmas at home being and was actually quite enjoyable! I am now having to guard my cupboards to stop Chris trying to find his presents, its a lot more difficult to hide things in a campervan!

Tomorrow we more on to Salir do Porto and a week of living in a house. We are both looking forward to a few creature comforts (a bath and plumbed in water!), but its going to be quite weird not being in the van.

pictures

The Beach Bar Blog

The title says it all. Portugal has been glorious so far! We spent
yesterday kite flying on the beach and today I have been having a gentle
stroll along the beach, followed by a sit and a catch up on emails while
looking out across the sea. It is lovely but also slightly strange, they
are playing "have yourself a merry little Christmas" in the bar!

We have mains power today in the van so am back to typing, easier on the
eye for all of you. I promised some pictures last time so have attached a
few pictures in the next entry. One of me on the beach yesterday and a
couple of Aviero on Saturday.

I am starting to get quite excited about xmas and have been shopping today
for xmas bits to jolly up the holiday. cottage. We have hired a house on
the coast north of Lisbon and are being joined by the family for a week
which should be great fun. We have had a fun few evenings leafing through
recipe books and now have a very comprehensive shopping list (with
quantities in kgs!!) for lots of yummy food for the week.

Tomorrow we move on towards Coimbra for a bit more site seeing. Our first
stop hopefully at the national forest with some 700 types of tree!! More on
all that next time. I have run out of coffee so time to sign off, head back
to the van and cook some dinner.

Pen & Paper

bodegas and battlefields

Looking back at my last entry it seems that I have been neglecting the blog
sadly the past few weeks. Its difficult to know where to start as we have
travelled a long way and have seen so much since I last wrote.

Tonight we are in Burgos in Spain having spent a lovely day wandering the
Rioja region and visiting some fantastic bodegas, one designed by Calatrava
(picture, building in vines ) and the other by Gehry (picture). They were
both amazing buildings in their own way but I have to admit to preferring
the one by Calatrava, the building and its setting were stunning. Infact
our sojourn in Spain so far has had a very architectural bias, our first
stop being in Zaragosa, where we visited last years expo site, in
particular to see a bridge by Zaha Hadid. My pictures make the bridge look
stunning, and in reality it is very impressive,but I was somewhat
disappointed by the finishes which are not weathering well. I guess the
budget was pretty tight! Zaragosa itself is a great town, with some
wonderful old cathedrals and Mudejar (moorish) architecture, and the added
bonus of some really great cafes and bars!

From Zaragosa we took a day trip to the nearby town of Belchite. Words just
can't describe this town, it was one of the most sombering places I have
ever been. It is in essence two towns, the old town was so badly bombed by
Franco's armies in the civil war that the residents abandoned the town and
rebuilt next door. Today you can walk through the old town gate, and
though the crumbling ruins of the streets, town squares, churches,
convents and public buildings, some little more than piles of bricks. As we
entered music from the new town church drifted across on the wind adding to
the eery impression. Seeing the decimation of a town on this scale really
brought home to us the destructive nature of war, which no pictures can
prepare you for.

On a far lighter note our last week in France was great fun, it was still
warm enough to paddle in the sea! and we were also lucky enough to see a
whole load of A380 parts in transit near Toulouse, being sad engineery folk
this was really cool!

We plan to stay in Burgos for two or three days before heading further west
towards Portugal. Hopefully I will manage to update this again a bit sooner
next time, it should be easier now we have new van batteries and I can
charge my blogger!

Spring cleaning while waiting for the post!

We have spent the last few days in a place called Fanjeaux, just outside
Carcassone. Chris adopted the local cat and it has been very pampered with
scraps of pate and peppered salami, and I named it Crazy Pumpkin as it kept
trying to get into the van! We have had a lovely few walks in the
surrounding countryside which still looks really autumnal, the vines have
gone a really gorgeous red colour and the tree lined avenues a wonderful
orange.

This was a random stop partly to kill some time while we waited for a
campsite guide for spain and portugal to arrive poste restante in
Carcasonne. I was VERY dubious if we'd ever see it but today was proved
wrong when on presenting my passport at the post office I was handed a
parcel. Brilliant!

We have taken the opportunity to do a few bits on the van the last few days
aswel. Chris cleaned the outside, including the solar panel which involved
standing on the bed and wriggling up through the roof light with a a mop
much to the amusement of all around us (Picture). I have been busy cutting
up a couple of the sun blinds to turn them into thermal blinds for the back
windows and the picnic rug into a thermal curtain for the main cab door. We
have only had a few cold days so far and by the looks of the weather
forecasts it looks pretty good in Spain but its best to be prepared! I
guess they will come in handy on our way back to the UK in January at the
very least.

Its quite strange but we are now at the point of our trip where we are
starting to count the weeks left and feel like we have to make the most of
them! Consequently some very careful guidebook reading has been going on
and tonight a detailed look at the maps is required, mainly to check
altitudes of the places we want to see so we can keep out of the snow line.

Anyway time to go explore carcasonne. More soon .........

Wild Flamingoes

15th November 2009

Yesterday we had the most marvellous day in the camargue. We walked from
where we were staying on the edge of the nature reserve out into the
middle, along a sea bank between the sand dunes and beach on one side and
the lagoons and wetlands on the other. I have always wanted to come back
here in winter ( I visited on the French exchange 16 years ago) to see the
wild flamingoes and yesterday I fulfilled that dream. It was amazing, we
were incredibly lucky and got to see several large flocks really close and
lots of smaller groups dotted around. We spent five or 6 hours out on the
marshes walking 26km and picnicing at a lighthouse (I was quite tired last
night!) but the highlight of the day has to be seeing them in flight. They
are really graceful and have the most beautiful coloured wings. It sure
beats Slimbridge!

The launderette blog

16th November 2009

So here I am again watching the clothes go round in circles and as usual finding a few minutes to write a blog. Today we are in Pezenas, an old town with lots of craft and antique shops. Its been quite interesting as when I came here 20 years ago the main tourist marketing was focussed around old doors! They have obviously decided that with the exception of our family that wasn't enough of a draw and are now marketing themselves around Moliere who lived here for many years. Its interesting to see how a town can turn its self round. The door posters are still here but faded and hidden away behind newer and more exciting things.

We are also waiting for the fair to set up before we move on as at present we are quite stuck in the car park, and surrounded by their lorries.

We have had a great last 10 days or so touring southern France. Flamingoes aside the highlights have probably been the Bambouserie and the Pont Du Gard (roman aqueduct). We nearly didn't stop at the bridge as they wanted €5 for parking but I am very glad we did. The weather was fantastic, there weren't many people around and it was magical. We also had a great wander along the line of the rest of the Aqueduct and had a clamber and a poke at the ruins. The Bambooserie, a giant bamboo forest laid out in the 1800s and with 200 different varieties was a very cold day but again beautiful as the Autumn colours were still really strong.

Today I have my weekly copy of Le Monde ( it takes me that long to read with a dictionary!) and am trying to practice my French. A long conversation about the washing machines and dryers has already been had, along with a chat about the ladies niece learning English!

From here we head further west to Carcasonne via the canal du midi and then on south into Spain and following the sun, although it is still remarkably warm here, today about 17 degrees. I am going to have to get out the thermals when we get back to the UK in Janauary I think!

Blown away on the Riviera

4th November 2009

On Monday evening we arrived on the French Riviera, after a very long drive
up along the motorway. After a few false starts and several closed
camperstops, we eventually ended up in a place called Ste Maxime.
Unusually for France there were height barriers and no campervan signs
everywhere and many of the sites listed in our book had closed. It seems
that campervanners are just not posh enough for this area of the world!

Ste Maxime turned out to be quite a nice town and we had a nice day
wandering round the harbour looking at the expensive yachts and doing some
much needed washing. The Mistral was blowing full force and I nearly lost
my new italian hat in the sea, it was good for drying the washing though!

Tonight we are in La Lavandou, on the sea front and surrounded by 15 or so
other vans. It is the last big holiday of the year here at the moment and
there are lots of french around. Today we walked up to Borme Les Mimosas, a
village about 4km inland and renowned for its flowers. It proved difficult
to find amoungst the modern holiday villa sprawl but lovely once we got
there, full of narrow streets lined with flowers (picture).

The campervan ballet

5th November 2009

I got somewhat interuppted writing this last night by a loud knock on the
van door which turned out to be the town police, telling us and the 15
other vans on what we had assumed was the town camperstop, that we were not
in the right place and had to move. As Chris was in the middle of preparing
dinner and busy frying meat this was quite fun, but in 10 minutes we were
ready to move, the gas was off, the frying pan was balanced on the floor of
the cab and everything else was randomly ramned in the cupboards (I only
found the kitchen roll today!). In what Chris termed the ballet of the
campervans we all turned on our lights, turned round, manouvered out of our
bays and convoyed off down the road to the sea front. It really didn't make
any sense, instead of having us all together next to the service point
(water, waste, chemical toilet disposal etc) it appears the town
authorities prefered us to be scattered along their sea front.

We actually ended up in an even nicer spot than before [picture] right on
the sea front, it was beautiful this morning when I looked out as the sun
was beginning to rise. Yes I did say sunrise! Since the clocks have gone
back we have adjusted our routine and the alarm now goes off at 7. This
means we can make the most of the daylight hours and surprisingly I am
actually quite enjoying it!

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Goodbye Italy

4th November 2009

Our first stop in Tuscany was Pitigliano, a rather nice hill town on the
border with Lazio. We spent an enjoyable few days here and had yet another
great morning in the market. As a result I am now the owner of a rather
nice hat (see picture). We have had to install a new hook on the wall in
the van to stop it being sat on!

After Pitigliano we skipped through the rest of Italy quite rapidly
stopping just a couple of times. Despite its fame and beauty Tuscany just
didn't grab us, maybe it was because we were all hill towned out, maybe it
was the tidyness, the number of Brits and Germans or just that it felt
plain un italian! Don't get me wrong, it is beautiful and exactly like all
the pictures but for some reason just wasn't for us.

From Tuscany we made one more stop, just into Liguria and at the start of
the Italian Riviera in an area called the Cinque Terre. This is a UNESCO
listed bit of coast with five old fishing villages that until the late
1800's (When the railway arrived) had no access other than by sea and until
recently had no road access. We had a lovely day hoping between the
villages by traain and wandering the. coast paths and followed it up with a
pizza out as a treat for our last night in Italy after a great 6 weeks.

The week in photos

Hopefully in this order

A street of Trulli, Alberobello
The rock houses in Matera
One of the town gates, Saepinum
The amphitheatre, Cassino
Villa d'Este
Etruscan necropolis

Trulli Sassi

26th October 2009

Sorry I just couldn't resist the title!

We have spent the last week touring a series of very diverse towns across
western Italy. We have visited medieval peasant homes, grand renaissance
villas, roman towns and today a etruscan necropolis dating back to 700BC.
Pictures on the next post.

When I last wrote we were in the olive grove in Alberobello, a unique town
full of small cylindrical white washed buildings with conical stone rooves,
known as "Trulli". In all there are some 1500 of these buildings in the
town, looking across the roof tops it was almost middle eastern. The houses
were originally built without mortar by the local peasants so they could
easily be pulled down if the tax inspectors came round!

From here we moved on to Matera, an absolutely amazing if somewhat sombre
old town full of "Sassi", which literally means stones, and in reality are
dwellings carved into the rock face. Many of them consisted of only one
room in which a large family, their livestock and chickens would live with
pretty much non existent sanitation (Picture ; me in a typical sassi).
People inhabited these caves until the 50s and 60s when the government
forcibly evicted twenty thousand to new tower blocks the other side of
town. Today a vast proportion are abandoned and you get a real feeling for
how bad conditions were here, one author visiting in 1945 likened the Sassi
area to Dante's Inferno, and although today it is an interesting and in
some ways beautiful place I can see why. The Sassi cover a vast area and we
spent a long time exploring the winding streets. The central area near the
new town where historically the dwellings were grander is being slowly
developed and although there are many crumbling buildings also alot of
boutique hotels!
We then moved on to Saepinum. On the way we drove for a good 100 miles
across rolling farmland without coming across a single town, just a few
groupings of deserted houses, presumably that housed farm workers back in
the day, and where now the crops being grown require much less labour.
Saepinum itself was brilliant. It is a small ruined roman town that has not
been built on by subsequent settlements and consequently the entire town
plan is visible, with well preserved roads, a forum, ruins of a temple,
baths, shops & houses. It was absolutely fascinating and really brought to
life how a roman town would have been, so much better than the places we
visted at school!. We continued the Roman theme in Cassino, better known
for a ferocious battle in the second world war, but which also has a large
roman site with amphitheatre, tombs and a theatre.

The highlight of the week however has to be the Villa d'Este in Tivoli
(near Rome) . It's world famous and seemed really familiar from all those
gardening programs but still beautiful. The fountains were just great!

Todays necropolis was a great if somewhat sombre way to round of a really
interesting week. The tombs were carved into the rock and arrayed along a
"street". Each tomb was huge and set out almost like a house with a series
of rooms, and would have been filled with valuable possessions and
household effects. Today they are fiilled with stagnant water and bees,
maybe the ancient etruscans way of keeping us out and guarding what is left
of their sacred site? I have to admit that it was all abit Indiana Jones,
with steps disapearing down into the darkened tombs!

The SCARIEST place in the world to drive.....

......is Bari. The Italians are finally living up to their reputation.
Until today I haven't found them any worse than anywhere else on mainland
Europe, but today was something else. I have never before been reduced to a
quivering wreck behind the wheel in all my years of driving, including a
trip into New York in a seriously ill hire car!( I think I almost had a
panic attack, I was close to tears!)

So what made it so scary? Its difficult to describe the chaos but basically
imagine a wide 4 lane city centre road, take away all road markings and
then fill the large area of potholed tarmac you see with cars behaving like
bumper cars at the fair, add in the sound of hooting horns, and cars
cutting us up on both sides and you are starting to get the picture.

We were looking forward to a visit to Bari's old town centre, apparently
kasbah like, but after so many close shaves I lost count and then finding
a fairly unappealing place to stay we decided to flee! At the first service
station we came to south of the centre we stopped and Chris was a star,
feeding me sugary tea, hotdogs and a large piece of his home made chocolate
brownie (from the Belgian chocolate book, and its superb!) to steady my
nerves.

Anyway the day has ended really nicely, we headed on to the next place on
our list and are parked tonight on a camperstop in an olive grove, Chris
has made friends with the local cat and we have a nice bottle of local red
wine to share with dinner. More on this town next time......

Travels in central Italy

19th October 2009

We have just spent a lovely week in Sulmona, a town in the central
Apennines whose wealth is founded on sugared almonds! They make the most
beautiful decorations with them (picture). It feels like we have seen soo
much since we have been in Italy so it was really nice to stay here a bit
longer, a bit of time to absorb everything. We had a couple of enjoyable
mornings in the market and a wonderful walk through the autumn countryside;
snow capped hills in the distance, walnut, almond and olive trees all
around.

The journey to Sulmona was interesting. We drove through the area around
L'Aquila and saw the aftermath of last years earthquake. Whole villages
have been destroyed: there are blue emergency tents everywhere still with
businesses operating from portacabins, and vast numbers of emergency
services in evidence. It is going to take years and years to rebuild here
and the drive was a really sombering experience.

It is only 10 days ago we were boiling in 30 degree heat but yesterday we
were chased out of the Apennines by a snow storm! We left Sulmona aiming to
head for a really well preserved roman town further south. Our route lay
across the mountains but so far the roads have been pretty good and
although the tops of the high mountains are snow covered they are at 2000m
ish, and none of the roads go that high. However as we climbed up the pass
the rain quickly turned to sleet. As the roads were very wet it wasn't
settling and so we carried on. All of a sudden we turned a hairpin bend
into winter, heavy snow and starting to settle. Although we may well have
been almost at the top of the pass we decided not to risk it, change our
plans and head south and coastwards. Last night we stopped just into
Puglia, and very noticeably are now in southern Italy. The towns look and
feel different and the roads are suddenly full of potholes. Fly tipping
appears to be a common problem and empty houses(once small holdings, now
swallowed up by large intensive farms) abound.

Italy in Photos

A few shots of the last few weeks. Cheating a bit I know but a proper blog
will follow soon ! Hopefully in order of appearance
River at Cividale del Fruilli,
Palladian buildings in Vincenza,
Medieval steets in Ferrara,
The view from hilltop town of Treia,
Another view from Treia,
Town square and snowcapped hills in Sulmona.

Its not all sunshine and olive groves

12th October 2009

A picture taken today in Amelia (southern Umbria) to ease any jealousy you
may have been feeling from my talk of hot summer sunshine! Its 11degrees
outside tonight and our trainners are on the water heater drying out!

Medieval times in Umbria.

11th October 2009

Today we are in Trevi, a medieval hill top town in Umbria and not far from Assisi. We have spent the last few weeks touring the hill towns of Marche and Umbria and have come here as a last stop before we head further south for the medieval festival currently taking place.

Last night we were treated to a drumming competition (picture) in which 3 teams from the different areas of town competed. Each team had about 10 members and as a grand finale they all played together, the noise was phenomenal! Today there has been a huge archery competition and procession. Its all very Montagues and Capulets; "terziere" or areas of town competing against each other, with different flags, costumes and songs. In fact this weekend is part of a month long tournament that started with a Palio (horse race) last weekend and ends in another 3 weeks time. By the end of last nights drumming you could see just how high passions run by the air borne drum sticks and whoops when the winners were announced.

The local products market here today is stacked with Olive Oil, Cheese and salami and has truffles worth €250/kg! This morning we went to the town museum, which had a great section on the making of Olive Oil, a process as seriously undertaken and complex as that for wine. The views through the town gates out across the olive groves are stunning.

Avoiding conkers

8th Oct 2009

Yesterday was our 3rd wedding anniversary. We had a lovely day wandering
round the town of Spello (in Umbria and about 10km from Assisi, picture). I
did some clothes shopping in the morning as with this heat and the
mosquitos I desperately needed more long sleeve light tops and linen
trousers. My summer wardrobe consists mainly of dresses which unfortunately
are just not suitable at the moment. I am enjoying updating my image with
Italian clothes though ( even if my budget only runs to market stalls and
cheap shops!) We then indulged in a long and perulous lunch in the town
square accompanied by a copule of glasses of wine. I say perulous as we
were sat under conker trees and every few minutes one fell off a tree and
landed next to us with a thud. We were slightly worried one of us would end
up with a large bruise on the head by the end of the meal but it certanly
added to the fun. Miraculously we both survived! and it was a lovely day.

Today we had planned to visist Assisi on the trian but on reading the guide
book discovered that the trian station is 5km from town and as we are only
10km away here have decided to cycle over tommorrow instead. Sooo..today is
now washday and I am writing this sat in the laundrette, an experience
which for once has been fairly uneventful. Well after I got the florists
next door to open it up for me anyway!

Green bugs in the rooflights

5th October 2009

For the last few weeks we have been discovering big green bugs all over the
van. At first we though they were coming in from outside but last night
discovered that they have made a home in two of our rooflights. There
seemed to be quite a colony and for lack of any other way of getting rid of
them we decided the bug killer spray was going to have to be used. We gave
them one spray and then went for a walk round the village while the fumes
disapated. We returned to the sound of crawling, the spray had managed to
disturb them and they were coming out everywhere. So fumigation number 2
was required and yet another walk round town. We are in a place called
Altidona surrounded by olive groves (picture), a hill top town in Marche,
and about 5km from the adriatic coast. The views from here are stunning,
with the moonlight reflected from the sea, and the town itself is all lit
up. Chris has been having great fun with his camera and tripod perfecting
the night shots. If it wasn't for having to come back to bugs everywhere it
would have been wonderful.

Anyway I am now sat on the bed (as far away from the rooflights as
possible) as I write this while Chris is slowly brushing dead and dying
green bugs out of the rooflights. I am slightly worried we will be finding
them everywhere for days and days, I have already found a few in the toilet
roll! I also (Stupidly?) feel bad for having to kill them.

So am off to bed to sleep very firmly under the duvet covers and hopefully
there will be no bugs at breakfast!

Sunset over San Marino

30th September 2009

Last night we spent a wonderful evening in San Marino and clocked up country number 12 into the bargain. We also technically left the EU for the first time on our trip, although you wouldn't know it: they use the Euro, speak Italian and with the exception of the welcome banner over the road, there is no real sign of an international border..

The city of San Marino is set on the top of a very steep hill and has amazing views over the surrounding countryside. We pushed poor old Jam Jar to the limits driving up the hill to get there but it was worth it. To get to the city centre from where we were staying involved riding 4 consecutive lifts (up about 20 storeys) and then a reasonable tramp uphill as well. The town itself is entirely aimed at tourists and reminds me a bit of Le Mont St Michell in that sense. Like Le Mont however all the tourists leave before dinner and we then had the place to ourselves as the sun went down. It was just beautiful and to round of a lovely day we treated ourselves to pizza and a glass of red wine in the square.

Since I last wrote we have been quite busy people and have visited the towns of Vicenza and Ferrara and also managed a day or two out cycling in the country, through vineyards and olive groves. For all those architects amoungst you Vicenza is the home of Palladio and is packed with buildings designed and constructed by the great man. It makes for a lovely city centre and we had a very enjoyable day wandering the streets. Ferrara is an old walled town of red brick buildings, palaces and collonades. Unfortunately as it is on the venetian plains and the weather still hasn't broken here it has mosquitos of gargantuan proportions that have had all summer to become monstrous. I am now the proud owner of both italian mosquito repellant and cream and £17 the poorer for it! We did however have a nice few days here, helped by the balloon festival going on near by and a fabulous display of historic cars in he medieval town centre. For the Bristolians amoungst you the balloon festival was a bit lame, launches seemed to only have 6 or 7 balloons!

Anyway time to sign off, its past 3 o'clock so time for me to go shopping.

PS -if anyones wondering the batteries seem to be OK, dodgy mains connection not charging properly we think.

First Impressions

23rd September 2009

I am sat in a cafe on the main square of Asolo in Northern Italy watching
the world go by as I write this. I have a pot of tea with lemon in front
of me, the weather is glorious and I am wearing my Toronto dress (summer
dress bought in Toronto last year) . Asolo is a medieval hill top town in
the foot hills of the Dolomites, surrounded by vineyards. This morning we
had a cycle into the surrounding countryside which is beautiful, and
populated by old Venetian summer villas. We have arrived here to an Indian
summer, the temperatures are still in the upper 20s every day and we are
therefore learning to adjust our daily routine to avoid the midday heat and
live more like the locals. We are getting up earlier (well 8ish anyway!)
and taking a long lunch, this is also partly forced on us by opening hours
as most things shut around 12 and don't reopen till at least 3pm. The heat
has been quite a shock to the system. In the mountains of Slovenia although
we were still getting some good days, autumn was definitely on its way and
we had packed our summer clothes into the bottom of the cupboards, now the
jumpers have been packed away and shorts rediscovered.

On our way here we stopped at Aqueila which has the most amazing Basilica.
The floor is entirely covered in mosaics from the 3rd century, some showing
benefactors of the building, others depicting animals and fish and one
large area showing the story of Jona and the whale. It was fantastic and we
spent ages looking at them. (picture)

My lasting impression of Asolo will be the sound of the bikes free wheeling
down the hill past the cafe and into the square. It seems to be a popular
cycling region,as its the first hilly area for a long way across the plains
to the coast. They take their cycling very seriously here, and we have seen
lots of teams out training all lycra clad
with matching bikes and gear. They all have really expensive looking road
bikes but generally seem to take it quite gently, and although we saw lots
going the opposite way to us this morning no one overtook us. I do have a
certain amount of bike envy though it has to be said.

Tomorrow we move south towards Verona and hopefully away from the mosquitos
which are quite bad here, due to all the drained marshland. I am wearing
repellant like perfume!

Another Birthday Blog!

18th September 2009

For Chris's birthday we have been in the Soca valley, a beautiful river
valley in the Triglav National Park in Slovenia. The river is a milky
turquoise colour at this time of year, with white sand banks (almost
beaches), its absolutely stunning and the colours reminded me of the
Maldives. The picture is honestly the colour it was and not a clever bit of
photoshop!

We have definitely got into Autumn now, with the weather in the mountains
beginning to be quite wet and variable. We had two great dry days in the
Soca and one very wet, walking and cycling along the valleys and into the
hills. The rain was actually a good thing as it made the waterfalls
stunning. As it wasn't that cold the sun awning came in very useful, and
meant we could sit outside even in the rain.

Today we have moved on in to Italy and I am quite glad to have a break
from mountain driving. We met a caravan on the pass today and it was VERY
tight, luckily we have discovered the wing mirrors fold in and with the
help of Chris on one side and a passing cyclist watching the other side we
squeezed through between caravan and overhanging rock! We also got stopped
and searched by the police at the border crossing today. I think they were
just bored and asked to see in the boot, under the bunks and under the
mattress (not sure what they thought we would have under there!) but
neglected to look in the bathroom! After 10 minutes we were on our way and
have spent the afternoon exploring Cividale del Friuli, a pretty medieval
town on a river. More on Italy next time........

Festival pictures

We decided to stay an extra day in Kamnik for the end of the festival and
it was fantastic. A morning of folk dancing from bulgaria, latvia and
scotland followed by a fantastic parade in the afternoon. I took LOADS of
photos, here are some.

Belated Birthday Blog

9th September

So here I am waiting for the cable car to take me down the mountain. At
this time of the year they only run hourly and as luck would have it I have
just missed one. On the bright side the view is stunning and as I have come
prepared with my palm I have a handy hour to catch up on the blog, rest my
legs and eat a banana to prepare for the cycle home from the base.

The reason I am here was to spend the day visiting the Velika Planina, a
plateau at 1600m where the herdsmen bring the cattle for summer grazing.
Its an incredibly bleak spot, but also incredibly beautiful, with wonderful
views to the surrounding higher peaks. My lasting impression will be the
sound of the cow bells, despite the fact that most of the herds have
already left. A great day.

I had a great birthday, cycling from our campsite through an alpine glacial
valley to a 90m high waterfall. The weather was stunning and the views
superb (pictures). I have to admit that 31 feels so much older than 30,
can't explain why, it makes no sense I know. We followed the long cycle by
a nice meal with some local wine at the van, sat outside by the river. The
lady who ran the site brought me a present of some blueberry and raspberry
brandy, a local delicacy. All in all a good day!

National Costume Festival

11th September

Today we are in Kamnik, and its the national costume festival, a folk music
and costume festival. I am in my element, not sure Chris is quite as
convinced! I am currently resisting the urge to buy a costume doll to add
to my collection of French regional costume dolls from years ago that I am
sure Mum will be delivering to us when we get home along with a whole lot
of other "stuff"! I have spent this morning listening to the accordian
competition and am now sat in a cafe watching the world go by.

Unfortunately we have van problems again, this time internally with our
power supply. The batteries are not holding their charge, and we spent last
night trying to figure it out with head torches in the dark after they
suddenly went flat! We are hoping its the batteries and not the solar
panel, but are going to have to figure it out slowly by a process of
elimination. Luckily the weather is good today so hopefully we can get some
charge back into them. We are moving the van every couple of hours to keep
it in full sun!

Anyway I am off to see if I can get some good costume pictures, without
being too obvious! The womens head dresses are stunning (Picture) And maybe
buy some more beads to make necklaces from the craft market.

Beautifully Soviet

Here we are in country number 10, Slovenia. I am sat in the van this
morning listening to the thunder and rain and hoping it will blow over
later so we can get out on our bikes.

Our first stop in Slovenia was at Ptuj, a thermal spa town in the East of
the country. The campsite was ruinously expensive but included access to a
water park/spa. We had a great afternoon exploring the town, which is one
of the oldest here and very pretty followed by a fun evening on the water
slides. I have never been a strong swimmer so always avoided them in the
past but after being called a wus too many times I summoned up some courage
and discovered just how much fun they are!

We are now staying in a place called Velenje, which is one of the most
beautifully soviet towns we have come across in all our travels. There is a
small old town, very run down and semi-deserted squeezed in between a
castle topped hill and a huge area of post 1950s tower blocks. In the
centre of the tower blocks is a huge empty square surrounded by massive
statues and suitably 60s civic buildings. However it seems to be quite an
affluent town, with lots of fancy shops and cafes and felt quite
comfortable wandering around last night. We also discovered a dry ski jump
slope, and watched the guys doing practice jumps just as if it was winter!
It looked quite scary, can't say I fancied having a go.

We have yet again changed our route plans, as the day before we planned to
drive into Croatia I thought I would just check our documents, only to
discover that our breakdown cover is strictly EU only, hence not Croatia.
We were quite dissapointed not to be off to spend September playing on the
beach but the extra cover was just too expensive. Will have to put it on
the future holiday list instead. We now plan to spend the next few weeks
exploring Slovenia and playing in the mountains and lakes of the Julian
Alps before heading into Italy for a grand tour down to Sicily and back.
Well thats the plan currently althoughlooking back through these entries
most of the plans I have talked about so far have changed lots.

We have spent alot of time thinking about our route the last few weeks as
we were also considering going through Romania and Bulgaria to Greece. We
discounted this for a couple of reasons; we were tempted to do it because
it would look good on the map when we get back to say we had driven to the
Black Sea, the sites in Romania are quite limited and not in great
locations for the things we wanted to see and we were actually not that
bothered about Greece! Again though Romania is one to go on the list as the
pictures of the mountains and buildings look fantastsic, and obviously now
having reently read dracula I want to see Bran castle!

Ah well its still raining so probably time to get the easystitch (my cool
portable sewing machine which has been really handy) out and finish off a
pair of trousers I am making. That bike ride is looking less and less
likely as we still can't see the mountains.

The promised videos

Not sure this is going to work but hopefully below is a video of the Slovak Bethelehem, one of the most amazing man made things I have seen in a long while.

Also apologies if you have it have tried to comment on here and couldn't, I had a setting wrong - should be OK now so give it a go!

Travels across the Prairie on Constitution day

So here I am in Lenti, a small spar town on the Slovakian border. We have had a really busy week, travelling a long way and it’s actually hard to believe that it is only a week since I wrote from Tokaj.

Our journey took us from Tokay south out across the Hungarian pustza (or prairie) towards the Hortobagy National Park, unfortunately as we are only in Hungary for a short time I had not been quite as conscientious with my reading as usual and had failed to discover that Thursday (20th August) was Constitution day and consequently a huge bank holiday. We got horribly stuck in traffic in the middle of nowhere surrounded by flat grass lands as far as the eye could see, thought it was roadworks, but in the end discovered it was the queue to get to the village we were aiming for. There was no way we would get the van through all the parked cars to the campsite so we decided to head on and get some miles under our belts. Out came the Hungarian camping map and we picked a random spot on the map. Martfu.

The random choice turned out be rather good as we had picked a thermal camping, basically a campsite attached to a thermal spa. As we drove in we weren't sure if it was open as there was not a caravan or tent in site, and our campsite book said that the spa was still under construction last year. Well it was open, just very quiet and we booked in for two nights of "wellness"! The facilities were luxury after some of the communal showering etc we have been subjected to in the Czech Republic, shiny new and spotlessly clean and I was in heaven! The only slight drawback was the heat. We arrived to 38 degree temperatures and as the site is new there was NO shade.(picture)

To recover from the heat we indulged in ice-cream and cool coca-cola in the campsite bar in the evening. On the TV they were showing the fireworks live from Budapest and they were amazing, definitely somewhere to be one August in the future.

After a day soaking in the thermal waters (which are brown and made my skin tingle - that’s good right?!), we continued our journey across the prairies, which became more and more reminiscent of the Midwest - strip towns along railway lines, truck stops, diners and ladies of dubious character stood around on the sides of the road - to Pecs.

Pecs was an interesting if slightly uneasy town. It is capital of culture in 2010 and has a lovely old centre, but also some very poor areas and people rummaging through bins just outside swanky bars. A city of contrast, where rich and poor extremes were much more obvious than anywhere else we have been so far in Eastern Europe. Having said that though we had a lovely few days here, the campsite was great, and we were lucky enough to catch a free classical music concert on Sunday night in front of the Cathedral. The Budapest Symphony performed Mahler’s 8th and I have to say I was surprisingly enthused, particularly by the 2nd movement.

Enjoying the finer things in life

19th August 2009

So here we are in country number 9 (Or 10 if you count my 5 minutes in
Poland the other day which Chris says is cheating!) Since I last updated
this we have spent some more time in northern Slovakia (visiting Levoca,
the unesco listed ruined castle at Spis and another national park) and then
started our journey south and west towards Croatia.

Yesterday we arrived in the wine growing regions of northern Hungary. To
quote Louis XIV the sweet wines produced in this part of Hungary are "The
wine of kings, the King of wines".

Today we have been finding out for ourselves by doing a wine cellar tour
and tasting at the Rakoczi cellars here in Tokaj. We certainly agree with
the sun king (Theres a sentence I never expected to write!). The wines are
really nice and we have bought a bottle to have as a treat on one of our
birthdays or anniversary.

So for the oenophiles amongst you Tokaj wines are made from the juice of
overripe berries not harvested till late October, and mixed with "aszu"
essence which makes them even sweeter. The "aszu" berries are left to ripen
on the vine until they look almost like raisins and are then used to make
the sweet essence added to the wines. However they need a long warm autumn
to ripen perfectly and the "Aszu" essence is therefore only made in good
years.

The campsite we are staying on is on the banks of the river Tisza, a wide
gently flowing river perfect for canoeing. Chris had a paddle on his own
last night while I recovered from the long drive here and this morning we
went out together. We changed seats though and I had a try at steering, not
something I have been allowed to do since the Maldives when we spent a long
while going round in circles! Anyway am much better now and it was good
fun, also weirdly easier on my arms than the front seat. All in all a great
day.

Alice Ward

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Its a small small world

No we haven't just been to Euro Disney, and sorry if you are now humming
the tune. (I am!) We spent a great evening last night with an English
couple in the campsite bar. They are on a very similar trip with a
campervan, having quit their jobs and set off not long after us. As we
chatted we discovered a lot of common interests (walking, biking,
canoeing), and then that they live in Cotham! It is such a small world, we
have driven thousands of miles and the first English we get chatting to
properly come from the same city!

Today it has actually felt a bit more like England as we have been out on a
long walk in the rain. It has been a great walk though, we went through the
Hornadu gorge, which at times involved some very scary "technically aided"
sections. For technically aided read bits of chain and steel plates stuck
in the rock face (picture). Generally I found these OK but one section
where we had to walk on metal grills, holding the chain fixed into the rock
with the water pouring underneath was just a bit too much for me, and to my
ultimate shame I froze. I am definitely not cut out to be a climber,
although today was fun I definitely prefer my walking on terra firma!
Yesterday we did a similar but easier walk up one of the steep gorges which
involved lots of long ladders up the sides of waterfalls. It is fantastic
to be able to do these walks, as back home it just wouldn't be allowed for
health and safety reasons and we are getting into some spectacular scenery,
with waterfalls through the canyons.

Anyway dinner is nearly cooked and I am absolutely starved after today so
time to sign of for a while.

fire

so since I last wrote we have had a great week walking, cycling and sight
seeing in the Mala Fatra followed by couple of days by a lake on the edge
of the High Tatras. The weather has generally been fab and the scenery is
stunning. Today we have arrived in he slovensky raj or translated the
slovak paradise, a national park full of river gorges with one way walking
routes through them using ladders etc. We go on our first trip tomorrow.
Watch this space but the photos look fantastic!

We had a great stay in the mala fatra and found a gem of a campsite. We had
a pitch by the river, with its own fire pit and spent the days being very
energetic followed by evenings sat around the fire. Chris tried to make
fire the "Ray Mears" way but in the end resorted to matches, it seems that
its a whole lot harder than it looks on tele! We also got chatting about
the human fascination with fire and I found a great quote today in the
welcome brochure here that sums it up sooo well: "Fire is a good servant
but a bad lord".

Our sightseeing trips have taken us to two folk villages, collections of
painted log houses. The first cicmany (Picture of me on last entry) was
really unique, all the houses are dark stained logs painted with white
patterns to resemble embroidery patterns. A lot of inspiration for some
great sewing when I get back!

We also cycled to bethelem! I guess that needs some explanation....to be
more precise the Slovak Bethlehem, a 10m long, 3m high wooden carving
depicting the nativity. and slovak life. It was full of moving parts,
people chopping wood etc and was just amazing. I have some videos (photos
just don't do it justice) so will try and figure out how to post them on
here.

Yesterday we spent playing in the lake and broke out the canoe for a great
paddle in the sunshine and some glorious views of the hills around,
followed by a dip in the lake to cool of when we got back. This is the life!

Alice Ward

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Mate nejaké zmrzlina and other useful phrases

31st July 2009

Well our Czech is slowly improving and of course we have mastered the
important phrases such as "do you have any ice cream" (title) and "a large
beer please"! It is slightly more difficult on campsites as our phrase book
only really gives hotel bookings. However most of them seem to have a
smattering of German, if not English. In fact the default position here
once they are aware you are foreign is to speak German, which really
doesn't help me much as I probably now have about as much Czech as German.
It is amazing what you can achieve though with a few smiles, gestures and
a phrase book, even if sometimes you're not quite sure what will arrive. We
currently have a lump of meat in the fridge that we think is pork, we will
find out when its cooked.........

We have being doing holiday camps Czech style for the last few weeks. Most
of the campsites have a large area of wooden chalets, and a smaller area
where they fit in the tents and a few caravans. They are generally well set
up for social life though and we have had a few fun evenings in their
bars/cafes and met some interesting people. The wash blocks however are a
bit more hit and miss. I have come to appreciate a shower with a curtain
and an unlimited supply of hot water. We have had places lacking both, and
the last one turned the hot water of at 9am. You will all understand how
upsetting that was to me!!! I'm not even going to start on how wrong having
to make polite conversation (whilst naked in the shower ) with other happy
campers is!

I also now really appreciate the invention that is the washing machine.
Launderettes are few and far between here so we have been relying on the
campsites. This has been interesting, as 9 times out of 10 their machines
seem to be "kaput" , a fairly universal word it seems! If I am lucky I am
then introduced to the alternative washing machine, which is more 19th
century wash day, in Tabor I had to fill one machine with hot water in a
bucket from the shower, hand rinse in the sink without a plug (much thanks
go to mum for the plug she gave me before we left which was very useful!)
and then use a separate spin dryer. I was really tired by the time I had
finished all that and very much in need of zmurzlina! Generally though the
sites have been a lot of fun with a great holiday atmosphere.

We have been sampling the local delicacies whenever possible. There was a
folk fair on in Telc while we were there with a street market selling all
sorts of yummy sweet things. A particular hit has to be the "bangle"
cinnamon roll covered in sugar. As a treat we had lunch a few days ago in a
restaurant specialising in moravian cuisine. Chris had roast beef, not very
adventurous I hear you say but it was served in a spinach sauce, and with
bread dumplings. He wasn't all that impressed with the level of green the
meat was hidden under it has to be said, and came to the conclusion it was
the moravian equivalent of mushy peas! I tried Slovak gnocci covered in
sheep's cheese, and fried bacon fat which was. great!

Today we have moved on into Slovakia and are on a great campsite by a river
on the edge of the mala fatra mountains where we hope to have a cheap few
weeks walking and cycling. More soon .......

photos gloious photos

tabor, telc, a not very flatering picture of me sheltering from the rain
and poor old jamjar back in the garage

Time for an Update

Well it really is more than time for an update. I am writing this tonight
sat in the van near Brno and drinking "Tesco English Breakfast Tea"! It is
really quite odd to be this far from home and doing the weekly shop at
tesco, although certainly makes life easier as alot of the labels are
English. Some would say thats cheating I guess!

Since I last wrote on here we have been to Plzen, back into Germany
briefly, and then on to Tabor and Telc. All the places we have been have
been fantastic and really interesting and this could therefore be in danger
of being an incredibly long entry, so I think I will try and keep it to a
paragraph a place followed by some photos in the hopes you will all keep
reading?

Plzen has a number of claims to fame. Obviously number 1 is that it is home
of Pilsner Urquell, however it is also the home of Skoda and has the third
largest Jewish Synagogue in the World. We restrained from the brewery tour
but of course sampled the local brew a few times! The town square also has
some beautiful buildings covered with what they call sgrafitto, an
intricate black and white painting.

On our arrival in Plzen I was greeted with the coolant warning light on the
dash board, and so started a week of more trips to garages! We mustered
our best czech (courtousey of google!) and braved the garage in town. They
poked and proded but couldn't find anything wrong so sent us off with a
free bottle of glycol just in case! Chris put his mind to finding the leak
and fabricated a dip stick for the coolant tank out of a pencil and a bit
of card. Doing this kind of trip makes you quite imaginative at times!

We left Plzen on route to Cesky Krumlov, but as I pulled onto the dual
carriage way I realised we were even more lacking in power than usual as I
couldn't get us beyond 70kmph. We decided the best thing to do was to give
her a run on the slower roads and see what happened and an hour later
stopped for lunch in Klatovy (another pretty town) to find that we were
still losing coolant. To cut a long story short we then decided to run back
into Germany where we speak the language to get it sorted. Between two
German gargages we got three problems fixed and by the end of the week were
raring to go again.

Whilst we were in Germany we also went to visit Chris's brother and family
in Regensberg. We had a nice afternoon in the town ( I went clothes
shopping!) followed by a lovely evening in a local beer garden. Melanie,
our niece is now just over a year old, starting to walk and very cute!

With a (fingers crossed) fully fixed van we headed back into the Czech
republic and to a place called Tabor. We were drawn here for the town
itself but also some nearby caves. Again the town had a great square with
some beautiful buildings. We also visted the town museum. Tabor is the home
of the hussite movement and the museum chronicled the history of the
religious wars. All quite interesting although we were disappointed not to
see the prototype tank, a cart with rifles attached, promised in the
guidebook. We joined in the fun at the campsite bar the night we arrived,
sheltering under their terrace from the most phenomenal rain and listening
to a live band. Unfortunately the evening was cut rather short when the
band decided that rain, thunder, lightening and electric guitars are not a
good combination!

On Tuesday we moved on to Telc, and a fantastic little campsite in the
hills above town. Telc is a UNESCO world heritage site and has the most
beautiful old town centre, surrounded by medieval fishponds. We spent a
couple of days exploring the town but as the weather has been amazing with
temperatures in the 30s we availed ourselves of the swimming lakes in the
surrounding hills after some great cycling though the woods. I also spent a
lovely morning in the square sketching in my straw hat and can actually say
for the first time I am quite pleased with the results!

So sorry not quite a paragraph a place but we have been having a great time
here and there is so much more I could talk about. I guess that will have
to wait for the stories when we get home. So time to sign off for a while.
Hopefully the next entry will be from Slovakia.

Taking the Water

8th July 2009

So here we are in country number 7 - the Czech Republic. With the exception of getting in and out of the UK we have not had any passport checks at the borders and yesterday was the same. The border posts are still very much in evidence here but fenced off as they have recently joined the shengen group. I am getting used to the lack of ceremony when we change country and it certainly makes moving around easier, but we have taken to humming the national anthem as we drive across a border just so something happens! This is the first country on our trip (not counting home) that is not Euro and we are getting used to dealing in 100s. Lunch yesterday cost over 400 koruna which in reality is about £12.

Karlovy Vary - the town where we are currently based - is a great spa town. Yesterday we spent the afternoon exploring. There are lots of grand art nouveau buildings and collonaded walk ways. The spa water comes out of the hill side at 70 degrees celcius and is then pipped to lots of points along the collonades. You can fill a bottle or cup for free and sample so of course I had ago. The one I tried was at 50 degrees and it has to be said not very nice! As Chris kept telling me I'm sure it is "good for me" but I hope you will agree that water that can be described as thick is not meant for human consumption!

In one room of the spa the water jets 15m into the air (picture) and people come to sit and breath the vapors. A speciality here is making stone roses by dripping the spa water over fresh roses and allowing the minerals to coat them. I am abit worried about my insides......I do feell quite good today though so maybe there is something in it!