Things had changed while we were on Paros and I don’t just mean the tyres on the bike. Greece now has a brand new government and many people are half joking about the possible return of the Drachma to replace the unpopular Euro. It’s impossible to speak to anyone here for more than 5 minutes …
At around 11 o’clock each morning we hear the jingle jangle of goat bells on the hills above the garden. The goat herder spends all day walking them round the valley while they eat everything in their path so the trick is to not walk them over the same route until the scrub has had …
By popular demand here are a few stats from the journey so far: Total distance ridden: 8554kmNumber of countries visited: 23Nights in the tent: 83/141Coldest night in tent: -6cHighest altitude: 1,233mLongest day: 121km (Brighton to Felixstowe)Number of ferry journeys: 24Favourite country for biscuits: LatviaFavourite country for pastries: PolandFavourite country for bread: SerbiaMost expensive coffee: €4 …
Christmas in the UK is nothing if not predictable. We’re introduced to the idea that it’s on its way with a few hints around September with shops bringing in the odd bit of Christmas paraphernalia and bars and restaurants imploring us to make that Christmas party booking ‘NOW, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!’. It creeps up …
While travelling through Eastern Europe we’ve brushed up on a lot of our knowledge of modern history so have a much better idea of how all these countries have changed shape over the past decades. I’m not sure I’d be any more capable of remembering the date lines that Mr Symonds used to try and …
We were told by Doerte way back in Lübeck that after travelling for four weeks you stop counting the number of weeks. She had learnt this while on a 3 month tour round Europe in a camper van. Apparently we’re now into our 4th month on the road but it’s only the number of each …
At some stage I’ll write a review for the various apps and websites that we’ve been using so far during our trip as there are so many clever tools that have been invaluable to us. Sometimes getting a signal for free WiFi can be a bit too much of a distraction as it’s easy to …
Read more “Albania and The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania”
It’s a well known fact among the travelling community that countries that are portrayed as being hostile or having a bad reputation are often the ones that are the most interesting to visit and indeed are usually the most welcoming. Serbia has been a good case in point. Yes it was a Serb who triggered …
So we are now entering the Baltic States, familiar (albeit with hazy memories) to many Brits as being the place for several stag do’s 10 or so years ago, drawn to the cheap beer and the promise of being able to shoot a machine gun in a KGB bunker. Hopefully there will be more to this …
In Finland just over 74% of the land area is covered in forest. There are over 50,000 lakes longer than 200m (but no-one has actually counted them all) and the Finns love to swim in them. The population is around 5 million and there are 2 million saunas, roughly 1 per household. So it seemed …