If Kees hadn’t stayed with Dutch people who run a B&B in Umbria, while hiking the Via Francigena, we would have never found out about a Dutch church right in Vatican City! We couldn’t believe our ears: a Dutch Reformed church within the Vatican, right across from St. Peter’s Cathedral?! Turns out there are some fascinating historic connections here.
Prior to Covid we, like many of our friends, flew to far away places for a change of scenery. During the restricted Covid era we mostly stayed home but also tried to find ways of taking safe, local mini-vacations. One of our favourites has been a 6 night get-away very close to home. From the book-town of Sidney, to Victoria, to the Sooke Potholes, we rediscovered the diversity of southern Vancouver Island.
The librarian emailed me: “Would you like to come and do school visits? I have 4 schools that would love to have you. We’re across Indonesia.” These are the invitations I dream of. And so we packed our bags and flew to Indonesia to do school presentation in Pekanbaru and Duri on Sumatra, in Surbaya and on Borneo (Kalimantan) in Balikpapan.
After working for 3 weeks in schools, speaking to hundreds of kids each day, and after bumping around the hot and dusty interior of Tanzania, we decided to conclude our time in Africa with a few days on the beach.
Zanzibar had long been on our bucket list. Images of its white beaches and aqua marine water made me drool. However, the more we read about Zanzibar, the less sure we were about going there. It seemed very busy and crowded with 1.5 million people, a plethora of shops, restaurants, vendors, disco’s and bars…
Our travel agent at Mambulu Safaris, knew exactly what we needed. “You’re looking for Zanzibar the way it used to be,” he said, “You should go to Pangani.” No one I asked about it had ever heard of Pangani. But what we read online sounded just like what we were looking for: white beaches, palm trees and warm water.
Pisa. Many iconic, world renowned sites can be a let-down when you first see them in person. But the leaning tower of Pisa, to me, was amazing to see in reality. Photos just cannot convey the awe that I felt when I saw the tower. It’s not just leaning… It’s ornate, delicately carved from marble. It’s gleaming white. It’s gorgeous. And it is definitely leaning! Só much so that I am amazed it hasn’t toppled over yet.
Normally, we are very independent travellers and book all of our own arrangements, including flights and accommodations. However, just like in Africa, we felt that our trip to South America merited the knowledge and advise of a specialized travel agency. We found South American Vacations in Florida. They helped us to get to Chile and Ecuador….
I love how much you can learn while traveling, as long as you are curious and ask questions. We recently decided to trade a portion of our wet and windy Pacific Northwest winter for some dry, sunny days in southern California. En route driving south, we suddenly started noticing crooks, curved posts along the highway with… what was it? Was that a bell in top? Or a lantern? We couldn’t tell while zooming past so we stopped to investigate…
Singapore is a most interesting place: 47% of its land is set aside as parks and includes 1,300 KM of bike and hiking trails. Considering the fact that the total land area is 709.2 sq km, about 3 times the size of Washington DC, setting aside that much green space is quite an accomplishment. The almost 6 million people of this Parliamentary Republic are very diverse.
While restricted to local travel during Covid, we were grateful to live a 20 minute ferry ride from varied Vancouver Island. The book Vancouver Island Vs The World compares world renowned locations to spots found on this island, from waterfalls to beaches, from cities to mountains.
We decided to explore the northern part of the island where we knew we would not encounter many other people.
We started by driving as far north as we could: to the town of Port Hardy. After that we would slowly make our way south while making side trips, exploring places we had not visited before and also some special boat trips.
After having spent time in the fabled Serengeti, we left - albeit reluctantly - we explore our next destination in Tanzania and drove along the cloud laden rim of the Ngorogoro crater. We had heard about and read about this legendary place all of our lives. To finally see the crater in person was pretty overwhelming. We had read so many books about animals of the Serengeti, and accounts by wildlife preservationists. Now we are here…
After having spend time in and around Athens (link) we are headed for a few of the Greek Isles. With so many islands to choose from, which ones do you pick to visit? We had carefully researched and selected three of the nearly 2,000 Greek Islands. Our choices were based on geography: they had to be near Athens because of our limited time.
Walking. Perhaps there is no better way to see your surroundings and get to know the locals than when you walk. When we planned our trip to Cambodia, we wanted to see Angkor Wat, Siem Riep, and we wanted to hike.
We came across a website for Cambodia Cycling & Trekking. That appealed to us. The company replied promptly and was very willing to tweak and answer questions. They offered a 15 day trek that included accommodations and luggage transport. The detailed itinerary included things like “Day 3: Siem Reap to Kratie. Breakfast at the hotel, visit Kompong Kdei Bridge, transfer to Santuk Mountain, climb to hilltop pagoda, transfer to Kratie.” What we didn’t realize until we were actually there, is that the ‘transfers’ that day amounted to driving 400 KM. Each day listed the walking distance, ranging from 3 to 17 KM but also included driving to many different regions of the country.
Much of The Netherlands is flat as a table top. And so it is a popular destination for cyclists. Riding a bike in Holland is as common as eating rice in China. But we often choose the country as a hiking destination. Hiking on flat terrain is nice, too, and the system of trails and accommodations across The Netherlands is second to, almost, none. This time, we’re tackling the Drenthe Pad.
Spain offers many wonderful hiking trails. But Kees found it sometimes difficult that he did not speak Spanish, especially when hiking in more remote regions. Along the Camino the Santiago you can get by with English, but elsewhere our Spanish was limited to “una serveza por favour!” So we found a school that teaches Spanish at all levels., in groups or to individuals. The city of Salamanca was recommended because of the pure Spanish spoken in this area. And we were happy to have a good reason to spend some time in this glorious city.
Mfuwe is a small town in northern Zambia. For us it is the jump-off point to visit Luanga National Park, perhaps one of the most gorgeous and impressive of Africa’s national wildlife preserves. We flew here from Lusaka, the capital city in southern Zambia. The airport isn’t much more than a quonset hut with a tiny gift shop attached. We are booked in for a three night safari stay at Lion Camp, located inside the boundaries of South Luanga National Park. But, really, we have no idea what to expect…
Some types of dwellings are specific to only a small region on earth. When we were researching places to visit in Italy, I came across a photo on the internet that blew me away: unusually shaped houses with grey stone, domed roofs. They looked impressive and I studied the websites. It looked like Smurf ville!
