Intelligence gathering and more… Washington DC
Crossing into the US at Niagara Falls proved interesting, when the Immigration official didn’t know quite what to make of our situation (how can our employer grant us that long for a vacation!?) and asked us to step back into the waiting room while he discussed it further with a colleague. Eventually we are waved on through, the last back onto the bus before continuing to Buffalo, where we then had a few hours wait for our connection through to Washington DC. A bus station in a large American city at around 10pm at night is never going...
read more“Don’t miss all the beautiful colors of the rainbow looking for that pot of gold.” Unknown.
Niagara Falls is only around one and a half hours bus ride from Toronto and on arriving into the Terminal we promptly got into a cab for the 10 minute drive to our Best Western hotel which was conveniently located only 5 minutes’ walk (all downhill) to the famous falls. Yay! The room was about four times the size of our room at the hostel and although it doesn’t have cooking facilities or a fridge, the hotel has a heated indoor swimming pool and we are happy enough to remain here for a few days before moving on to Washington...
read more“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck
Taking in Toronto …. With so much to see and do in Iceland, I was beginning to show signs of organisational overload, and so was seriously behind with arranging lodging and activities for the North American leg of our journey. We originally thought we would fly directly into Florida but Toronto just happened to be the cheapest destination in the North American continent with Icelandic Air, so in good travelling style we decide to treat it as another opportunity and see where it leads us … But with our arrival in Toronto just a day...
read moreIceland (part two) – or black and white!
Iceland is monochrome and moody – the black sand of the volcanic beaches and the black lava desert, white as the freshly fallen snow and ice that surrounds everything. But it is also a really colourful place too – in history and nature. There are the most amazing shades of blue – in the ice, the water. Purple lupins and green moss and little tufts of greenery than would only increase once spring is here. Many shades of red and brown in the rhyolite hills and then there is the colourful corrugated iron Icelandic homes...
read moreIceland – not just fire and ice!
We were not entirely sure what to expect in Iceland, but we were pleasantly surprised in finding quite a cosmopolitan city full of friendly locals prospering with well-established infrastructure (less so the further away you got from Reykjavik though). Sometimes I did wonder if we had returned to the ‘70s, looking at the style of furniture and wallpaper used, but decided it was more vintage and retro which is kinda cool rather than being stuck in a past decade. And I so wish I could take some of that furniture home with me – gotta...
read moreBohemian Berlin
Checking in at Orly Airport bound for Berlin, it was another case of ‘airport security gone mad’ when our tube of Vegemite was confiscated by the security staff. Although the tube was obviously almost empty, the security officer pointed out that the capacity on the packaging indicated that the tube could hold more than the allowed limit of liquids. You can never argue with these people and common sense seems to disappear somewhere before the metal detectors and x-ray machines. Fortunately, we had another tube safely tucked away in our...
read moreA restful weekend in the French countryside…
We met a more tired looking Lara the next day outside our apartment and caught the 11am train to her parents’ house for the weekend in Malesherbes, about an hour and a half south of Paris. Malesherbes is in the Loire Valley region of France and most well-known for some large Château’s such as Fontainebleau, however we were here just to enjoy the company rather than wanting to go sightseeing. Lara’s parents Philippe and Elizabeth greeted us warmly and we were made to feel very welcome in their comfortable family home. Philippe is...
read moreParis continued …Ooh la la
On our second full day in Paris we headed straight to the Eiffel Tower by metro determined to climb the 669 steps to the midway platform and then the lift to the top. Unfortunately it wasn’t the clearest day and we could barely make out the Sacré-Coeur in Montmartre where we would be spending time with Lara later that afternoon. The Eiffel Tower is perhaps the first man-made structure the girls recognised as small children when they saw pictures in books (even though they just called it ‘Paris’). It really is special and graceful...
read moreFrance? That wasn’t in our plans!
We never exactly made plans per se about travelling in Europe; it was more an idea of which countries we wouldn’t visti – France and other ‘western’ European countries were toward the top of that list. This was mainly becuause we’d travelled there previously and also due to the high cost of travel/living in this part of Europe. However, sometimes the best thing about making a plan is changing it! Without being locked into a pre-booked flight itinerary we have the freedom of making it up as we went along and buying...
read moreBella Barcelona y el grandioso Gaudi
We had booked to stay in Barcelona for two nights after the cruise and were fortunate to get into Tripadvisor’s #1 recommendation for ‘Specialty Lodging’ which was situated close to the downtown area. We were even more grateful for the beds when we learned that the following night two of the league’s top football (soccer) teams, Real Madrid and Barcelona, were playing at the Barcelona stadium in front of a crowd of more than 100,000 fans. Standing outside the B&B’s front door, we weren’t sure that we had arrived at the...
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