We left Brasov, Romania about 1 week ago and since then we’ve spent most of our time in Dubrovnik and Split, Croatia. We travelled from Brasov to Bucharest by train. The train trip was quite enjoyable and we passed through picturesque mountainous regions covered in freshly fallen snow, agricultural land where apiarists were camping out by their hives and after 3 hours or so we reached Bucharest. Gary and Oana met us at the station and from there we returned to “our” apartment before joining Oana’s family for lunch. Despite the fact that we were taking everyone out for dinner that night, Oana’s mum decided that we needed to be fed. Soup and/or sandwich you might think. Soup yes, followed by cheese pastries and then a roast chicken, roast potatoes and a salad. Dessert was probably ... read more

As I’m writing this it’s Orthodox Easter Saturday evening in Bucharest and we’re waiting until 11:45 pm to go and visit Oana’s aunt and cousins in their nearby apartment and then participate in the 30-minute midnight Easter mass at the little church across the road. Following mass we will have a celebratory meal. I’m looking forwards to this as experiencing an Orthodox Easter with the locals was a major part of the reason behind our trip to Europe in early spring rather than a warmer time of year. We arrived in Bucharest a few days ago after a short (1.5 hour) flight from Budapest. We opted to fly as a total travel time door-to-door of about 5 hours compared very favourably to the 15-17 hours required if we travelled by train. The aircraft that we travelled ... read more

Today is our last day in Valtice (to my ears pronounced Val-tit-sa) and also our last day in the Czech Republic. We arrived in Valtice last Sunday after a 3.5 to 4 hour drive across the southern part of the Czech Rep from Cesky Krumlov. It was a fairly sunny day and we chose to travel on quieter backroads for much of the trip rather than freeways and busier roads. Our only stop was a drink and toilet break at a moderately-sized town at the halfway point. It would have been nice to have stopped and taken a few photos along the way but that was difficult due to the large drop-offs on each side of the road. I’ve been very surprised by the Czech countryside as it is nowhere near as hilly as I expected. ... read more

We arrived in Prague 6 days ago after a long but uneventful flight from Melbourne via Dubai. We left home at about 6:30 pm after depositing our dogs with friends David and Alena, drove to the airport and then spent ages waiting in various queues to check-in our luggage, go through immigration, get a refund at the TRS. Eventually we had time for a beer before boarding our flight at 11:30 pm. We flew out on a Qantas A380 and after a pretty mediocre meal managed to get some sleep. Next stop was Dubai where we had a 2.5 hour turn-around. I had thought that would give us enough time for a coffee and visit to the duty free stores before our next flight but that was not to be. On arrival we were bussed to ... read more

Well the holiday is almost over. We left London 2-3 days ago (I've lost count) after a quiet day. We didin't do any tourist sightseeing or museum visiting but instead walked through some of the London streets taking in the streetscapes. We did a little bit of shopping on Oxford Street, had a coffee in Soho and eventually found our way to Bond Street to see how the top 0.1% live; some of the jewels in the jewelry stores along Bond Street give the Crown Jewels a bit of a run on size, ostentation etc. We eventually made our way back to the apartment, had a brief rest, showered, packed then joined the sardine tin that is the London Tube at peak hour. Our trip to Singapore was just how we like it - uneventful. We ... read more