Travel Blog Posts
August 14th 2010
As you may have realized, we are now home again. Our last days in Budapest and Vienna were cool and rainy and I picked up a bad cough that was making the rounds of our river boat. Nevertheless, we had a most interesting trip and hope to find time to do some follow up reading on various subjects we learned something of during our travels. Till next trip, adieu.... read more
July 28th 2010
We have disembarked from Artistry, our river boat, having cruised up the river Danube from the Black Sea to Vienna. Sadly our stay in Budapest was cut short because three days of rainy weather had caused the river to swell and our captain knew it would take longer to negotiate the final leg of our journey upstream. However it has been a very interesting trip. The Danube is wider than I imagined and a muddy brown colour. What was Strauss thinking? Along the way we have transited Romania, Bulgaria, ex-Yugoslavian countries ( Slovakia, Serbia and Croatia) and Hungary, and visited Bucharest, Varna, Belgrade and Budapest. These countries have had a turbulent past and in the last century made the transition from monarchies to communism and on to some forms of democracy. The communist revolution ripped the ... read more
July 17th 2010
We travelled from Dubrovnik by bus and taxi to Belgrade where we spent three days exploring both the old and new towns and visiting Tito's grave. We could feel Tito still rolling over following the break up of Yugoslavia. We celebrated our wedding anniversary aboard the overnight train to Bucherest. However the romantic images of the Orient Express were erased by the graffiti on the original? railway car, the lack of air conditioning and dining facilities (or even so much as a cold drink), and the barely adequate toilet. Bucharest has turned out to be a pleasant surprise as it is much cleaner and nicer than the travel guides would have you believe. A trip to Romania would not be complete without a trip to Transylvania to visit the castle of Vlad the Impaler (named because ... read more
July 6th 2010
With calm seas and favourable winds we departed Trogir on Wednesday morning aboard Grimi, a 37 foot Sun Osyssey, and arrived in Montenegro on Sunday just in time to watch the sun setting over the bay of Hercig Novi. Having explored the bay of Kotor we are now moored at Kotor town harbour which is a small walled Venetian town with numerous churches and attendant squares that are interconnected by cobbled alleyways. Walking the walls of Kotor is a far more precarious and arduous task than walking the walls of Dubrovnik or strolling along Hadrians wall in the English countryside. The crumbling old city walls lead to the hilltop fortress of St. John located above the town and it took the best part of an hour of strenuous uphill climb. We tackled the climb in the ... read more
June 26th 2010
Our final sail back to Trogir was a broad reach with 22 knots of wind and my novice crew were all cheering as Ariola reached a peak of 9 knots. Our crew have now departed, but we have arranged to stay on the water for another two weeks. Ecker Yachting provides a one-way charter option and we learned that a Dubrovnik-based yacht was due to arrive in Trogir on Tuesday. We offered to return it to Dubrovnik via Montenegro, so we can explore its coastal treasures, so here we sit in Trogir waiting for a Bavaria 37 to arrive. Frances and I have both suffered bad colds and coughs so a few days lazing around doing nothing will be days well wasted.... read more
June 19th 2010
We left behind the calls to prayer, the melt in the mouth Turkish Delight and my favourite mezze of eggplant in yoghurt and met our next group of sailing friends in Split, Croatia. We boarded our fifty foot Bavaria, the Ariola )one of said friends likes his comfort), the next day, and for the past week have been showing off our favourite overnight stops between Trogir and Dubrovnik. Knowing that he has two or three years of holiday photos to edit back home and that we have already visited these places at least twice before, K has shown great restraint and been leaving his camera on the boat so he wont have even more photos to edit, hence the lack of pictures to accompany this blog. We have been able to sail most days in gentle ... read more
June 9th 2010
Keith has been playing with a Garmin Nuvi GPS he bought, along with updated European maps - unsure that they would include Turkey, the day before we left Canada. Of the many female/male and language choices giving directions, we prefer the British voice of Daniel. This is serendipitous as he pronounces the names of Turkish streets without regard for the many accents and local intonations, and we understand perfectly. Daniel does not do well when off the beaten track as happened when Kieth wanted to drive closer to the remnants of the aquaduct to Aspendos and ended up in a farmers yard. The farmer was only too happy to serve us tea and show us the stairway in the main tower of the aqueduct so we could climb to the top for great panoramas. Last night ... read more
June 7th 2010
Saying goodbye to Salona we rented a car on Saturday mornıng and headed east. Our first stop along the Mediterranean coast was Kaya Koy a Lycian town originally named Levissi. İn the fırst millenium the Greek speaking Christians fled from Gemiler İsland to escape from raiding pirates and settled 2 miles inland at Levissi. The town prospered and grew for centuries until the end of WWİ when civil war between the Greeks and Turks in Western Anatolia brought about a peace treaty brokered by the British. 400,000 Turkish-speaking Muslims were resettled in Turkey and 1,200,000 Greek-speaking Christians were to be sent to Greece. The Muslim Turks did not want to settle in Levissi. They wanted farmland and were afraid the Greeks had poisoned the wells before they left. Levissi became a ghost town and, after an ... read more
May 29th 2010
From the sleepy town of Palamut named after the indigenous trees in the bay, we took a taxi to Knidos, one of the rich and famous harbour towns of the Roman age. There has been a settlement at the tip of the Datca peninsula where the Aegean sea meets the Mediterranean, for over 3,000 years, before being destroyed by an earthquake. Still visible are good examples of Roman temples to the gods as well as several churches from the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. Because of its remote location, it is not a popular destination and we spend a couple of relaxing hours wandering through the ruins. The constant droning of bees fılled the air as they collected pollen from the wild thyme that has overgrown the site. We spent the afternoon eating fresh bread baked ... read more
May 28th 2010
After a few enjoyable days in England visiting family and friends our flight to Dalaman went wıithout a hitch. The disappointingly cool and showery weather quickly gave way to a more mediterranean climate as we made our way west from Gocek aboard the Sanola. We stopped in Ekimcik Buku and ate an excellent and very efficiently produced, if rather expensive, dinner at My Marina. Next morning we motored along the Dalyan River by Turkish water taxi to visit the Lycian tombs and ancient Caunos - an old Roman harbour that is now a mile or two inland because of silting. We also saw loggerhead turtle tracks heading in and out of the sea and several turtles in the water. The sailing has been great every day as we made our way westward along the Datca peninsula. ... read more
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