February It might seem a very obvious statement, but Riga in February is cold! As a couple who hail from the North East, cold never really featured in the list of things to be worried about….but this was COLD! John sometimes gets carried away with the photo taking opportunities, but this was instant frost bite just taking the hand out of the gloves to snap. Welcome to the Russian front. The hat might look over the top in the pictures, but believe us it wasn’t for decoration. This was our first visit to the Baltics and as you might have read, [View Full Entry]

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March 2005 The jewel of the Baltic is probably Estonia’s capital city, Tallinn - it’s got a combination of the sights, history and that general party spirit. Whilst it’s possible to start feeling this Old Town fatigue in this part of the Baltic, Tallinn’s is possibly the pick of the bunch. It might not be as big as the Vilnius version, but it has that dramatic visual impact not found elsewhere. The most striking feature is the defensive wall, a large part of which is still complete dating from the 1500s and is capped by 18 of the original towers with [View Full Entry]

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May 2005 Santander is not exactly your archetypal weekend visit to Spain, but with the only real criteria being that it was cheap to get here and we had previously been, it got the vote. Santander is in Green Spain, which seems more than sufficient to put off most others … it could rain for a starter. Santander plays very much the second fiddle in the tourist stakes to Bilbao of those that head in this direction these days. This was reinforced as we left the plane and 90% of those on board got straight on an express bus to the [View Full Entry]

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June 2005 The excursions out of Vilnius didn’t get off to the most promising start, due to Miranda’s use of the Lithuanian language. After a difficult conversation with the lady in the ticket office who didn’t speak English about the whereabouts of a bus to Trakai, Miranda repeats one of her two words in Lithuanian - alus. The word she was looking for was actually - aciu - instead of saying “Thank you”, she had been repeating the word “Beer”. The Lithuanians probably have a very dim view of the English, demanding beer at 8 o’clock in the morni [View Full Entry]

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June 2005 Welcome to the most central city in Europe - at least that is what the National Geographical Institute of France published in 1990 - Vilnius. A large city with an almost village like feel to it and another Eastern European melting pot, as a result of the regular transfer of ownership over the centuries. The population today still contains a large proportion of Poles and Russians and has an architectural style somewhere between Italian baroque and Soviet social housing. It also has the largest Old Town in Europe and whilst it is easy to overdose on Old Towns in [View Full Entry]

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August 2005 We were looking for somewhere easy and price competitive from EMA for a spontaneous trip at August Bank Holiday. The best option was direct to Shannon on board the penny fight champions without a particular plan of action thereafter. The most obvious destination was Limerick. However a quick read of certain travel guides, seems to focus on a place with unemployment, crime and general neglect at worst and a place where the visitor might still have to dig a little to appreciate it’s charm. We landed at Shannon and turned towards Ennis. Ennis held enough charm without digg [View Full Entry]

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October 2005 After our brief initial stay in Zambia, we crossed to Botswana at the Kazangulu Ferry border crossing. The Zambian side of the border crossing on the Zambezi was chaos - queues of trucks, queues of people and queues of pretty much anything else you could care to mention. It didn’t seem conceivable that all these large trucks were going to get across the river on a couple of minuscule ferries and indeed as this is written, a copper truck rolled off a ferry at this very crossing a few days ago. It also didn’t seem a good bet that [View Full Entry]

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October 2005 The journey to Lusaka was a long drawn out affair - flights on the overnight Kenya Airways flight via Nairobi (or as most people seem to refer to it as "Nairoberry"). It seemed safe enough in Jomo Kenyatta Airport mind, even if it was best described as basic. There was a long hot wait in the airport, before another few hours on to Lusaka. As we were on a section of an overland trip, it's all pot luck what you'll get in your group - still best to make friends rather than enemies, when you are going to be [View Full Entry]

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We've been back in the UK for 6 months now and it would be an understatement to say it has been an eventful time. We both obtained temporary jobs and then were hit with a bombshell when Miranda was diagnosed with breast cancer. The original plan was tentatively to keep blogging with our future travels, but obviously with above news we aren't going to be making too many forays for the foreseeable. We will get there, but obviously not in the near future! As a result we've decided to post some of the last 20 years of travels, in a form [View Full Entry]

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All good stories come to an end and this one came to a halt on Tuesday 27 February 2007 - 10 months and a day after leaving for Capetown. We've covered about 29,500 air miles, 7 countries and amassed about 8,500 photos! After the 2002/2003 going home experience we always knew that this bit was going to be difficult, but nothing quite prepares you for that final Michael Palin Around the World in 80 Days moment - the one where you scurry to get your first English newspaper in 10 months and find that everybody is far too busy and stressed [View Full Entry]

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