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<title>Travel Blog | MarkandKate</title>
<link>http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/MarkandKate/</link>
<description>Travel adventures in journals and photos from MarkandKate</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<pubDate>Sat, 25 May 2013 13:39:01 +0000</pubDate>
<lastBuildDate>Sat, 25 May 2013 13:39:01 +0000</lastBuildDate><item>
                    <title> Saintmilion </title>
                    <description>K The theme of our final few blogs is basically going to be the same  ancient and medieval cities beautiful countryside local markets and good food and wine. I could really just cut and paste the place names. However for our own historical record I will continue to blog as accurately as possible.Our first stop after leaving Colondannes was La Rochelle a seaport on the Bay of Biscay and an im</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Aquitaine/Saint-Emilion/blog-781622.html</link>
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                    <title>In the Armpit of France</title>
                    <description>K  Colondannes is a commune in the Creuse department in the Limousin region in central France. Still unclear Well if you stick a pin in the middle of France then you are pretty much there.Apart from Limoges this area of France pretty unknown to tourists and also perhaps underestimated by the French. Parisian friends of Don and Mum39s were very concerned that they had bought a place in the </description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Limousin/Creuse/blog-781419.html</link>
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                    <title>Back to School</title>
                    <description>K I studied French at school between the ages of 11 and 18 but to say I was rusty would be an understatement. However we were about to spend 5 weeks en France and I was determined to dust myself off. First stop therefore was French school.My chosen destination for this potential humiliation was Montpellier yes autotext  the French one is spelled this way the capital of LanguedocRoussillon</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Languedoc-Roussillon/Montpellier/blog-778108.html</link>
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                    <title>Baaarcelllooooonnna</title>
                    <description>Forgive the Queen impression Freddie not Elizabeth but I can never ever hear the word Barcelona without the song going off in my head. So you can imagine what writing this blog is like. Better do it quick before I start airmiking.Barcelona has been a bit of a travel bete noir for me. 2 aborted trips in the past and one of my best friends had her hen weekend there at my suggestion.....and I cou</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Catalonia/Barcelona/Barcelona/blog-778100.html</link>
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                    <title>A whistlestop tour of Northern Italy</title>
                    <description>K  our final overnight ferry of the trip brought us from Split to Venice which fully lived up to its hype. Yes it was crowded and packed with tourists but despite this I found that St Marks Square and the Grand Canal fully lived up to their billing. We didnt go into the Doge39s Palace we were just too cultured out but instead spent hours walking around the small streets finding little bars s</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Italy/Veneto/Venice/blog-731087.html</link>
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                    <title>Hvar Island</title>
                    <description>K Hvar is a beautiful island off the coast of Croatia which in July and August turns in to a jet set and celeb hot spot. Fortunately we were there in May It is a really beautiful place with an old town square pretty harbour and castle. However the real attractions if you want to get away from it all are the neighboring Pakleni islands. We took the water taxi over to Mlini still not sure </description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Dalmatia/Hvar/blog-727383.html</link>
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                    <title>Sarajevo  Mostar</title>
                    <description>K We visited Sarajevo in late May and found it a real multicultural city with an actual demarcation on the pavement in the Old Town Stari Grad between East and West The 15th Century market area in the East town of Baarija originally had over 12000 shops crammed in to a tiny area. There are still several hundred today along with many restaurants selling the local speciality foods</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Bosnia-and-Herzegovina/South/Mostar/blog-725681.html</link>
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                    <title>Kings of the Castle in Dubrovnik</title>
                    <description>K  We were excited to get to Dubrovnik which is probably the bestknown destination in the Balkans. We were staying in a private room in Lapad or new Dubrovnik but were only a 10minute bus ride to the Old City henceforth referred to as Dubrovnik. Knowing that Dubrovnik is the major destination for coach tours and cruise ships we got up early to beat the crowds. Our guidebook told us tha</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Dalmatia/Dubrovnik/blog-723205.html</link>
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                    <title>Montenegro</title>
                    <description>K It only takes about 4 hours to go all the way up the Montenegro coast from Albania to Croatia so we decided to base ourselves in Budvar a beach town about half way up the country and do some day trips. My definition of luxury after a year of traveling is spending more than one night in a hotel closely followed by a backpack of clean laundry so the fact that we could spend 3 nights in one pla</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Montenegro/Kotor/Kotor/blog-719997.html</link>
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                    <title>Albania</title>
                    <description>M  We can39t recall exactly when we first thought that we wanted to go to Albania and why. We think it was either a Sunday Times magazine article or a Top Gear show. Regardless when we looked at our potential routes from Greece north into Europe we were both excited at the chance of visiting a country that was pretty much cut off from Europe until communist rule ended in 1992. Albania has a r</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Albania/North/Fierze/blog-717949.html</link>
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                    <title>Peloppones</title>
                    <description>K  Given its wellpublicized economic problems some friends have asked us whether Greece is a mess  rumors of inadequate public services garbage in the street etc. seem to abound. I am absolutely sure that the life of the average Greek is full of major concerns and uncertainties but from a tourist perspective there is little to suggest a country in crisis. The places we visited were all clean a</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/Pelopennese/Nafplion/blog-715359.html</link>
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                    <title>Athens Gyros  food of the gods</title>
                    <description>M  Our original plan was to work our way north from Istanbul through Bulgaria Romania to northernwestern europe but i the weather further north wasn39t looking quite as warm as we had expected and ii we felt we may not fully appreciate a series of backto back capital city stops and frankly we figured we could do that later in life. Hence a change of plans. Head south to Athens admited</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Greece/Attica/Athens/Kallithea/blog-713356.html</link>
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                    <title>East meets West in Istanbul</title>
                    <description>K Inexcusably despite having lived in London for many years neither Mark or I had ever managed to visit the Tower of London an omission that we finally rectified on our recent stopover in the UK. ltspangtltspangtltspangtltspangtltspangtltspangt I enjoyed it a lot  the history is palpable and of course the Crown Jewels spectacular.ltspangt We also managed a pub lun</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Middle-East/Turkey/Marmara/Istanbul/Sultanahmet/blog-714133.html</link>
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                    <title>Kyoto  Kobe</title>
                    <description>M  Kyoto is the place in Japan for seeing temples and old style Japanese architecture. As a result it is pretty mobbed with tourists. We were expecting this but even so it was quiet a shock after the relative quite of southern Japan. However the big tour groups seem to focus on the main 2 or 3 sights and don39t seem to get going until after at least 9am. Once the tour buses arrive the main sig</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kyoto/Kyoto/Gion/blog-710904.html</link>
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                    <title>Cherry blossoms at last  partying Japanese style in Tokyo</title>
                    <description>K Tokyo is home to 35 million people so I was expecting chaos when we arrived there. However it is also built for 35 million people with wide roads and pavements so surprisingly we never felt the craziness I expected. Even at Shibuya junction the worlds busiest cross street which services 100000 people an hour  it did not feel that busy  probably because the zebra crossing was about 15 fee</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/Ueno/blog-711927.html</link>
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                    <title>Hiroshima</title>
                    <description>M  At 8am on August 5th 1945 the worlds first Atomic Bomb was detonated 600m over the center of Hiroshima. It destroyed virtually every building within a 3km radius. The blast and the illnesses causes by radiation have killed more than 300000 people effectively the whole of the city. Apart from the memorials and the museums to visit Hiroshima today you would not believe these facts. The c</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Hiroshima/Hiroshima/blog-702874.html</link>
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                    <title>Singing and Sumo  a Day in Osaka</title>
                    <description>K In his last blog Mark stated that he could hardly believe how much we had done in the few days since arriving in Japan. Our trip to Osaka took that statement and quadrupled it.We went to Osaka purely to try and attend a Sumo tournament six of which are held each year each of 15 days length. We were therefore lucky that one was in progress. However the tournament was in Osaka and we were in co</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Osaka/Osaka/blog-702836.html</link>
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                    <title>Buried Alive in Kyushu Province Japan</title>
                    <description>M  When we started planning our round the world trip Japan was one of only three mustsee countries for me. Beyond these Japan India and Namibia I didnt really care where we went as long as we saw different things. As such I was pretty excited on the ferry ride over from Korea to Japan. Our first few days in Kyushu Province in southern Japan have more than lived up to expectations. Alread</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kumamoto/Kumamoto/blog-700484.html</link>
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                    <title>South Korea and Our First Love Hotel</title>
                    <description>M  K  The Philippines was in the high 30sTaipai was in the mid teens but Seoul was barely into double digits when we arrived. After 9 months of travelling in warm temperatures it was a little bit of a shock to the system. Fortunately though Seoul has a great metro system although not as good as Taipais according to my train spotting wife and lots of coffee shops to keep warm in. Befor</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Busan/blog-698258.html</link>
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                    <title>Two Little Piggies went to Taipei.....</title>
                    <description>K As you may have realized Mark  I are basically just eating our way around the world. We have had some great food experiences in many countries but Taipei Taiwan has just jumped right to the top of the list. This place lives and breathes food. I managed to eat one of my favorite foods chinese dumplings 5 times in 4 days. In fact I seriously overate and will always remember Taipei for a slig</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Taiwan/Taipei/LongShan-Temple/blog-695764.html</link>
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