PaulMac
Paul McVitty Joined: January 15th 2009
Logged in: December 19th 2011
Logged in: December 19th 2011
Travel Blog Posts
Say Cheese!
I’m writing this almost a month after arriving home. Slack, but I thought I’d better finish the story! Doesn't the sunset picture above really set the scene for the last blog entry, which is about going home... geez I'm clever! Following the advice of the seat61.com website, I chose to take the train From New York to Toronto, rather than fly. It was a nice view up along the Hudson River for a few hours, but otherwise it was a bloody long trip. I arrived in Toronto twelve hours later, and was met by my Aunt Elizabeth, wearing her gardening hat, and her husband Brian holding up a sign with my name on it, as we’d never met before. Fortunately and not unexpectedly, they and the rest of my extended family that I met in Toronto ... read more
Michael Jackson is not dead!
I (heart) New York. So say the tee shirts, which in this time of recession, can be had for 9 for $10, just off Times Square. Things must be really tough. When I was here two years ago, they were 4 for $10, or maybe 5 of you were a block or two away from the tourist sites. By spending more time in Europe, I only gave myself two and a half days here on this visit, which was fine, as I'd spent two weeks here on my last visit. If you're contemplating going, there's an enourmous amount of things to do and sights to see here. Give yourself a week at least. More importantly, the city has a "feel" or vibe that's hard to describe. That takes time to appreciate. Hmmm. Actually, I felt it ... read more
Santorini
OK, this entry probably won't get me any awards for Picture of the Week, but I thought it was worth publishing anyhooo. I've seen so many people having their photo taken of themselves standing in front of whatever monument or scene they were witnessing. Actually I forget how many times I helped fulfil the task for them. "Here's a bloke with a big camera, he can take it for us..." I'd imagined they'd go through their photo albums in the future saying "Here's me standing in front of...." and "oh and here's me standing in front of...". These people never seemed to take any pictures of the places or the people, but they will end up having an album full of proof that they'd been somewhere. So about one in every 400 photos that I took ... read more
Which colour would you like?
Bikes. Everywhere. Amsterdam will be remembered for the bicycles… Except that unlike in Italy, these ones are not noisy Vespas that go hurtling past, rather, they are of the pedal variety. They are literally everywhere, chained to anything that’s solid, ranging from fences to trees to benches to rubbish bins. Apparently, tens of thousands of them get stolen each year, which is surprising given that there appears to be three for every resident. And if they aren’t chained to something solid, they will end up in the canals as a drunken late night joke. Thousands are pulled from the canals each year, according to the tour guide. If they aren’t chained to something, they are being ridden flat-out by students, mums and delivery men, apparently obeying some road rules, but I was unable to work out ... read more
London Icons
I’ve just spent 15 minutes in a tunnel under the water on the Eurostar, and out the window I can see rolling French countryside and villages. The Eurostar from London is pretty cool. Almost silent, and only partially deafening as the train goes in and out of tunnels, causing a big change in air pressure. I’m sitting with a bunch of French school kids, but they’re not willing to let me practice my really bad French on them… oh well. Now we’re in France, the train is really picking up speed. 300km/h I believe. I have to say they (might) do it smoother and quieter than the Japanese… London is a big city, full of very familiar sights, and for the short time I’ve spent here, a pretty good place to visit. I spent most of ... read more
Scottish Thistle
Apart from changing continents, I’m trying my best to avoid taking flights from city to city. Following the advice I got from the seat61.com website, I got myself from Belfast in Ireland to Edinburgh in Scotland using the train and ferry, instead of spending 50 minutes in the air and not seeing anything apart from yet another airport and some clouds below. The cost was compartable (31 pounds, or 23 if I’d managed to book beforehand), and far more scenic. The Stena line ferry was enourmous, and was powered by two gas turbine (ie, jet) engines. I thought the ferries were big in Greece. This thing had enough room for 40 or 50 semi trailer trucks below, and had all sorts of bars and amusements upstairs for the short two hour ride across to Stranraer. From ... read more
Cliffs of Moher
Green. Then green again. Lots of rocks. Then another slightly different shade of green. Everywhere. Ireland is such a contrast in colour to Australia (and Greece, for that matter) which is bone dry and brown a the moment. If only we could share the water around somehow. I don’t think the 100ml I’d be allowed to bring home on the plane would make much difference though… I arrived into Dublin at about 1230am, thanks to an unexplained three hour stopover delay in Budapest from Malev airlines, and had my first authentic Irish experience on the airport bus. A Swedish girl brought her map down to the driver and asked if we would be stopping somewhere near her finger. And the response was “Now why on erth would people be bringin’ me maps to read at wun ... read more
Keeping guard
Hmmm. What to say about Paros. Certainly nowhere near as impressive as Santorini for it’s astounding location, Paros is a bigger and much flatter island. The port of Parikia is a fairly major port for all of the ferries to the different islands. It has an “old town” located nearby that is the maze of whitewashed buildings with blue doors, some of which has given way to shops and restaurants, but in the main it still looks fairly traditional. I couldn’t see any street names or house numbers, so I wonder what happens when the local postie goes on vacation… Arriving on a Sunday afternoon, the old town was deserted. It appears that the afternoon siesta lasts a long time here, but the area becomes lively again in the evening. I picked some accommodation from Hostelworld ... read more
Blue Domes 1
31 May 2009 I’m going to have to get more imaginative than just Wow. How about Holy Cow… Santorini is one of those places that you see incredible pictures of in brochures and on postcards. Surprisingly enough, it’s all there for you to photograph too. It’s Greece’s answer to Positano in Italy. Whitewashed buildings all perched precariously on top of one another, only these ones are doing it perched 100+ metres above the water on the edge of a volcano crater. The old port is located below the main town of Fira, and there are three ways to get up to the top: take a cablecar, walk 500+ steps, or let a donkey do the walking for you. Nowadays a new port has been built about 10 km away, and there is a fleet of buses ... read more
