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, [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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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 bu [View Full Entry]

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Well it’s June, and I’m finally finding time to write about Paris, which I visited a month ago. I was expecting to be blown away by Paris, but I left there kind of unimpressed. That said, I can fully appreciate that five days, while longer than the average tourist gives it, is nowhere near long enough to fully appreciate the city. I reckon that given a few weeks or a month, I’d find what makes the city tick, and appreciate it for what it is. When you first arrive in a new city, it is all unfamiliar, and you don’t often [View Full Entry]

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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… Ar [View Full Entry]

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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 t [View Full Entry]

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