http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/Travels with Tom and Alice/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Travels with Tom and Alice en-us Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:52:18 BST Sat, 26 Jul 2008 23:52:18 BST July 21 24 2008Cape Town Wine DistrictWe spent Monday with a quiet day in Cape Town and the usual ldquoHop On Hop Offrdquo city bus tour. Today was a rather cold and cloudy day and sightseeing was not great but we did get a good overview of this beautiful city. Cape Town reminds us of Vancouver Canada as it has the mountains the sea and a great downtown on the waterfront. Winter i http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-304096.html July 19 20 2008Garden Route South Africaldquo The Garden Route ldquo is a favorite travel route in South Africa that basically follows the coast starting east of Cape Town at Mussel Bay and ending at Tsitsikamma National Park east of Plettenberg Bay. This is a beautiful part of the country and there are great camping hotel and lodge facilities along the route. The countryside is mostly http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Mossel-Bay/blog-304093.html July 18 2008PLETTENBERG BAY S.A.Our adventures in South Africa continued today with a drive from Oudtshoorn to Plettenberg bay on the Indian Ocean coast of southern South Africa. This was an easy day on the road passing from the Ostrich farms and sheep and goats Mohair Goats farms through the mountains and back to the coast on a beautiful road through the mountain passes. We enjoyed some in http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Plettenberg-Bay/blog-304092.html July 16 17 2008CAPE TOWN OUDTSHOORN S.A.Wednesday morning we began our exploring of the Cape area of South Africa. We met our guide Carles and drove today north and east to Oudtshoorn. This is a very nice drive through some beautiful mountains to an area of farms and past many small vineyards and fruit growing areas.The landscape changes to semidesert very similar to Arizona and a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Oudtshoorn/blog-301083.html July 13 14 15 2008Tanzania to Cape Town.Sunday morning we left our camp early to catch our small planes to Arusha Kilimanjaro with some great views of snow covered Mount Kilimanjaro and on to Nairobi Kenya. We enjoyed a farewell dinner courtesy of Kensington Tours our hosts for this part of our trip at the famous Carnivore Restaurant in Nairobi. This is a MEAT place with some of the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Western-Cape/Cape-Town/blog-301081.html July 12 2008NGORONGORO Park TanzaniaWe spent the night at the Kensington Camp near the Ngorongoro Crater. As this is at a fairly high altitude it was to say the least a little ldquofreshrdquo in the tent and very cool in the morning. There are a lot of Masai that live here as they were moved from the Serengeti when the national Park was created 40 50 years ago. They seem to survive in http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/North/Ngorongoro-Conservation-Area/blog-301080.html July 11 2008Serengeti Plains Olduvai GorgeWith another early morning start we headed out into the Serengeti plains on our way to Ngorongoro Park in the mountains. On the way we saw lots of the usual big animals and a very large herd of about 50 Elephants.Today we had a few problems with the fuel lines in our Land Cruiser and got stalled after an hour or so on the road from the camp. Wersquo http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/North/Olduvai-Gorge/blog-301078.html July 9 10 2008SERENGETI TanzaniaThis was a very long day in the car as we drove over 9 hours from MasiMara south and through West Mara and into Tanzania as we made our way to the Kensington Camp in the Serengeti Masai for ldquoendless plainrdquo for some more game viewing.It would be hard to explain the road conditions for most of the trip You wouldnrsquot believe it if I was a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Tanzania/North/Serengeti-National-Park/blog-301077.html July 5 6 2008LAKE NAKURU KenyaOn Saturday we flew to Nairobi Kenya and spent a quit evening at our hotel as we have an early morning start to our trip to Lake Nakuru Park. Nairobi looks like a very busy place but generally very poor. Our accommodation was certainly not indicative of the way most Kenyans live.Sunday morning we met our Driver Guide for the next 8 days Raymond a young man fr http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/Lake-Nakuru-NP/blog-299267.html July 7 8 2008Masai MaraOur trip to Africa continued today with our drive from Nakuru Park to the Masi Mara Kenya and some ldquo big game huntingrdquo with cameras . This is really a beautiful place but the poverty becomes more evident as you get away from the cities.The Masai Mara is a large area of Kenya that includes a large 2000 squ KM preserve that is home to a huge variety of wild http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Kenya/Rift-Valley-Province/Masai-Mara-NP/blog-299264.html July 345 2008South AfricaWe continued our adventure with a long flight across the equator and into South Africa.We had an overnight in Johannesburg before our noon flight to Nairobi Kenya. In Johannesburg we get very different opinions on the safety and security in this big city. Our taxi driver from the airport suggested there were few problems and the government had things pretty much unde http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/South-Africa/Gauteng/Johannesburg/blog-299262.html July 1 2 2008Madrid SpainOur journey took us from Porto back across the mountains through the forest and into the farmland around Madrid. Some of the passes are very high here and it makes for some very interesting scenery. We canrsquot say enough about the excellent roads and freeways here. We have been very impressed with our whole trip through Europe and this piece was no different. I http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/District-of-Madrid/Madrid/blog-299260.html June 29 30 2008PORTO PortugalThis was a bit of a long drive 5 hours from Santander through a couple of small mountain ranges to the north coast of Portugal. Our ldquoGPS Ladyrdquo sometimes referred to as something not so polite took us a little off course with some new roads that have been opened that obviously were not on our GPS maps yet. We are getting spoiled and canrsquot e http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Northern/Porto/blog-299259.html June 28 2008SANTANDER SpainA few hours on the road through S.W. France and into northern Spain and we arrived at Santander Spain on the North coast of Spain on the Atlantic Ocean. Another nice drive on good roads and a great variety of scenery from farmland to mountain passes.Santander is a very nice resort area with a huge very nice beach and at this time of year it is getting busy as expec http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Spain/Cantabria/Santander/blog-299258.html FRANCEWe have now left France and would like to comment on some of our observations.France is a great country to visit. The people are very FRENCH and very proud of there language history and culture. We had very few language issues. there is always the odd idiot . Accommodations are good and if you look around you can get some relatively reasonable rates. Parking costs are an issue in th http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/blog-292920.html June 26 27 2008BORDEAUX FranceWe arrived in Bordeaux in time on Thursday to take the local tram to the center of town to have a look around. Turns out our timing was perfect for me. The annual ldquoBordeaux Fete Le Vinrdquo Wine Festival was just getting started and the promenade along the Garonne River was set up for wine tasting from all the areas producing ldquo Bordeaux ldquow http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Aquitaine/Bordeaux/blog-292919.html June 25 26 2008AUVERGNE REGION FranceOur journey from Geneva took us across a small mountain range through some very beautiful countryside to ClermontFerrand. We were pleasantly surprised. This is a very nice city known as the geographic center of France. The city is in some very nice farmland and crops of all kinds are grown here.We took our usual ldquowalk aboutrdquo from our hotel to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/France/Auvergne/Clermont-Ferrand/blog-292917.html June 23 24 2008GENEVA SwitzerlandOur travels took us from Bern along the lakes to Geneva which is surrounded by rolling hills and farmland. Grain Grapes and fruit trees. Geneva sits on the southern most lakeshore of Lake Le Leman the biggest fresh water lake in Europe. Geneva is a few kilometers from France in fact our room was in France and less than a 100 Km via the Mont Blanc tunnel http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/South-West/Geneva/blog-292915.html June 21 22 2008BERN INTERLAKEN SwitzerlandOur first day in Bern was Sunday. A perfect day to visit downtown and all the shops. They are nearly all closed on Sundays We did a good walk about the old city center and visited the park where they keep the city mascots bears. Bern is a very nice city. Not a lot of real touristy things to do in the city but a very nice old city that has bee http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Switzerland/North-West/Berne/blog-292912.html June 20 21 2008BLACK FOREST REGION GermanyThe drive from Dijon France to BadenBaden Germany is a few hours of more varied scenery as you travel from farmland into a more rolling hills and forested area.We were pleasantly surprised with BadenBaden. This is a very nice very clean small city with a very tourist friendly city center with limited vehicle traffic and lots of good restaurants. http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Baden-W-rttemberg/Baden-Baden/blog-291317.html