Michael and Barbara
Leaving Australia for 8 months discovering the worldvicarious travelling
Travel Blog Posts
Catastrophic Announcement!!!
Published: June 17th 2008North America » United States » Tennessee » Knoxville
June 16th 2008
Just a quick note to let everyone know that there will be some extensive delays in uploading blogs for a little while. In a matter of two days: Our laptop has broken. The hard drive has fallen to pieces - it actually rattles when you shake it and makes grunting sounds when youm try to turn it on. So we're trying to have it fixed and trying to recover all the data, photos, etc. Michael's luggage went missing in Washington DC Dullas Airport. He actually saw it on the truck outside the aircraft and saw the truck drive away and the bag didn't get on the plane. Now the airline don't seem to know where it is but assure us they are looking for it. We are waiting to see what tomorrow brings! Time for beer! ... read more
May 26th 2008
Friday 23 May 2008 Our 9pm train from Zagreb arrived in Salzberg with plenty of time to find our connecting train and make use of a convenient pit stop - despite the disgruntled caretaker. At around 4am we boarded our connecting train to Prague and settled in expecting to sleep through til late in the morning and be ready for a big day of sightseeing in beautiful Prague. Of course, it wasn't to happen that way. At around 6am we were woken from our sleep only a couple of hours later by a guard telling everyone to get off the train. Very confused, we followed instructions and found that we had just crossed over into the Czech Republic - Yay we were in the right country at least - and there was trackwork! As Sydneysiders we ... read more
May 22nd 2008
Thursday 22 May 2008 It was a restless night on the bus from Korcula to Zagreb. frequently through the night we would hear the bus driver's panicked call "passport check! passport check!" Each time we quickly pulled out our passports only to be passed by so that the police could check the id of the non-tourists. It wasn't until afterwards that we realised why. Thanks to yet another dodgy Lonely Planet map, we didn't even know that we'd passed through Bosnia along the highway! We had changed countries and didn't even know! The driver also had stopped the bus late at night for a dinner, beer, coffee and football stop at a roadside eatery high on the cliffs overlooking the Adriatic coast. Michael joined the boys inside for Karlovacko and football while Barbara stretched her legs ... read more
May 21st 2008
Wednesday 21 May 2008 When we arrived in Korcula Town we stored our bags at the bus station office which involved chaining them to a drain pipe in the corner of the ticket office. We set off through the old town centre. It's quite small and you could walk through every street in less than half an hour. But it was was attractive and there were so many interesting things to see that we spent half the day wandering. First stop was the Gradski Muzej Korcula which is the town museum and is located in a small stone house. It was very interesting, especially the old chart of land laws on the wall that stated that land must not be subdivided and must stay in the hands of descendants of original inhabitants of the town. Punishment ... read more
May 20th 2008
Thursday 15 May 2008 Despite sleeping on the floor, we had a very restful night. The weather was quite warm, the carpet was soft and the Mediterranean Sea was flat. We awoke to a beautiful sunrise over the port of Dubrovnik where we had to leave the boat for Croatian Immigration. Once through, we were approached by a crowd of private accommodation providers. They were very polite but we had to decline because we were getting back on the boat to continue on north to Korcula. We sat on the port for about an hour admiring the view and the crystal clear water. Back on the boat, we continued for another 3 hours to the island of Korcula. Korcula is one of the largest of 1100 islands off the coast of Croatia. Once at the dock ... read more
May 14th 2008
Monday 12 May 2008 We arrived early in the morning, found our way through the Roman metro system and to Roma Termini Station, where - surprisingly - the train to Rome doesn't go. Our Hotel Center was supposed to be right by the station, but ended up being about a 20 minute walk along the railway line. We also worked out there were many hotels along that street with the same name - four in fact. And of course, ours was the furthest but thankfully not the dingiest. Even though check-in wasn't until the afternoon at it was only 7:30am the staff were helpful and offered us breakfast while we waited for a room to be prepared. The hotel was a little shabby, but clean. We checked in then had a shower and a nap. Rested, ... read more
May 12th 2008
Saturday 10 May 2008 We arrived at Charleroi Airport and quickly found the RyanAir check-in counter - it was the one with the longest queue! When we finally got to the front of the line we found that each of us had about 16.5kg of check-in luggage. Luckily we had prepared for this scenario. We had packed at easy access anything in our packs that we we not willing to pay 8 Euros per kilo to keep - half full bottles of shampoo, spare shower wash, spare old rain jacket not needed in European summer, mini umbrella, tattered bed roll, etc. All of it went. The desk attendant was very impressed that we were so organised and polite to let other customers go ahead while we purged our baggage. She let us through when we were ... read more
May 10th 2008
Thursday 8 May 2008 It was great to be back with Valerie in Genval. We had only spent a short time with them a couple of weeks prior and so we were very excited to return. While the kids were at school, Valerie took us to another of her favourite places - which very quickly became one of ours too - the Folon Foundation Museum. Wow! Jean-Michel Folon was a local artist who mostly specialised in watercolors but has also dabbled in sculpture and other media. His works are very deeply meaningful and often quite moving and have been used for ad campaigns by Unicef and Amnesty. One of our favourites was the planetarium with a man spinning on a ladder - we sat there for ages just watching him. Then we went to collect the ... read more
May 8th 2008
Sunday 4 May 2008 After a not-so-early start - due to some mild hangovers - we checked out of the Sheraton Four Points in Brussels and caught the train back south, this time to the French university town of Louvain-la-Neuve. There we were greeted at the railway station by the very charismatic Jacques, Michael's family friend from his old Belgium days. Jacques took us back to their ultra funky apartment where the lovely Nicole was waiting for us. Once we had settled in and briefly caught up, we were taken on a small tour of Louvain-la-Neuve which is an innovative purpose-built French university town - cars underground, people and bicycles only above ground - very clever! Our tour took us to a lovely parkland at the edge of the city, the lake of which was breeding ... read more
May 4th 2008
Friday 2nd May 2008 We arrived on the bus from Amsterdam and followed the directions to the Sheraton at the south of Brussels where we were to stay for the duration of Alex & Damien's wedding. We had a little bit of trouble finding it because we didn't spot the big FOUR POINT THIS WAY sign on the other side of the road - Michael asked inside the Michael Collins pub instead. Wow - LUXURY! The rooms were gorgeous. The king size bed was so big you couldn't touch both sides with arms outstretched. Beautiful marble bathrooms - with strange red heat lamps. It was already mid afternoon, the wedding was the next day, and we still looked like daggy backpackers. So we rushed out to make appointments with hairdressers. We managed to do this successfully ... read more
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