Blogs from Europe

One of the most striking scenes one comes across in the Icelandic countryside, apart from the volcanic terrain and beautiful rock formations is the lack of vegetation especially trees. So it is quite difficult for large animals to survive in the windy stormy exposed landscape. And that is why the Iceland horse looks more like a pony. Most of the original population was wiped out by the volcanic eruptions of 1780 but the population was restored by breeding about a hundred years ago. The animals looked very peaceful feeding off snow covered tufts of grass, mostly huddling together for warmth. One of our cherished souvenirs is a hand crafted wooden horse.... read more

Hola! Despues de siete semanas de clases espanol, yo queria escribir un blog final en espanol. (For everyone else, I've written it again in English later on) Hace dos semanas, Maria y yo fuimos a un pueblo en la playa. El pueblo se llama Nerja, y es muy bonito y tranquilo. Nosotros tuvimos un apartamento a diez metros de la playa. Tenia una piscina en el tejado, y desde el tejado nosotros vimos todo el pueblo. El fin de semana pasado, fuimos a Los Barrios (la ciudad de Maria) para la feria. Algunas cosas eran iguales que en una feria de estados unidos, pero muchas cosas eran diferentes. Durantes tres dias, yo comi y bebi con la familia y los amigos de Maria. Nosotros tomamos todos los tipos de carnes, diferentes pescados y mariscos, y mucho ... read more

We set off from Tim & Jan's house around 9am after a splendid breakfast. It was a grey day when we left but about an hour later the sun came out which was very nice, the first real sunshine we had seen since entering France. At this stage we were crossing the River Loire in Nantes, but an hour later it started to spit with rain. The weather gradually deteriorated to the point we were driving in low cloud across vast, featurless plains, it seemed. Bob drove the first leg to the other side of Nantes where we stopped for a cup of tea in the smallest service station we had so far seen. Neal then took over the driving and was keen to see what it was like to do 200kmh but Bob soon talked ... read more

We headed out this morning, in a rainstorm, hoping the roads weren't flooded as it had really poured all night...Lynn drove until Bill's stress level was more than evident, and she turned the wheel over to him.... At that point, we didn't realize we'd be lunching on fish and chips in an English seaside town..... We stopped in Cartagena, to visit the amazing Roman Amphitheater Museum there....the ruins of the the theater (built at the end of the first century BC) weren't rediscovered until 1990! The Muslims had started to built over it, followed by the Christians, right up to the Civil War, when the area was heavily bombed. After leaving Cartegena, we drove up the coast to Benidorm, the template for all over-the-top seaside resorts. Knowing this still did not prepare us for the sheer ... read more

I have read several articles recently about geo caching, so after a bit of research on google, Ineke and I decided to take Caroline on our first geo caching expedition. So armed with maps - but sadly no GPS phone - and 4 trusty blood hounds, we set off from Guilsfield, a village nearby. We had a lovely walk through woods and countryside, with the added excitement of looking for treasure. Ineke had worked out a route with 5 caches, though two were so well hidden that we never saw them. BUT we found three, and had a nice picnic in the sun as well.... read more