Haro is considered by some sources to be the wine capital of the Rioja wine area so I pick this as our next stop and a place for a day of wine tasting. I hadn't realised, but Haro is also famous for having a wine "battle" where everyone drenches themselves in wine. We've just missed this by only a week. The Rioja is also a longish drive from Barcelona so we have full day in the car heading westwards up the Ebro valley. Driving in Spain is relatively easy as most of the roads are good and surprisingly quiet. I picked up the tip of traveling mainly on “A” roads signed as AutoVia which are free and almost as good as the toll motorways. We are used to Australian style wine tasting and we know that ... read more

In Andorra we find we have no mobile phone coverage, which is unexpected for a country in the middle of Europe, but Andorra isn't in the EU and things are a little different here. My Australian Sim does not work at all and my British Sim works but has outrageous charges. Given the size of the country, neither mobile company it seems has cared to setup a full roaming agreeing with Andorra Telecom. For us it makes little difference as we have wifi in the apartment, but is a good reminder to check the small print and be careful. Stories of $1000 roaming bills are a thing of the past but Andorra T sucked up a few pounds of credit I had on my UK sim card before I realised I wasn't using my normal roaming ... read more

After the paragliding trip, we decided to make our next stop in the southern French Alps at Serre Chevalier. We chose this place as J had spent a ski season here and was keen to see the place again. It is also a convenient 3 hour drive from Annecy over another of the famous TdF cols – the col Galibier (2642m) so a very serious pass. Serre Chevalier still has an early season feel to it (ie most things are still shut until the 1st week of July), but there is enough open to make the stay enjoyable. We have rented a great value, but small, ski apartment in Villeneuve which is fine for us but would be a squeeze for 4 which is what it is meant to take. Serre Chevalier feels like a cycling ... read more

It is a little strange being back in Europe and blogging my travels, but whilst covid remains a risk the reality is that some destinations are still not yet feasible for travel. This morning we caught Le Shuttle from Folkestone so perhaps this entry should have been titled "under the channel". But at least we have made it to France without any problems a pleasant change from the past couple of weeks after I tested positive to Covid just after the Queen’s Jubilee long weekend. We decided to isolate instead of visiting friends in the south of England and it has worked out well, spending a few days on the south coast seeing places neither of us really knew and discovering that HG Wells had lived in Folkestone. Remarkably J never tested positive so perhaps she ... read more

Bahir Dar effectively completes our short circuit of northern Ethiopia. From here it's a direct, but full day by bus back to Addis Ababa. The city is a regional capital so is a sizeable place with a few decent sights so is a fine place to stay for a night or two. The main attraction here is Lake Tana, one of the largest lakes in Africa and the source of the Blue Nile, though the lake is certainly not blue but a disappointing dull muddy colour. On the lake there are quite a few islands some of which have historic monasteries. These are some of the oldest and most important in the country and are known for their impressive murals. As we can't visit all of the monasteries - they are well spread out - we ... read more

We made it to Gondar – the Camelot of Ethiopia. The trip here wasn’t too bad but ended up being 4 step journey and as expected a long day as buses leave at 5am! It turned out to be a easier than I expected as we didn’t have much waiting time and once we reached Gashena about 2 hours south of Lalibela, the roads were excellent (the road is called the Chinese road – built quite recently by guess who). The only annoying part of the trip was that our bus does not take us all the way into Gondar but drops us about 10km outside meaning we need to take a local bus into the town. The town here is something of a revelation after Lalibela. We are staying in what could loosely be described ... read more