Hello my fellow travellers! For my 50th visited country I had planned something special for myself, Japan. I've been fascinated by Japan ever since I was a young boy and watched the television series Shogun, based on the book by James Clavell. The book is a fictionalised depiction based on the true life of William Adams, an English sailor who got stranded in Japan in 1600 and came into the service of Tokugawa. In the book and television series their names are changed to Blackthorne and Toranaga and are played by Richard Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune, my favourite actor. Before my flight though I went to stay my friend Marcus, living in Malmö. I often stay with him before my flights since it's only 20 minutes from his apartment to Copenhagen Airport. We've also been on ... read more

Hello my fellow travellers! This morning Peppe brought me to a kiosk where I could pick up a couple of tickets for the bus going between Morciano di Romagna and Rimini. It was cheaper to by them there and to buy more at the same time. Peppe helped me last night to check the timetable for both the bus to Rimini and then the bus to San Marino as well as the return bus from there. We will meet up tonight to go and eat an evening meal together to celebrate my last evening in Italy. The bus was nice and comfortable and I was dropped off at the combined bus and train station in Rimini and here it was very easy to pick up tickets to San Marino and I also got a tourist map ... read more

Hello my fellow travellers! After a night of unfortunately somewhat poor sleep (due to the heavy traffic) I headed out into Bologna again. I left my bags at Giorgio since he was be working from home today so I could return and pick them up before I went to the train station. My first target for today was the Church of Saint Mary of Life to see these terracotta statues that Giorgio mentioned. On the way though I decided to finally visit the Basilica of Saint Francis, it's been closed for me twice now, third time is the charm! And indeed it was, I finally got to visit it and I enjoyed it (not as grand as the other basilicas but still nice enough). I then made my way over to the Church of Saint Mary ... read more

Hello my fellow travellers! This morning, after a really good and healthy sleep, me and Andreas said our goodbyes to Sebastien for his short but very kind and generous hospitality. I wish we had more time here with him, it was a genuine pleasure talking with him over a few beers last night. Following his tip from yesterday we made our way over towards the East Gallery. We jumped off a couple of stations early though as I spotted a church that looked interesting. It turned out to be closed and actually looked kind of abandoned, but I guess that is a logical effect of the spreading secularism in this part of the world. It all has positives and negatives as so much else has. The church was named the Emmaus Church and at least from ... read more

Hello my fellow travellers! Well, I can't exactly claim to have been in tip top shape today, seeing as how I didn't sleep at all tonight. Between people slamming doors, talking loudly, having sex and Andreas snoring like a dinosaur with severe asthma I didn't manage to fall asleep. I did my best to keep up but I sure was tired today, I still feel like we managed to cover a lot of ground today though. Our day started with a speedy breakfast together with our host Tim. He was going to a job interview though so he really just rushed down a few sandwiches and then he was off after providing us with a key. Since we had a key now we decided to take it a bit calmer and laid out a preliminary itinerary ... read more