We are currently on a bus from Skopje, Macedonia to Lake Ohrid. Let’s recap our 4 days in Kosovo. We took a mini bus from Vila Dini to Peja, Kosovo. Our first stop was Visoki Dečani monastery. A Serbian Orthodox monastery since 1327, as with other Serbian monasteries and communities in the country, it is heavily under guard by the KFOR (NATO-led Kosovo Force) another legacy of decades of tension and violence between the Serbs and ethnic Albanian community of Kosovo. This white-washed monastery is set amidst a large lush green lawn, and Orthodox frescoes decorated the walls of the church which was surprisingly in good condition after all these years. 25 monks live here in isolation and produce wine, cheese and honey. Some of us bought some for our trip! After the Monastery it was ... read more

We have well and truly left Belgium and are in Tirana, Albania travelling now north of the country to Shkoder. But before I go in depth about our Albanian adventure lets go back to our last 2 days in Belgium – Brussels! We arrived in the predominantly French-speaking capital in the afternoon. Our very lovely hotel was very close to the central station and a stone’s throw from the Grand-Place, a big square with lovely Baroque style building surrounding it (I believe they may date from the 19th century). We just for a walk around they day and popped into the Smurfs (des Stroumphes in Dutch) store at the figurine museum to buy a papa Smurfs toy for Shaabi (our Maltese-Shihtsu dog and yes we spoilt him). For dinner we walked around and got hassled in ... read more

We are currently on the train from Ghent, Belgium to Brugges which will be a short half hour trip. The last 2 days in Ghent have been alright – a big adjustment from the laid back Mediterranean lifestyle we had become accustomed to! After about 7 hours of travel (train, train, bus, plane) we arrived in Brussels. It was pleasant to see small dogs in the airport! Then we discovered there is a dog show in Brussels this weekend! We took a train to Ghent which was our home for the next 2 nights. It certainly is……different. The buildings and old city itself is certainly Northern European – dark brick buildings and tall imposing dark cathedrals/churches. The biggest difference you can see are the people around you. Northern Europeans can be……larger than their Mediterranean counterparts. However, ... read more

We’re on the bus after a marathon of a walk to get to Granada train station (lots of construction going on so we had to walk miles out of the way and around to get to the train station). So be because of that we are busing it to Antequerra to hop on a AVE train to Cordoba. Let’s recap the last 3 days in Granada. Ah, Granada. The jewel in the crown that is Andalucía or Al-Andalus. We arrived to a really nice new hotel and immediately went to get our Granada card from the tourist office. The Alhambra, palace of the Moors, is notoriously known for selling out well in advance (only 6600 tickets a day) and as we knew from our last trip, the only way to avoid lining up at 6am to ... read more

Today we say Adios to Sevilla and in a short while will say ‘Hola’ to Malaga! Our last 2 days in Seville were amazing!! The evening we arrived was pretty much a write off as jet lag caught up to us and we had a short snooze which took us into the Spanish dinner hour (usually around 10pm). A short distance from our hotel is Espacio Metropol Parasol – a giant sculpture encasing the square full of shops and restaurants where we had our first tapas dinner. The next day after we had some breakfast we decided to take one of the free city tours. An excellent way to get to know the city, the free tour in Sevilla took 3 hours and as part of being a free tour the company upsells on their other ... read more