Our walk today began in the small town of San Martino sul Fiora, about half an hour’s drive from the previous night’s acommodation. We had just enjoyed one of the best breakfasts of the trip so far – fresh melon, muesli and yoghurt followed by the most vivid orange eggs I have ever seen. The taste reassured me that it was due to the quality of their feed rather than some chemical additive.
Continue reading Saturnia
Author: John Potter
Sovana
Our route for the day started by heading out of Pitigliano down the now familiar Via Cave di Poggio Cane, but when we reached the highway we turned in a new direction and followed a couple of roads until we reached the beginning of the Via Cave di San Guiseppe.
Continue reading Sovana
Pitigliano
Today’s walk was mercifully quite short, as we are spending a second night in Pitigliano. The town has a population of about 4000 people, and although it was once another Etruscan settlement its name dates back to Roman times.
Continue reading Pitigliano
Vitozza
Vitozza was one of the largest cave settlements in central Italy, and has over 200 dwellings excavated from the volcanic tuff stone. It was inhabited from Etruscan times (around 800 BC) until the end of the 18th century.
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Sorano
We were dropped off at the end of a small country road near San Valentino in the early afternoon, so we only walked a kilometer or so before stopping under a shady oak tree to eat lunch. Soon after we set off again, the road petered out into a grassy track and eventually we came to a sign advising us that we were at the beginning of the Via Cava di San Carlo. Continue reading Sorano
Orvieto
Our instructions for getting from Orvieto train station to our accommodation were to take a taxi, because the town is over a hundred meters up on top of a steep cliff. When we asked a taxi driver to take us however, he told us that the road was closed for the day because of a “celebrazione”. Fortunately, there is a funicular railway as an alternative. Continue reading Orvieto
Warsaw
The capital of Poland is a very different scale to any of the other cities in the country, all of which are under a million people. The population of “Varsharva”, as the locals pronounce it, is over 3 million. This makes it the 8th biggest city in the European Union, and it has one of the highest numbers of sky-scrapers.
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Lodz
As Felicity’s mother’s family lived in a town just outside Lodz before they emigrated to the UK around the turn of the 20th century, we decided to see what we could learn about the place while we are visiting Poland. Lodz (pronounced Woodge) is the country’s third largest city, with a population of around 700,000.
Continue reading Lodz
Auschwitz-Birkenau and Wieliczka Salt Mine
For our last full day in Krakow, we booked a tour of the nearby Nazi death camp followed by a trip down a salt mine. I can now appreciate why the government here recently passed a law which forbids these camps being referred to as Polish. Continue reading Auschwitz-Birkenau and Wieliczka Salt Mine
Krakow Old Town
We enjoyed our walking tour of the Jewish Quarter so much that we decided to do another walk around the old town with the same company. This time our guide was named Dimitri, and he was a student of linguistics, working part time to help pay for his studies.
Continue reading Krakow Old Town
Biking around Krakow
I’ve spent the last couple of days exploring the area around Krakow on a hired mountain-bike while Felicity has been at the WONCA conference. Many Poles ride bikes, and there are bike trails all over the place.
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Kazimierz – Krakow’s Jewish Quarter
On our first day in Krakow we set off from our apartment at Stradomska 5 (marked on the map below), and walked into the old town which is very close. The surrounding green park is just outside the city wall. When we arrived at Rynek Glowny (the main market square), the first thing we spotted was a group of tourists about to depart on a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter, so we decided to tag along. Continue reading Kazimierz – Krakow’s Jewish Quarter
Tuesday in Tokyo
On our way to Europe for a couple of months, we stopped for a couple of nights in Tokyo to break the trip. We were very lucky to have a fine sunny day, which we spent walking through some of the city’s parks.
Continue reading Tuesday in Tokyo
Kawhia Harbour South Coast Kayak
For what is probably our last kayaking trip for the summer, we decided to take advantage of relatively windless conditions and make another attempt to explore Kawhia Harbour. Last time we were here the waves were just too big for us to feel safe, but today the conditions were perfect. Continue reading Kawhia Harbour South Coast Kayak
Akaroa Harbour
Akaroa is a famous French settlement on a harbour at the southern side of Banks Peninsular near Christchurch. We parked for the night at the boat ramp, planning to go for a paddle first thing in the morning. Continue reading Akaroa Harbour
Pinders Pond and Waihao Box
Because I wanted to visit my aunt in Alexandra we decided to stay for the night at a place just south of Roxburgh called Pinders Pond. To our astonishment there were already two Explorer Navigator motorhomes parked there side-by-side so we joined them. Continue reading Pinders Pond and Waihao Box
Horseshoe Bend
A few kilometers down the Clutha River from Millers Flat there is an old ghost town named Horseshoe Bend. At the height of the gold rush in 1863 it had a population of several hundred people. Today there are only a few signboards to mark its existance. Continue reading Horseshoe Bend
Lake Manapouri
There is no freedom camping around Manapouri, so we parked for the night at a motorcamp in town. I spent the late afternoon catching up on some work while we had good internet. Continue reading Lake Manapouri
Lake Monowai
Lake Monowai provided us with perfect kayaking conditions today – flat, glassy water with beautiful views of the Fiordland mountains. It was created to supply one of the South Islands first hydro-electric power stations in 1925. Continue reading Lake Monowai
Borland Road and Mt Burns
In between the town of Monowai and the South Arm of Lake Manapouri is a 45 km 4WD road across the Hunter Mountains that was built in the late 1960s to install power pylons connecting the Manapouri Power Station to the National Grid. At the far end is a campsite from which we hoped to launch our kayaks. Continue reading Borland Road and Mt Burns