Brussels February 2007

Another catch-up post.

No doubting I'm a romantic, well I try at least, it doesn't always work out.

Valentines Day 2007 I made Jackie home made pizza and we had a picnic in our flat. I had bought Jackie tickets on the Eurostar to Brussels but a weekend trip. Just 2 nights. I had toyed with the idea of Paris but I thought we'd want to save that for a longer trip. In hindsight I wish we did go to Paris because it ended up being a long time before we got to Paris and we loved it when we got there. Brussels on the other hand was probably one of our least favourite trips, not bad, just average.

The Eurostar was great. This was when the Eurostar still left from Waterloo, which was pretty close to home. Getting a train to Europe was a novelty which didn't wear off.

From Brussels station we found our hotel which turned out to be in a relatively uninspiring part of the city. The room was fine and the breakfast was buffet so we were pretty happy.

It was still winter, so pretty cold and grey. We walked around town taking in the sights. Impressive old arcitecture, churches, the massive Palais du Justice (which was closed up, under renovations).

We did manage to get our first taste of Belgium beer, in Belgium, that was a bit of a highlight.

I went for the traditional mulles at dinner.

The shopping precincts were impressive.

One of my favourite stories of the trip (and of our marriage actually) is Jackie telling me how she had learned French at school and would be able to dust off her language skills. I was looking forward to this. English was pretty prevalent in Belgium but the locals switched between any number of languages.

Anyway, we get to this impressive sweets shop (pic below), Jackie is a sucker for treats so we go an get our pick 'n' mix, Jackie's going to have a go at doing the transaction in French. I waited in anticipation. Jackie approached the counter, the staff member took one look and asked "English?" Jackie looked confused. Staff tried again "Francais?", Jackie's stumbled response "Um, uh, YES!".

Parlez-vous Francais?
Yes!

Not, Notre Dame 

Very impressive, indoor shopping

Palais du Justice

Anyway, we walked around, soaked up the sights and the atmosphere. Had a nice dinner.

Buffet breakfast and back home on the train.

While it wasn't the most memorable trip, it was easy and we'd learned that we had some work to do on our language skills.

Turkey April 2007

Another way back post. This one is from a trip to Turkey over 13 years ago. Incredible really to think this was that long ago. It would be a lie to say I remember it like yesterday, 13 years is pretty much a third of my life. So I'll do my best to get this accurate but will be relying on the pics to jog my memory.

The background to this trip was that a group of friends had decided to do the Gallipoli pilgrimage. We signed up with a tour group which is pretty much the only way you could do Gallipoli.

I carried the luggage. This is in Balham, SW London, there was a long way to go and my smile was already looking a bit forced.

We flew in to Istanbul and had a couple of nights there. We arrived late, I vaguely recall some sense of unease arriving in to an airport in a country which was very different to our own. 

We caught a taxi to our accommodation, it was quite a drive, the roads we're pretty empty and our driver seemed determined to make the trip in record time, it was a little scary. 

We joined our tour group the next day and the sightseeing began. Our tour guide Ufuk seemed pretty good. We saw some truly incredible sights, in hindsight we might have been too young, naive and hungover to fully appreciate the significance of what we were experiencing. 

First site below (not sure if this was actually the first one we saw) is Topkapi Palace. Some info on Topkapi from the web has jogged my memory on this one. Built in 1478, oldest surviving palace in the world. Great view of the Bosphorous. With a history of over 500 years in one of the most important cities in the world Topkapi has seen it all, let's just leave it there, if you crave more actual information, have a look at Wikipedia or something.

The amazing view. And you can also see the Bosphorus in the background. The Bosphorus is what separates Europe and Asia.

Some pretty stuff in the palace, this is the ceiling

In the 1400's people must have been taller because this ATM machine was way too high. Jackie's short but not that short.

Next site is Aya Sofia (Hagia Sophia) was originally a Greek Orthodox Cathedral but was then transformed in to an Ottoman Mosque. This in itself gives a hint to some of the fascinating history of Istanbul that I still don't understand. Aya Sofia was built in 547!!!!. It was the largest building in the world when it was built. It's now a museum so we were able to go inside and have a look around. 

This is a highly artistic and beautiful photo, in case you hadn't noticed. 

Us having a break from sightseeing with a cup of tea, Turkish mint tea was great.

This next set of images look similar but this is actually the Blue Mosque, a relatively recent addition to Istanbul, completed in 1616. This is still a functioning mosque but tourists are allowed inside.

In our various European travels we went in to many places of religious worship but this one was very foreign in some ways. Sheer size for a start, the manner of worship and the architecture. But in other ways it was there were similarities with many places of worship with a very solemn atmosphere.

After a pretty intense day of sightseeing we were treated to a cruise on the Bosphorus Sea which goes right through Istanbul splitting it between Europe and Asia. 

On the cruise there were plenty of sights and plenty of beer. 

A bridge joining Europe and Asia

That night we went and found a nice restaurant for dinner. There were impressive fish dishes, deboned at our table. There was also a lot of Raki, which probably wasn't a good idea. The next day wasn't easy.

We were on the bus for quite a long day, leaving Istanbul we crossed to the Asian side and went to Bursa to a carpet factory. There was some pressure to by carpets, and in hindsight we feel maybe we should have got one, but I think it wasn't cheap and we weren't flush with cash.

    

From Bursa we made our way to the Pergamon Accroplois. We hadn't been to Greece at this point so this was our first opportunity to see Greek ruins. It was impressive

This is looking down at an amphitheatre, it was steep and huge. 

Crowd gathering at the amphitheatre

After the Accropolis we made our way to Avyalik to stay the night and have dinner by the water fronts. We'd had another busy day, covered a lot of territory on the bus, with some very hungover backpackers, not just from our crew. I'm pretty sure we slept well the night but think we had an early start the next day.

Our view from dinner at Ayvalik, looking out towards Greece. 

The next day was the trek to Gallipoli. Back on the bus, and then to a ferry. Before we got on the ferry we had a short amount of time to stock up on food and there were recommendations to buy rubbish sacks to use for warmth if we didn't have suitable clothing and bedding.

On the ferry, some passengers didn't fare too well being on the sea, despite it being relatively calm.

We could start to see the mayhem we were heading towards with the number of buses filled with Kiwis and Aussies.

On to the Gallipoli peninsula it was busy. Our bus decided to give the museum a miss in favour of getting to ANZAC cove earlier. Probably a good decision. 

Once arriving at Gallipoli we had a bit of a walk to ANZAC cove where we would sleep under the stars for the night. 

After recent bad behaviour from visitors, thre was strict security and absolutely no alcohol allowed, I think our group was very happy with this rule.

There was already a lot of people set up but we found a good spot, marked out our territory and tried to get comfortable.  

Our crew

Sun setting

The ANZAC troops faced this when they arrived. 

Rugged up and ready to get some sleep

One of the memorials at ANZAC cove

A view from the beach where the troops landed. It was very moving standing in this spot thinking about what had unfolded in WW1

I guess this beach would have been filled with bodies.

Lone Pine, Aust memorial 

Lone Pine, Aust memorial 

Now it seems like a beautiful spot. 

Winnie representing NZ

Gravestones everywhere

Headstones say: "Believed to be buried in this cemetery..."

Lone Pine, the Australian Memorial

Chunuk Bair, NZ memo

Jackie nailing the "happy cowboy in a historic war trench where people died while holding an ice cream but hiding an the wrapper behind her back " look

The ANZAC memorial was incredibly moving, being there and hearing the stories,  able to visualise the terrain the troops were thrown in to and seeing how impossible the task ahead of them would be led to emotions of anger, sadness and pride. I don't think I'll ever understand the rationale for war and this really drove home how ridiculous war is.

The formalities included the dawn ceremony at ANZAC Cove as well as an Australian ceremony at Lone Pine and an NZ ceremony at Chunuk Bair. After this we were back on the bus, back to Istanbul. Turns our there's a short cut, it was much quicker to get back to Istanbul than it took to get to Gallipoli. 

We had another night there which included an awesome dinner in a private dining room which finished off with belly dancing for everyone. 

We also made sure to visit the Grand Bazaar, the massive shopping precinct which was enormous and a fascinating study in daily life of Istanbul.

One thing I haven't mentioned because I didn't have any photos was the food. Breakfasts were European/Mediterranean, olives, cucumber, tomato, bread, meat. Yum. 

Lunches on our travels usually ended up trialing the local dish, usually a particular type of kebab. I think there might have been a buffet situation along the way as well. All the food was very enjoyable. 

As with any group tour there were a couple of annoying people. On this trip it was a couple of young Aussie girls who clearly weren't cut out for a trip across Turkey. Being vegetarian wasn't too easy and they just hadn't really grown up enough to realise how to get along with a big group of people, which sometimes involved making sacrifices. 

I think this is roughly the route we took

And that was that. It was a pretty short trip but the sights and history we experienced was probably more significant than anything we saw on our travels. 

I think Istanbul is a place we'd love to visit again, 

Greece October 2010

One in our #catchup series, going back 10  years to our holiday to Greece. Given it's nearly a decade ago, my recollection of the details are very sketchy so this will mainly be a picture post.

This trip came after running the Berlin marathon. It was cold and wet in Berlin, which led to me having an annoying cough for most of the trip, but that didn't impact our enjoyment. 

We flew from Berlin to Athens. 

We had just 2 nights in Athens I think. 

First night a little bit of exploring with some glimpses of the sights we'd see the next day. 

Lots of famous old  ruins. They really were very impressive. There was some construction going on and pretty big crowds which had the potential to take some of the impact away but actually there were so many ruins and they were so huge it was possible to find space to relax and appreciate the history.

The roasted chestnut dude in the middle of this photo was great but this photo is mainly hilarious for the lady trying to skulk past.

A clear shot of the nut guy.

After our fleeting visit to Athens we caught a ferry to Sifnos. We did lots of research to decide which islands we should go to.

Everyone told us as 'had' to go to Santorini but we aren't so much keen for the well worn path and were keen for something quieter, more relaxed. We spent quite a bit of time reading a website that someone had created which had a wealth of information about Greece. I can't find the website now ... found it, https://www.greektravel.com/, it was a great resource. Among the recommendations was Sifnos which sounded like a nice place to visit, the author had this to say abotu Sifnos:

"If you are looking for that perfect Greek island with a balance of beautiful beaches, low-key nightlife, white Cycladic villages, low-impact tourism and maybe the best food in the Cyclades, then look no further than Sifnos, where I have been coming for over thirty years. Just three hours from Athens by High-speed or five hours by normal ferry, Sifnos is easy to get to and you may never want to leave."

So, first stop Sifnos.

this was our ferry

We stayed in Kamares, which was close to the ferry. Wasn't exactly white sand beaches but they were nice, water was warm and we had the beach pretty much to ourselves.

 

What a beautiful young couple

Can't remember all the places we ate but the shots below are from a restaurant which had local beer,which was good. They also had tabbouleh on the menu. We're a fan so we ordered the tabbouleh. The waitress came back after a while to let us know the tabbouleh would take a while to prepare, 15 minutes I think she said. We were in no hurry and the wait was worth it. It was the best tabbouleh we've ever had. 

At some point (can't remember if it was after dinner) we went to one of the bakeries to get some baklava. I think somehow we managed to order more than we planned and we went away with a heavy box of filled with honey drizzled pastry goodness. It kept us going for a couple of days and was so delicious. 

The quality of the food we had on Sifnos definitely was far above anything else we had in Greece. 

The thing to do in the Greek Islands is to rent quad bikes to explore. We were not so sure about that so we went for this little car to explore.

Yes, the car got us up this hill no problems.

Having lunch in Vathi, a little settlement on Sifnos.

Our table for lunch is on the beach. I'm pretty sure this restaurant has a website (seems not all of them do) https://www.sifnosstudios.gr/restaurant

Photos below are of Chrysopigi, according to www.greektravel.com Chrysopigi "is perhaps the most recognizable church on Sifnos and in a way symbolizes the island. It sits upon a peninsula that has actually split from the mainland, a miracle that is said to have occured when Sifniot women took refuge from Pirates there. The church, built on the ruins of an older church, was constructed in 1650. The Panagiri is held on Ascension day, 40 days after Easter, and it is said that the saint still performs miracles for the island."

Can't remember the name of this little village, we only saw it from this hill but it was one of the more picturesque sites.

Matching bag and door.

Viet from our apartment.

View as our ferry comes in to take us on to Santorini

Because everyone said we had to, we went to Santorini. There is no doubting the impressiveness of this island.

Here we stayed in a small hotal with a pool right out our door, which was great.

The iconic Agios Theodori, I'm pretty sure this is that one.

Santorini is a volcano, the town of Oia is at the top and you really do look straight down a long way to the ocean below. Probably not a place to go if you're scared of heights.

Lot's of steps, but still looking glamorous.

Sunset is a must, we got a good one but needed to work hard to not get crowded out.

These are the grapevines. They just leave them to grow on the ground, seems like a pretty simple way of growing grapes to me. Not far from here we saw some tourists who had a nasty crash on their quad bike. We've again gone for the 'safety' of a little car, although driving on the right hand side of the road meant we didn't always feel safe.

We had our last lunch at this beach on Santorini, worst calamari I've every eaten. It was a tourist trap.

Greece was one of our all time favourite holidays and we'd love to get back there to do some more exploring, spend more time at Sifnos and maybe some kayaking.

Map below of our route from Athens (top left), sopping in Sifnos (middle) and on to Santorini. We then caught a fast ferry back from Santorini to Athens. 

That'll do