Portugal - her story

Portugal was on my “destinations list” for a couple of years. Finally we managed to go there on holiday this year, 18-28 July.

Accomodation:
We stayed at Hotel Sana Rex, located near Park Eduardo VII and Marques de Pombal square – very conveniently situated.
I really liked this hotel, we had an amazing view from our balcony. The only downside was the breakfast – not very varied and 10 days of eating the same thing can be quite frustrating.

Transportation:
For getting around in Lisbon we mainly used the subway. A day-pass for subway, bus & tram costs 4.2 €, which is more convenient than paying 1.2 € for a one-way ticket.
Generally, taxis are a very convenient and cheap means of transportation, if you don’t want to buy a daily pass. For example, the trip to / from the airport was cheaper by taxi (6 €) than by bus (3.5 € / person). It should not cost more than 10 € to go between anywhere within the city and the center (Baixa).
Lisbon is famous for its wooden trams, but my recommendation is: on a hot summer day, only get inside one that was ALL its windows open! Otherwise, you’ll experience a sauna effect like never before!
When we rented the car, we were unpleasantly surprised of how expensive the highway toll was... nearly 20 € for 250 – 300 km !

Lisbon:
On the first day, we walked on the bank of river Tagus, from the Monument of Discoveries ( Padrao dos Descobrimentos) (also worth visiting at night) to the Belem Tower. Climbing up to the tower was quite a task for us – the staircase was incredibly narrow and steep and it was virtually impossible for people to pass through from both ways. Of course, there were some tourists who couldn’t accept this idea and insisted to squeeze their way... It was worth it though, for the views and the nice platform on top of the tower.



Across the street from the Tower is the Modern Art Museum. We’re not big fans of museums, nonetheless modern art, but this center in particular had a lovely garden and refreshing water mist sprinkling from the ground – a good reason to spend some time there :)




Up the street, we stopped at the Jeronimos Monastery - the resting place of Vasco da Gama. I liked the cloisters in particular, maybe because I’m not crazy about interiors... This doesn’t mean the monastery itself wasn’t an impressive piece of Manueline architecture.

On the second day we climbed up to St George Castle. It’s construction started in the 6th century and most of it was destroyed over the years, but it still includes a long extension of walls and 18 towers. And climbing 18 towers can be energy draining, especially on a hot summer day :) Walking along the ramparts is nice because of the panoramic views of the city. Actually, most places in Lisbon are all about panoramic views, so I wouldn’t bother climbing every single tower / hill / elevator – for sure you’ll get to see everything in the end, from one place or another.

We spent the afternoon in the new part of the city - Expo Park (Parque de Nacoes). There’s a big contrast between this part and the old town, between the modern glass buildings here and the old houses covered with tiles in Alfama. What we enjoyed best here was the “water pavilion”, with its water volcanoes and the water wall, but it was also nice to stroll down the promenade by the river and soak in the view. The Vasco da Gama shopping mall is also located here, so for those who are interested in a bit of shopping it might be a good opportunity to check it out.

Our third day in Lisbon was all about walking down the small streets in the old town, admiring the colored buildings, the trams, the nice little restaurants on the sidewalk. We took the bus up to the castle, and then strolled down the hill through the streets of Alfama, with a nice break at Miraduoro de Santa Luzia and at Rua Augusta.

In the evening we went back to Alfama – the area is known for its fado restaurants. We had a reservation at one of the restaurants, but didn’t like it too much, so we moved to another one nearby. What’s funny in this area is that, because the restaurants are so close to each other and each one has live fado music, it’s difficult to hear JUST one song... so the entire street is one big un-synchronized fado concert :)

Last day was reserved for going to the beach. We took the train to Cascais. I had heard of a nice beach to watch the sunset – Guincho Beach. We took the bus there, but eventually stopped at Cresmina Beach, just before Guincho, because it had sun-umbrellas. The beach itself was beautiful – not very big, not at all crowded, a small sandy beach enclosed by rocky cliffs... It was a surfers’ beach, meaning it was very windy and with huge waves. The wind was a bit of a problem for us, because it only took about 2 minutes for the towels to get completely covered with sand; it was difficult to even keep your eyes and mouth open :) Not to mention that applying sun-cream was a deadly trap – in 30” your skin became a sandy armor! The only escape from the blistering sand was to keep standing, so we spent most of the day strolling on the beach and exercising gymnastics :P
After the beach we headed back to Cascais and stopped at Boca do Inferno - located on a cliffy seashore where the seawater has access to the deep bottom of the chasm and vigorously strikes the rocky walls.

By car:
We rented a car for 3 days – a Fiat Grande Punto which barely dragged itself when we needed to climb a hill.
On the first day we went to Algarve, because I had booked a ticket for a dolphin interaction program at Zoomarine. The park itself is quite disappointing in terms of fun, but I spent some of the best moments of my life there :) Swimming with dolphins was one of my greatest wishes (on my personal “to-do” list) and actually doing it was even better than I had imagined. Nevertheless, I decided I’ll never do this again with captive dolphins (no matter how well treated they are), and I hope I’ll get the chance to repeat the experience with free dolphins...
On the second day we drove to Porto. We all had high hopes about Porto but unfortunately the weather was soooo bad that we barely got out of the car. By the time we got to Porto, the wind and the rain were so heavy that they had caused a massive traffic jam, stopping us from even getting into the city. So we had to stop for lunch and a coffee in a mall outside of Porto, waiting for the weather to get better. After about 2 hours (with full bellies and with new warm clothes) we ventured into Porto, but it was already late and we couldn’t do anything else but drive around for 20 minutes then head back to Lisbon.

The third “car-day” was destined for Sintra and Cabo da Roca.
We all thought Sintra is a small town with not much to do...but in fact, it’s quite big! Located in a mountain area, it has a castle/palace on almost each peak/hill. We realized that it would be impossible to visit everything we wanted, because the walking time between the castles was very big (1.5 – 2 hours of hiking through the mountains for 4 couch-potatoes). So we chose to just go at the Pena Palace and the Castle of the Moors. The Pena Palace in particular is lovely – it looks like it’s made out of cardboard! The gardens of the palace are also worth checking out, especially the lake area.
In the evening we drove to Cabo da Roca to watch the sunset. Cabo da Roca is the most western point of continental Europe. This cape looks like it’s from an imaginary world – incredibly peaceful and beautiful – just the cliffs, the ocean and a lighthouse. It’s very romantic...



The evenings:
After all the day-time activities, we didn’t have much energy for night-life. Most of the evenings, we just went for a drink downtown. Finding a bar or a restaurant open after 12 am is a challenge, most of the places are open just until 11:30 pm...
We also tried out clubbing in Lisbon. The taxi drivers recommended Lux Club as being THE PLACE to be on a Saturday night. I still fail to understand what’s so cool about this club!! We arrived there pretty early, before midnight, so we avoided the entrance fee and the queue. The lounging area was deserted, except the bartenders, some misplaced tourists and us (of course!) there was nobody else. After about an hour or so, we asked around and found out that the club itself only opened at 3 am ... there was no way we would spend another 3 hours drinking their expensive cocktails, so, by the time the good people of Lisbon were dancing in Lux Club, we were sound asleep in our hotel rooms.

Food:
Of course, fish and seafood are available at any restaurant. This made me very happy and I didn’t eat anything else during these 10 days. One fish dish in particular was among our favourites: Bachalau a Braz - cod fish with scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. Prices for one dish vary between 8 and 13 € in the regular restaurants. As we understood, there are hundreds of cod dishes in Portugal, but I think not a day went by without a good bachalau a braz :) We also tried Bachalau a Noiva... Both of them were “finger licking good”!

Before we left, everybody told us that 10 days is more than enough and we’ll eventually get bored...Well, we didn’t! In fact, we would have needed at least 10 more days to do everything we wanted to do, and to have time to also relax a little bit. And to eat some more Bachalau a braz :)
* More photos here

London - his version

Yeah baby, London !! The city of the Queen, beefeaters, Big Ben, fish & chips, beer, pubs, beer, noisy people, beer and almost naked girls walking on the streets towards a queue of one of the many clubs.

We discovered the city with a low budget, but 5 days weren’t enough for all the sightseeing we were willing to have. Nevertheless, London is quite an expensive city and a lot of money went for entrances at different objectives.

We slept at Normandie Hotel, located on Sussex Garden Street, very close to Hyde Park and Paddington Station. For minimum 5 days, it’s really helpful to buy an Oyster Card (23 pounds) for one week for all the public transportation. One way ticket is 4 pounds!

To save money for all the entrances, look for London passes that offers you from one day till three days free entrance at every touristic objective, except Madame Tussauds and Westminster Abbey. Not to mention that with this card you have deductions at several nice restaurants, especially in Soho.

HOT

Tower of London
Not a really pleasant place if you start thinking at what happened inside those walls, but still. The White Tower, the Crown Jewels, Prisoners Exhibition and Henry VIII – Dressed to Kill room are definitely things to see inside the tower. At the entrance, you will be “welcomed” by ravens. Legend says that the kingdom and the Tower will fall if the six resident ravens ever leave the fortress.



Boat Cruise on the Thames River
You can embark from the Parliament, go to Greenwich and stand on the Meridian line like all the 9 million visitors. From the boat you can see many attractions of London, and decide which of them you want to visit or not. The cruise has an “audio guide crew member” that will repeat over and over that he is not paid to do this, so some gratitude from your side is welcome! We were short on money, but we were very grateful inside. After all, he is mentioned here…


Tower Bridge
Go inside and climb up with the elevator. You will have a fantastic panoramic view of the city. It’s a must see bridge at night also.

St Paul’s Cathedral
I’m not a big cathedrals fan to visit them during my holiday, but this one is really worth it. If your feet are strong enough at that moment of the day you visit the cathedral, you should climb up the stairs ( 500 ) to the Whispering Gallery and the Clock Tower.

Westminster Abbey
If you don’t know how a 700 years old chair looks like, that’s the place to go. Not to mention that it’s King Edward's Chair, the throne on which British sovereigns are seated at the moment of coronation. You shouldn’t miss inside the Abbey the Poets’ Corner, The Lady Chapel, the Little Cloister and The Nave.


National Geographic store on Regent Street
Great pictures, good café, photo albums and much much more.

Hyde Park
One of the largest parks in central London and one of the Royal Parks of London, famous for its Speakers' Corner, Diana Princess of Wales memorial ( an oval stone ring fountain ) and the Upside-down Tree. If you have a need to relax on the grass and drink a beer after a whole day of sightseeing, this is the place to go.


Camden Market
Open-air and indoor markets, each with its own distinctive flavor, line a street of shops, bars and restaurants. It was mentioned somewhere that "...the most interesting people in the world go to Camden Market, London; home of alternative fashion and design..."



Covent Garden
The only part of London licensed for street entertainment with performers having to undertake auditions for the Market's management and representatives of the performers' union and signing up to timetabled slots.
It’s place with a lot of pubs, open-air cafes, restaurants and a nice market. You will have fun there, especially if one of the performers will invite you to join his “act”! It happens …. Trust me!


House of Parliament / Big Ben
Better go there in the evening when the building and the clock to see them light up from the other side of the Thames River


Buckingham Palace
The most interesting thing to see, it’s not the changing of the guards, but the five guards of United Kingdom march towards the palace. The Grenadiers, Coldstream Guards, Scots Guards, Irish Guards and the Welsh Guards. In front of the palace, is St James’s Park ( famous for his hungry nuts squirrels )


Fabric
If you are into house music, Fabric is the club to go to. Three rooms, minimum 4 DJ’s in each room, sound coming from the ceiling, bass coming from the floor. Normal entrance fee is 16 pounds, but you can get an entrance from the “streets” with 10 pounds. You will gain a beer baby!

NOT

Madame Tussauds
Waiting at the queue, pay 25 pounds and see some wax figures … Don’t do it. For this amount of money you can go to Winsdor Castle and see the grave of Henry VIII. It’s definitely a regret we didn’t ménage to arrive to that beautiful castle situated at 30 miles from London.

Harrods
Huge store, mostly with Egyptian architecture. You will lose precious hours if you enter the store, and anyway you will exit empty handed.

Trafalgar Square
It’s a square … with a monument in the middle :) Not cool ...

Piccadilly Circus
Famous for his video commercials displayed on one of the buildings at the junction. You can use like a meeting point with your friends. You will find it very easy.

London Eye
17 pounds. What you get: a cabin with plenty of other tourists, may be a place at the window, half an hour for one complete rotation and of course a short period of time being at the top. Yey!


We didn’t realize yet were the british folks are employed in London – not in restaurants, driving buses, hotels, stores, etc.
London is an animated city with active people, many tourists and a lot of day & night attractions that can keep you awake for 24 hours. For sure, it's a city that shouldn't be missed!

Among all the cities i've seen so far, i place London as the 2nd most interesting city in Europe.

London - her experience

Before going to London, I think not a day went by without me checking the online weather reports to find out how the weather will be while we’re there. I even knew by heart the hour intervals when it was supposed to rain in each of the 6 days of our holiday (16-21 May). It was such a great surprise that we only had 2 hours of rain, and only one cloudy day.
Another thing I did before leaving was a list of places I wished to see…Here’s when I had another surprise in store for me: London is so big , interesting and exciting and there are so many things to do and see, that it’s impossible to do it all in 6 days…so we has to prioritize :)

Accomodation:
We stood at Hotel Normandie, very well located close to the city center and in walking distance from Hyde Park. The rooms were quite small, but all in all I would say in was a good price – quality ratio. Breakfast was included in the accommodation price, and I can honestly say that after 5 mornings of English breakfast (fried eggs, ham, sausage and beans), I no longer want to hear / smell/ taste eggs for the next 2 months.

What we visited:
First thing you have to do (preferably at the airport, upon you arrival) is to buy an Oyster Card – a public transportation card. We paid 30 ₤ for a one week Oyster card available in areas 1 and 2.
First of all, I have to mention that I found all the entrance fees to museums/churches etc HUGE… this was another good reason to prioritize J
We bought a one day “London Pass” for 36 ₤, which offered us free entrance to almost all the places of interest we wanted to visit (of course, at a lower price than what one would normally pay at the entrance), and discounts / special offers to restaurants, pubs, cinemas and theatres The trick here was that in order to make this purchase “worth-it” we had to visit enough places during that day…and here’s what we chose:

In the morning we took a boat cruise - very nice, especially since the boat crew took the time to explain the meaning / history / importance of every single building on both riversides all the way from London to Greenwich. Of course, at the end of the cruise they politely said good-buy with a bucket in their hands, making it very difficult to avoid showing how much you appreciated their comments and visiting tips.
Greenwich is such a quiet and peaceful place, it was a pity we only spent 2 hours there. It has a huge park climbing up to the Royal Observatory, with a nice view and dozens of people desperately trying to step on the Meridian line

St Paul’s Cathedral with its famous Dome - an iconic feature of the London skyline.
I was determined to climb up to the Whispering Gallery, but unfortunately by the time we got to the cathedral we were so tired that we decided to leave this 500 and something steps climb for our next trip to London.
It’s a good idea to plan your visit in order to listen to the choir singing, this could be a nice relaxing moment outside the city’s buzz.
Entrance fee: 12 ₤, estimated time needed: 2 hours

Tower Bridge
First we climbed up in the bridge to the walkways that offer fantastic views of many of London's most famous sights. The visit to the bridge was timed with a bridge lift - it is worth trying to see one from the base of the bridge (the schedule is available on the web site)
Entrance fee: 7 ₤, estimated time needed: 1 hour

Tower of London
I went to the Tower with high hopes to see all the torture instruments, which, to my disappointment, were only three J… and not bloody enough for my taste. But a visit to the Tower of London is worth it, to take a look at the Crown Jewels, the Medieval palace, the White Tower (which at the time we were there was home to a nice armories exhibition) and have a nice chat with the ravens (there was one “shouting” at us at closing time, probably telling us to get off his property).

My advice is to also take a walk on the riverside and around the Tower in the evening, it’s worth seeing it light up, and you’ll also get the chance to see the Tower Bridge at night – a sight you shouldn’t miss!
Entrance fee: 17 ₤, estimated time needed: 3 hours

After this full day, we had a nice dinner at Wagamama (Japanese restaurant that had special offers for London Pass holders)

That’s about all we were able to do in our London Pass day; and trust me, it was a race, no time to waste if you want to group all these things in only one day.

When the weather wasn’t very good, we went to Madame Tussauds. Except standing in line for every single photo you want to take with the wax figures, not the mention the ENORMOUS queue at the entrance, I would say Madame Tussauds is nice, but not “25 £ worth of nice”. If the weather is good, there are plenty of better things London has to offer.

Westminster Abbey, known to everybody for its coronations, royal weddings and funerals, is a masterpiece and one of the places I recommend visiting. As a joke, I would say the abbey is a beautiful graveyard with exquisite architecture – because 80% of the abbey consists of tombs, vaults, memorials, graves etc.
Entrance fee: 12 ₤, estimated time needed: 1.5 hours


Where to go / what to see:

Harrods, an almost 100,000 sqm department store, mostly decorated in Egyptian style, owned by Mohamed al Fayed is an interesting place to see. Of course it would take forever to visit all the shops and the 28 restaurants inside of it, but at least try to stroll through the perfume, chocolate, jewel and clothes departments. We ended up in a store selling designer dog collars - I didn’t even dare to look at the prices :)
Two interesting things about Harrods:
In 1898, Harrods installed the world's first moving staircase; nervous customers were offered brandy at the top to revive them after their 'ordeal
In September 2007, Harrods hired a live Egyptian cobra to protect the shoe counter, guarding a £62,000 (€84,880) pair of haute couture ruby, sapphire and diamond encrusted sandals launched by designer Rene Caovilla.

Oxford Street - Europe's bussiest and most dense shopping street - we strolled on Oxford and Regent street several times, as it was on the way from our hotel to Piccadilly Circus. Shopping was not on our to-do list in London (guess why :)), but for those looking for a bargain I would recommend Primark. My advice is to set a time-limit for your shopping spree at Primark, otherwise you risk spending countless hours inside and missing on better things you can do in London.

Hyde park – take at least a couple of hours to walk trough the park – it’s great! We were lucky to go there when all the trees were in blossom, I absolutely loved it. Try to walk by the Speakers' Corner the Tyburn gallows, the Rotten Row , the Crystal Palace, the Diana Princess of Wales memorial Fountain, London's Holocaust Memorial and "the upside-down tree". Or just take your time and sun-bathe in one of the comfortable chaise longues you’ll find in the park.
While you’re in Hyde Park, take the time to also see the Kensington Gardens and the Kensington Palace – they’re very close.

Buckingham Palace
The changing of the guards from a tourist’s point of view is like a fight for life.
First, you have to fight to wake up early, to get to the Palace early in order to get a good visibility-place. The changing takes place around 11:30 am, but the diligent tourists are in front of the Palace around 9 am :)
Then, you realize your good-visibility-place is useless, because you have to run from one side of the square to the other to see the guards coming to the Palace (and fight not to get kicked by other tourists running alongside with you).
Then, again resume your fight for the good-visibility-place; there’s a compromise here – if you had good visibility while chasing the guards, for sure you won’t get a good spot anymore, because they’ll all be taken :) That’s what happened to us!
Round 4: fight to at least take some good photos from behind the fence. The sight is quite scary: hundreds of arms holding tightly their cameras, squeezing through the fence pillars, and taking photos without being able to see what they capture, hoping to zoom on a guard and not on a bush :)
All in all, the changing of the guards’ ceremony would be nice if it wouldn’t be such a touristy chaos. And there’s no way of winning this fight when your opponents are big groups of Japanese tourists armed with cameras and ready to make any sacrifice for their photos.

In front of the Palace is St James’s Park, I’d recommend feeding the squirrels in the park instead of harassing the Queen’s guards :) The squirrels also might appreciate it more than the poor guards.

Soho Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to walk all the small streets in Soho, we stopped to Carnaby Street and had a good beer at O’Neills . Soho is a good place to go for some evening / night fun – lots of pubs, restaurants and clubs filled with fun-loving lousy brits :)

Camden Market : Like our London Pass guide book said: “Camden Market has to be seen to be believed” :) Camden was a touristic surprise, a unique place I wouldn’t have expected to find in London.
Basically, it’s a group of 6 markets selling everything from designer, alternative & vintage clothing and accessories to one-off pieces of art, furnishings, antiques, jewellery, records & CDs, collectables, arts & crafts and international food.

But the best thing about Camden Markets is the atmosphere there: it’s a complete contrast to the metropolitan feel of the central London shopping areas such as Oxford and Regent Street.

Walking through it feels like participating in a huge bohemian carnival.

It also features an impressive selection of restaurants, bars and cafes, as well as countless international food stalls, serving everything from Turkish pie to Thai curries, dim sum and authentic masala chai.
We spent half a day there, but I would have gladly stayed the whole day...

Trafalgar Square –
with Nelson’s Column at its centre , is also the place where the National Gallery is. We went by when the weather was quite cold and windy, so we didn’t enjoy this place that much.

Piccadilly Circus
It’s particularly known for its video display and neon signs mounted on the corner building on the northern side, as well as the Shaftesbury memorial fountain and statue of an archer popularly known as Eros. Except its notoriety and the fact that it is a famous road junction for some of the main streets in the city center, I didn’t find it particularly interesting.

Covent Garden: We went for a walk around Covent Garden in an evening, and I think this is the best time to go there because there are plenty of open-air cafés, restaurants, pubs, market stalls and shops. Probably the piazza is most famous for the many street performers who entertain the visitors. But be careful, their shows might become too interactive for your taste - as it happened to us when we ended up kissing at the orders of one of the performers, in front of around 100 people stareing at us (and when I crowd like that applauses you for a kiss, what can you do? – you MUST kiss :)

Houses of Parliament / Big Ben
They’re not open to the public, so all we could do is take a look from the outside. I liked them much more at night, when they were light up. On our last day, we even got the see the flag rise on the House of Parliament (which means the MPs are in session – as our guide on the boat said, it’s a very rare sight, so definitely worth taking a photo of :))

London Eye

(also known as the Millennium Wheel), at a height of 135 metres is the biggest Ferris wheel in Europe. We didn’t ride in it because we decided the view of the city we saw from the Tower Bridge was good enough.
Entrance fee: 17 ₤, estimated time needed: 1 hour

Overall, I think London is one of the places I would surely like to visit again in the future. Five days is not enough to soak in everything this city has to offer, and it's a pitty having to always be on the run. Yes, it's expensive but not as expensive as the myths say (the most over-priced are the entrance fees, but the food can be affordable if you don't go into the first glam restaurant on your path).

* More photos here

'Till next time!

Skiing in Italy Dec '08-Jan '09 - his version

This was our first ski trip outside Romania borders, and our expectations were very high due to this reason. We went in the Dolomites Alps in a resort called Colle Isarco ( Italy ), situated at about 20 km from Innsbruck.

The resort is quite small, having only 3 restaurants, no pubs or any kind of “party places”. In a few words, there is absolutely nothing to do in this at resort at night :) so if you want to go there, take with you some friends and a lot of booze to make your own “pub” at the hotel lobby! I will not write anything about the nightlife, the New Years Eve party or some other type of parties, because I usually don’t talk about things that never existed.

I didn't needed a 14 days treatment of no party ... It was worse than quitting smoking ( from what I've herd ).

We stayed at a nice & clean family pension - Alpenhof Pension - paying 28 EUR/person/day with breakfast. For HB you will pay an extra 14 EUR/person/day, and you are able to choose before when you want to have the dinner at the hotel.

The closest ski area is in Vipiteno, Monte Cavalo, with 3 chair lifts and about 6 to 8 different slopes. You can go for ski in this area for 3 days maximum. Afterwards, it might be a little bit boring skiing here, although you will never get bored of the panoramic view!

The ski pass is around 32 EUR\day, but the price gets cheaper if you are lazy and arrive late at the gondola.

There are 3 restaurants on the slope, and 1 apres-ski bar. One of the restaurants, situated in the left side of the slope ( when going down off the mountain ) and has a great panoramic view and great food ( we recommend Nuddelsuppe, Knuddelsuppe and Eier mit Speck ).

With the help of 2 friends, we’ve checked also some other two great ski areas. One is called Racines, and the slopes are better/longer/faster than in Vipiteno.

On the slope there is a Fun Park where you can practice and improve your jumps in order to get closer to the sky.

The last, but definitely not the least area were we’ve been to ski, is really something to remember. My advise is to go there, if you really … but really, really enjoy to ski, and you don’t get tired very easily. The slope is called Sella Ronda. This slope can be reached from many villages like Selva or Colfosco. The idea is to surround the whole mountain only by skiing, and arrive back from to the departure town, if possible. This whole round has 110 km of slope. And, yes … you are guessing right! You have to cover this distance from 9 AM till 4 PM. If you will not do that, you will get stuck in one of the villages ( like Colfosco … ) and expect the carabinieri to rescue you or hope to find some kind of transportation back to the village were you left your car :)

The highest point of the ski area is at Marmolada ( 3265 m ) and you will take 3 telecabines to arrive to the top.

The view is amazing!

Skiing in Italy Dec '08-Jan '09 - her version

10 days of winter holidays is absolutely not enough!...Not if you’re going skiing at least J We went to Italy , in the Dolomites Alps, in a small resort called Colle Isarco - 9 km away from the Austrian border, very close to Brenner.

Accomodation:
The resort itself is not necessarily worth mentioning, as it’s very small and not extremely popular. Maybe it would fit best families looking for a quiet vacation, or elderly tourists. But for us, evenings in Colle Isarco were pretty boring as there was not much entertainment going around. The accommodation was very good. Alpenhof Pension is a family-run small hotel, conducted by Mrs. Plank. The prices are convenient (42 eur/day/person, half-board). You can decide on a daily basis whether you want to have dinner in the hotel or not, and the price without dinner is 28 eur/day/person.
Altogether we were 12 people + a 10 month old baby. Eight of us were lodged at Alpenhof, 2 others in Hotel Schuster , and 2 others in another resort 14 km away (Val di Vize).

Skiing:
To get to the nearest ski area , in Vipiteno , you have to take a 10 minutes car drive. There is also a ski-bus, but we never used it. The slope in Vipiteno is called Monte Cavalo. It’s a good slope for beginners, but it’s not very attractive for “professional skiers”, as the length of the runs is not very big. Nevertheless, one can ski there for 2-3 days without getting bored. The price for a daily ski pass is 27 eur/person, and the ski-lifts only work from 9 AM to 4PM.

Vipiteno, Monte Cavalo ski areaVipiteno, Monte Cavalo ski area
Luckily 2 of our friends were eager to explore the area and check out other slopes from other resorts, so we had the chance to go with them also to other ski areas.
On 2 days we went with them to Racines. The slopes here were a bit longer and more numerous than in Vipiteno, and the landscapes prettier. I have the feeling Racines is also more attractive in terms of après-ski.












Racines ski area
The most interesting ski-area we visited is Sella Ronda. Basically, it’s a group of mountains, surrounded by resorts. You start skiing from one resort and you circle the whole group of mountains until you get back to where you started from. The entire length of this “trip” is 110 km (which proved to be too much for me, as I didn’t manage to get back to Selva – that’s where we started from). The highest point in this area is peak Marmolada (3265 m).
At one point we decided to split: our 2 friends (Sven & Roland) went ahead, as they were faster and it made sense that at least they should get to where we’d parked the car (in Selva), and me and Pufi stayed behind, hoping to get as close to Selva as possible. Unfortunately my turtle-speed prevented us from reaching the finish-line, and we got stuck on the slope in Colfosco (another resort in the area). Two carabinieri (God bless them !! :)) took us to the town of Colfoso by snow-mobile, and Sven & Roland (God bless them too ! :)) picked us up from there, with their car. Sella Ronda
Sella Ronda

The evenings:
As I said, Colle Isarco is not the best destination for glamorous night-life. Not even for “evening-life”, for that matter :)
Vipiteno, the closest resort, is a little bit more lively, but even here it’s difficult to find entertainment. It has 2 pubs/bars where locals say that people dance , but when we went there, there wasn’t any dancing going around.
One evening we went to Val Gardena (one driving hour away). This resort is bigger and a lot nicer. It’s also more expensive, which is why it was crowded with rich Russians. Walking the small streets in Val Gardena is pleasant, as they have all these colorful, coquette little buildings.
On the 1st of January we went to a skiing show in Racines. Due to the traffic and lack of parking places we missed most of the show, but we arrived in time for the fireworks, which were a lot more spectacular than the ones the night before (New Year’s Eve)

New Year’s Eve:
We had a reservation at a restaurant in Austria on the Bergeralm slope. To get to the restaurant we had to take the gondola. We got there at about 11 PM and at 1:30 AM everybody had to leave because it was the last ride with the gondola taking you back to the city. The buffet food was good, we also had a live band singing Austrian traditional songs – which didn’t appeal too much to me J a few people were dancing, especially the ones who appreciated the music. The New Year’s Eve party here was very different from what I was used to – it was, let’s say – a bit too quiet and too calm for my taste. The price, including buffet dinner, was 33 euro/person. All the drinks we ordered were extra.

The food:
This area of Italy, being so close to the Austrian border, is heavily influenced by Austrian cuisine. So the tens of sorts of Austrian sausages are more likely to be found in restaurants than Italian pizza and pasta. The same thing goes for “haxe” (roasted pork leg). Also, German (Austrian) language is spoken more often by locals than Italian.
In our “lunch breaks” on the slopes, I thing we ate litres of soup (Pastina in brodo, Knodelsoup, Gulash soup), as it managed to warm us up fast.

The road to / from Colle Isarco
On the way to Colle Isarco we slept in Budapest, at Ibis Vaci Ut hotel (42 euro/night/room). We chose this hotel because we really wanted to go to the famous Fatal restaurant in Budapest, which is located on Vaci Uta street. Unfortunately we found out that Vaci Ut is not the same with Vaci Uta J… so, for only one missing letter we had to drive for about 20 minutes to get to Fatal restaurant. But the great food was worth it, it’s definitely a place worth going to ! Budapest by night, at least in the 30 minutes we say it, looks also very good.
On the way back we slept in Szeged, at Fehertoi Hotel . The hotel itself wasn’t very nice, it was a typical transit hotel, too expensive for what it had to offer (58 euro/night/room). But again, the food was exceptional !! Szeged is famous for its fish soup recipe, they even have the “Fish Soup Festival”, and after tasting it I can understand why! The really funny thing was their menu: they also had a menu in Romanian, probably not translated by a Romanian native, so the names of the dishes were “slaughtered” in a hilarious way :)


To wrap things up, I would say this holiday’s strong points were the daytime activities (especially skiing): great slopes, not at all crowded, exceptionally good weather, only sunny days, clear blue sky, good company... Its’ weak points were après-ski activities (evenings, nightlife). Before we left on holiday, we were warned by a few friends that we shouldn’t expect too much après-ski entertainment if we go to Austria … and they were right. But then again, we did go there to ski, so we managed to achieve our goal :)

*More photos here.

'Till next time !

20 September

This blog is supposed to be about travelling. But some journeys are not necessarily “geographic”. Some journeys are inside your soul and those can take you further than a couple of hundreds of kilometers.
Journeys like this come unexpected and can open your eyes more than some beautiful landscapes. I took such a journey last week, for my birthday. What I saw on my way… I saw that I have a big family and that I’m so lucky to be able to share my birthday with all of them; that they are always there to help me when I need them and that they think of me all the time. That cooking and washing dishes for 8 persons can be such a pleasure if you enjoy eating with them. That some inexpensive presents are incredibly full of value and I can still cry for joy when I receive a gift; and those are the presents that I will always treasure.


I saw that I have a soul-mate who would do anything to bring a smile on my face. A partner that pays attention to my wishes, who remembers them and somehow manages to bring them to life. Someone who, after five years together, can still offer me the biggest surprises. My “better-half” that miraculously manages to accept me , and that’s not an easy job !

I found out that on my journey I have alongside the best friends I could ask for. My friends who would wear clown–noses, helmets and hide under a table for one hour just to surprise me. My friends who would miss their fathers’ birthdays, or an evening with their babies just to be able to throw hundreds of confetti at me. People in which I found understanding and wisdom and who have given me some of the most unselfish advices I ever received.

Thanks to all of you who have been on my “birthday-journey” with me!

More photos here.

Skiathos, August '08 - her version

The Sporades islands group lies off the eastern shore of mainland Greece and consists of 11 islands of which only 4 are inhabited: Skiathos, Skopelos, Alonnisos and Skyros. We decided to visit Skiathos, as we were trying to avoid the busy beaches of Crete and Rhodes, and find our own, secluded places to relax in.

What we did:

Upon our arrival, we could see even from the airplane window the crystal clear blue water and all the small islands surrounding Skiathos. We stood at Aria Hotel (bus stop no 4, very well located at a 15 minutes’ walk from the city-center), a nice place, not too fancy but with all the necessary amenities; the pool area was extremely beautiful, overlooking the sea.

There is only one bus-line in Skiathos, with 26 bus-stops, running from the airport to Koukounaries beach. We spent our first day at Koukounaries - the most famous beach of Skiathos, therefore the most crowded. It is well-known for its extremely fine white sand and its fragrant pine trees forest. Apparently a British journalist ranked it among the first 5 best beaches of the world. It didn’t impress me that much though; it was too touristy, and the bus drive to/from it was awful as everybody wanted to go there (I wonder why ?!) and the bus was very crowded.

The second day we went to Troulos Bay (got its name due to the opposite little island (the Troulonissia) which looks like a dome (= troulos).) It was much smaller, more quiet and relaxing. But still, not the secluded place we were looking for. So we decided to go on a cruise boat trip the next day, to find out what the best places to go would be.

“Lazy day on the boat” – that was the name of the cruise; we took the boat from Troulos Bay (almost didn’t catch it because of a 30 min delay of the bus – always happens!). The price was 10 euro’s, they took us to the inhabited island of Tsougria and to Mandraki beach; we were supposed to have lunch here, but since the local tavern was out of food, we moved to the next beach, Agia Eleni. My dream was to visit Lalaria Beach – up in the north of the island, but the “captain” said we couldn’t go to the north because of the wind and big waves. Some friends, who took another cruise boat trip, went over there and confirmed the waves were pretty scary (4 meters high!), and their captain didn’t stop at Lalaria either. Over all, the cruise was pleasant, but there was no way of getting any privacy when you’re sharing the same boat/beach with another 50 tourists!

That’s why on the 4^th day we rented a car, a jeep (Suzuki Samurai – 55 euro’s/day + gas). That’s when the beautiful part of our holiday begun J First stop was at Moni Evangelistrias (an 18th century monastery, 450m above sea level, surrounded by pine and cypress trees). I liked that it was so quiet, the monks there had some cages with parrots, canaries and other birds, but I must admit I didn’t come to this island to visit religious sites, so we left in about 30 minutes.

Next stop: Nikotsara beach: the first breathtaking place I saw on the island. The road to Nikotsara was only accessible by jeep (thank God for our old little Samurai!), not paved and quite steep. From the top of one mountain we could see the beach: a small, maybe 20-30 meters stripe of sand, sheltered between two huge white rocky walls. The water was bright blue, just begging for a good swim. We couldn’t swim after all, because of the very powerful currents and waves. The water got deep after 3-4 steps, and the waves could easily smash you into the rocks. But the view was magnificent!

With no time to waste (the list of places to see was looong, and we only had the car for one day), we moved on to Kastro. That’s an old fortress, apparently the place where the locals went when there were pirate-attacks. The road was kind of difficult….more off-road and “jeep-safari”. Me and the girls were a little behind taking photos of the beautiful scenery while Puf was 10 steps ahead and said” You’d better stop taking photos there and come see the view over here!”. It was GORGEOS!! Kastro was a place that gave me the goose-bumps all over my skin. After each corner, I had the impression it got more and more beautiful. Definitely worth visiting!!! One could easily spend 2-3 hours there, just gazing at the incredible color of the sea.

And off we were to the next beach: Agia Eleni. We had already decided we would rent the jeep for an extra day, as we were a little bit behind schedule and didn’t want to miss the other places on our “visiting – list”. Agia Eleni was the best beach to see the sunset from, although the sun didn’t set into the sea, but behind a mountain from a small nearby beach. There was a tavern and a “pub” on this beach – the most “posh” place on all the beaches (but not posh at all actually). We had Bacardi Breezers and watched the sunset listening to great music played by the bar’s DJ, while some girls were doing gymnastic tricks on the beach and everybody clapped their hands. That was a great way to end the day, I had the feeling my eyes captured so many beautiful views!

The next day we hopped on into the car and went to Kechria Beach – the most difficult road of all; at one point me and the girls got scared and got out of the car, letting Puf to do his driving, as he insisted it was safe. It was as safe as a 45 degrees slope of dirt road can be, with an abyss on the left side and a wall of rocks on the right side. Eventually we got safe to the beach, a nice place, only 4 other people on the beach + a cute little dog. We spent a few hours there, and swam off the stress of the difficult road J

Afterwords we went for a dring in a restaurant called Panorama...and indeed there was a great panoramic view !

n the evening we moved to the Hidden Beach (not that hidden, if you ask me, as there were some signs pointing to it). Swam, sun-bathed and cuddled another little dog. The Hidden Beach (Kryfi Ammoudia) was right next to Agia Eleni, but the sunset was not as spectacular as it was on the first one.

On Friday we went to Vassilias beach; I was looking for Stefanos Sky School (had tracked him on the internet before leaving and wanted to rent a motor-boat from him). Stefanos was a great guy, I liked him a lot: always had some funny things to say, and he earned some points with me for talking very highly about marriage J - of course he only meant 10% of what he said (but tell me a good lie at any time and I will enjoy itJ)! Puf took his first water-skiing lesson (25 euro), and according to Stefanos he was a champion! The “CrazyShark” (10 euro/person) was the next thing we rode on: like a rubber-couch for 4 persons being dragged on the water by a motor boat – extremely funny, and Stefanos made sure we hit every wave on our way! We laughed so hard! Since it was the “water-sports-day”, we also decided to do some parasailing (60 euro/2 persons). The parachute is lifted 60-80 meters above the sea, and the feeling is great: you are so free, it’s so quiet up there, nothing but the wind blowing and the eye-feasting! It was so good that I had the impression it was over in a matter of seconds.

Saturday we rented the boat from Stefanos. My wish was to finally be able to go to Lalaria beach in the north, but apparently it was completely forbidden because of waves up to 10 meters high! I had to take my mind of Lalaria, although I bragged to everybody that that’s where I’m going to go! With Lalaria out of the reach, we were stuck between Tsougria Island and Koukounaries beach (that was the perimeter were Stefanos told us it would be safe to go, basically only the south side of the island). So we found ourselves not really knowing where to go, and decided to just drive until we saw a nice deserted beach to anchor to. As we headed up west, the wind got more and more powerful and the waves bigger and bigger, splashing us from head to toe, to the point where we couldn’t even take photos. We stopped in a small bay, only one other boat was there, but the people on it didn’t get off to the beach. So there was just the four of us on a 20 meters stripe of sand, bathing in the calm waters and laying our clothes on the rocks to get them dry. By the time we anchored to this bay we were already freezing because of the strong wind against our wet skin and soaked clothes. We enjoyed this beach for about one hour and then moved on to the next one: another deserted stripe of sand, a little bit more to the west; by now, the wind was so strong that after 10 minutes on the beach we were covered in sand and had to take off to a more quiet place; we tried to anchor near a doc on another beach, but couldn’t so we finally got off at Kanapista beach, where we took some well-deserved lunch. Kanapista is quite crowded and full of elderly people, so it’s not the best place to be noisy. By 4:00 PM the wind was calmer, so we went to the island of Tsougria for the last part of the day; it was beautiful there, maximum 15 people on the island so we could finally relax and soak up the sun. Of course, we couldn’t pass the opportunity of pretending to be stranded on a deserted island… At 6:00PM we had to bring the boat back to Stafanos.

The evenings:

We were determined to go clubbing at least a few times. But after all the daily activities, we found ourselves too tired to do it, so we didn’t even get to the Club Strip (that’s the name of the street where all the clubs, disco’s and bars are). Instead, we chose to go for a drink in the old port (9 euro/cocktail) or get something to eat in the city.

The city is quite small, just one main street (no access for cars), and a couple of small paved streets. There are plenty of places to buy souvenirs from, like traditional food, jewelry and clothes.

Once there was an electricity black-out, which caught us at a restaurant in the old port and lasted for about one hour. Not that I don’t like candle-light dinners, but after 30 minutes I was getting a bit tired of all the romance and started wishing for the electricity to come back J

Food:

I was a little bit disappointed by this chapter. I expected all the restaurant to offer a great variety of fish and sea-food. The reality was a little different: maybe because of all the British tourists, most restaurants offered international dishes, and only a few traditional dishes. However, I ate as much frid calamari as my stomach could bare (8 euro/portion), some grilled gilthead, olive paste, saganaky (fried feta cheese, 4 euro), sun-dried tomato salad and tzatziki (3 euro). The best place we ate at was at Captain Mihalis (bus stop no 24, across Strofilia lake). The captain was an old guy, very friendly and with a great sense of humor. He used to give us something “from the house”, like fresh figs or ouzo. Puf was more into the local tavernas where he ate gyros, souvlaky and tons of tzatzikyi. Tavernas could be found on each and every beach, even the secluded ones (I often wondered how they got the fresh fish and vegetables there every day).

Leaving the island:

I felt like we had just got there and there was already time to leave…On Sunday morning there was a big thunder storm, our hotel room was flooded and our luggage was soaked in water. I admit at one point I had some hopes that the plane would not be able to leave and we would have to stay there for a couple more days…all I got was a 3 hours delay L

I was sad to leave, if only we had one more week to do it all over again, this time knowing exactly where to go and what to do…it’s a place where everybody can be pleased: it just depends on what you chose to do – it can be quiet and relaxing, it can be adventurous, it can be fun and noisy, it can be breathtaking and spectacular.

In the end, Skiathos is an island where you just have to find your own Paradise, whatever Paradise means for you ...

That's what it means for me ... THE END