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Ahlan from the Valley of the Kings, Luxor, bitches! So after we had the greatest tour in the history of tours, we had a chill day in the hotel before having dinner at Rooftop 7000 - a posh place with unparalleled sunset views of the pyramids. The next day we flew from Cairo to Aswan, spent a night in the blah blah before getting picked up to board our home for the next few days: The Nile Jewel. Yep, we booked a cruise from Aswan to Luxor with all stops in between. We checked

Ahlan dear readers, please settle in for another one of those it’s so good now it’s over type of blog entries entitled: TOUR OF THE YEAR - A.K.A. THE GREAT SHEMOZZLE OF CAIRO!! Ok, so we’d been blown away by the pyramids, Sphinx, and GEM, but we had yet to go into the heart of Cairo itself and see the city at night. Jen-Jen had organised a tour, where we were picked up at 5pm from our hotel, taken on a felucca ride on The Nile, to a famous mosque, the Khan Al Khalili Bazaar,

Ahlan from Cairo, Well, well, well. We’ve seen some stuff in the last few days. Let me begin in Italy. We drove to Genoa in Delph, parked up in a secure parking lot, and the owner, Alex, drove us to the CBD, where we stayed in a cool rock n’ roll-themed hotel called Red and Blues Music Hotel. A walk around Genoa was half sketchy, half cool, and very grungy. It’s a real melting pot of cultures, and each street and alley had a different feel. We had a nice pasta and a glass of

Ciao Bellas from Italy, once amore. (Hehe) Well, we set sail (metaphorically) from Siena and made it pretty smoothly to a caravan park about a mile outside of the old town of Lucca. We were keen to go to Lucca as parents of my friend, Mick - and friends of ours too - Allan and Catherine had lived here before and absolutely raved about the town. Rightio, let’s check it out. We grabbed the old e-bikes and the dedicated cycle paths (LOVE 'EM) led us right to the city walls. Now

Buongiorno Bella's from Siena, The road north from Albinia - apart from much, much roadwork - was pretty good. About 45 minutes in, we started to rise, and the highway started going through a mountain range. After some back roads, we noticed that the scenery was very green with lots of hilly paddocks, olive groves, vineyards, Cyprus pines and grey and orange villas… Yep, we were in Toscana. (Tuscany) We’d been to this region 11 years ago, and we still had fond memories of the

Ciao Bellas from the Tuscan coastal town of Albinia - not Albania, After we got Delph, Jen drove about 700 km over two days, and we ended up in a basic little caravan park in the Tuscan town of Saturnia. Saturnia is famous for one thing, and that is thermal springs, which are free to use and open 24/7. Cool. We parked up and decided to wait for the early morning to hit the spas, as it would be in the shade and the afternoon was a scorcher. At Sparrow’s we jumped on the bikes

Ciao Bella’s from Lecce, We caught the train from Polignano to Brindisi and then picked up a hire car for the next few days. As the “Heatdome” - which is what the meteorologists are calling it - hasn’t broken yet, we decided to do a beach crawl before driving to our accommodation. First stop was the cute little beach at Terre do Orso. But first things first - it was about 2 pm, and the Dude hadn’t eaten yet. About 50 metres from where we fluked a park, we saw a seafood truck

Buongiorno bellas from Polignano a Mare, Leaving Roma was fairly straightforward as we walked to Cavour Metro and rode the 6 or so stops to the Flix Bus stop. Five hours on the bus and 30 minutes on the train, and we were in the southern coastal town of Polignano a Mare. As we walked the mostly flat road to the beach, our first impressions were that this was a well-planned, neat town. The building where mostly white or yellow sandstone; there was on Old Town, plenty of shops,

Ciao Bellas, from Roma. After we left the cool of Orion’s A/C in Durres, we drove to the port and without going into too many whiny details, we sat in Delph from 6pm until about 10.30pm before we drove on to the ferry. We were the LAST vehicle on this huge ship and old mate told us not to be late the next morning as we would be first off. Righto, no pressure. We pretty much crashed in our cabin’s bunks straight away before waking at 6am, having breaky and lining up with thous

Zdravo from North Macedonia. As a young tacker growing up in Newie, I went to both primary and high school with lots of Macedonian kids. I was always great mates with the “Massos”, and when I’d see them out in town on Saturday night, they would always come up and introduce me to their cousins and mates, shout me a drink and have a laugh. Apart from the one or two times a year, when we played against them in soccer, and we HATED them with a passion, I treasured my friendship w

Pershendetje from the beautiful southern Albanian beach town of Himarë, This entry starts with a bit of trauma that was terrifying at the time, but is a good story now that some days have passed. Before we begin though, I’ll just drop in the pic of our accommodation - as is my want. Now, let’s begin… After we flew in from Manchester to Tirana, we went back to Tony’s and slept in Delph. It was hot, and there was a 200-person wedding outside, but it was OK. The next morning we

Roll Up!! Roll up for the Mystery Tour, Heya from the home of the Fab Four: the one and only Liverpool. It might surprise some of you that we have never been to Liverpool, despite spending a lot of time in this region, but it’s true. We left Wales after breakfast and the road to Liverpool was pretty easy. We found our accommodation very easily and parked Mokka in the complimentary carpark before dropping of our bags. It was too early for check-in so we went and got a great Th

Heya, from our last spot in Wales: Llangollen. We jumped in the Mokka, and headed out of smoky, hot Snowdonia and drove an hour or two to a wee town called Llangollen. We dropped some stuff off at the Airbnb - a cute upstairs room in a woman’s house - before we drove to the meet-up spot for the day’s activity: Canoeing on the Pontsycylite Aqueduct. No activity would be complete without a meeting point stuff-up, and this was no different. Basically, we left the meeting point,

Heya, from Dolwyddelan, Snowdonia, Wales. After leaving Abertyswyth, we drove to a cute little spot called Dolgoch Waterfalls. We parked up (no free parking anywhere in the UK) and paid before walking on a very good tarred track to the lower waterfall. We then did the 60-minute round track up over the waterfall and back to the car park. This was a good little hit-out to stretch the legs, and we even saw two caves that I swear were dragon lairs. We went into one, but I didn’t

Heya from Aberystwyth, Western Wales. Our first stop today was the town of Brecon itself. We parked up and spent a great hour or so walking along the canal, checking out the canal boats, the rugby fields, the allotments and the beautiful grey stone and slate houses. Absolutely, picture-postcard perfect. We then drove to a wee town called Llandovery, which the signs claimed was the birthplace of Welsh Rugby. Rightio, big call, but who am I to argue. We got a few bargains in th

Heya from Brecon, Wales, After an easy flight from Edinburgh to Stansted, London, we picked up our hire car - a snazzy brand new Vauxhall Mokka, that I can just about fold myself into - and hit the open road. Well, the open road is a bit of an exaggeration - it was a crowded M40 full of trucks and commuters. Anyway, after about 20 minutes on the highway, I had the car sussed, and we drove two hours to a P n R in Oxfordshire. 10 minutes later we were off the town bus and wande

Welcome tae Scotland, ya wee bairns! It’s been a minute. The last month and a bit has seen a lot of travel around the globe. Firstly, we returned home to Oz and spent three weeks catching up with loved family and friends. To escape the Southern European summer and have a mild Australian winter was what we sorely needed. We then left Sydney via Abu Dhabi and Athens and arrived in Tirana - about 24 hours later. We grabbed Delphi and stayed for a few days of rest at Camping Fam

Përshëndetje from Tirana - again, Our last four days in Tirana were pretty good. We caught up on some blogging, some TV, some A/C, and some sleep. We also hired a private driver to take us to Kruje Castle, which is on the mountains about 20 minutes north of Tirana. We arrived at Kruje about an hour before sunset and checked out the Old Bazaar. This cobblestoned street was flanked by wooden shops that sold everything from clothes to war memorabilia to musical instruments to ta

Pershendetje from Kosovo, We decided to book a bus trip to see Kosovo, as we know nothing about this (disputed) country apart from that it was bombed mercilessly in the 90s war and everyone in this region has a different opinion on it. So, we rocked up to the bus at 6.30 am, jumped on the A/C minibus with 6 others and headed off. One couple missed the pick-up spot, and we then had to wait 30 minutes for them at a servo up the road while they got a taxi there. Great start. Any

Pershendetje from the Albanian capital, Tirana, The drive to Tirana was pretty cruisy except for the last 6 kms that took 60 minutes due to crazy traffic, crazy heat, and a crazy roundabout. We arrived at a hotel called Julton Events, where we had arranged to leave Delph, while we hid from the heat in an air-conditioned apartment in the city. We met Toni and his wife, and then they drove us the 4 km into town - which took an hour again. Tirana is a city on the up, but the i