We wanted to book some activities on Holiday Island, but they were either full or happened only once a week on day we were travelling. Only trip that we managed to do was to visit nearby Sun Island. It is resort operated by the same company so boat ride was for free. We just needed to pick one of departure times and sign for it on reception.
Sun Island is bigger, maybe 3 times and also more developed. It even has a pool. From my point of view, it was overcrowded. So we made very good decision when we picked Holiday Island - it was more suitable for us. That, however, does not mean all those hundreds of people on Sun Island picked badly :-)
Holiday Island is quite small - just 700 meters long and 140 wide. I am surprised I did not get bored during those 7 days. Maybe because I took many photos. We are going to look at Holiday Island with different perspective now.
I have too many photos from Holiday Island, so I need to split it to 3 parts. That's the reason previous post did not contain many Maldives "postcards". But it is main point of this post - to show why people are going there - white sand, turquoise water, green palms.
I was forced to take 2 weeks off in my work in February 2015. We were thinking "Why should I sit at home and then have less available time for proper summer vacation? Let's go to some warm place". But where to go during winter? Europe is cold, it has to be somewhere further away. Sri Lanka had raised occurrence of some virus in January, so we were afraid to go there. What about Maldives?
We bought Lonely Planet, only to realize Maldives are not ideal for individual holiday makers, and even worse for travellers - distances are huge and accommodation expensive, unless you want to stay in capital Male. Not to mention food - islands open for tourists are usually handled by single resort, so they have only "single" restaurant and no shop with food. Self catering in Maldives is probably as expensive as half board.Madeira - nice green mountains
Added: October 04, 2014
After visiting São Lourenço we continued to the north. Mountains around us were much greener than what south part of island could offer until now. Green, steep mountains surrounded by nice houses with orange roofs complementing greenness.
Anse Lazio is at northeastern side of Praslin, not too far from Anse Georgette. There are 2 options how to get there for people accommodated in Anse Kerlan without a car.
- You can take bus and go to Mont Plaisir terminal station, which is about 2 stops, but quite steep slope. Then you can walk 1.9km throught country (it took us 37 min).
- Take bus going in other direction for 50 minutes and get off at Anse Boudin. Then walk steep road up and down for 1km.
Beach Anse Kerlan was only 100m from our accommodation in Praslin, but it got so low priority that we went there only once to check how it looks like. It happened shortly before another trip so we took 5 photos and left. If there will not be anything better, we might return...
Real attraction for us were beaches Anse Georgette and Anse Lazio. To get to both of them you need to walk. It is up to you to decide how much.Seychelles - light and magic at Anse Source D'Argent
Added: May 31, 2014
I had so many photos from Anse Source D'Argent that I decided to split them into 2 posts. This second post will show rest of photos. Current theme is magic of evening light.
If you want to be at this place for sunset, you will need to have some source of light. It is getting dark quickly and L'Union Estate is quite big. There is not much illumination in estate so you might get lost easily. We had headlamp, flashlight and a map with GPS in my phone and yet we got lost once. (The problem in our case was we did not arrive there following the road but indirectly along the beach and throught forest. No wonder I did not recognize our way back).Seychelles - Anse Source D'Argent
Added: May 30, 2014
There is a place in the world, where dozens of people wade knee-deep in water, holding their iPads in their raised hands. And you gladly pay for that sight. Where is it?
You can tell I suck at telling riddles, because I reveal the correct answer before asking. BUT! Did you guess also that Anse Source D'Argent is in La Digue? If you follow my blog then this tricky question could not knock you out.Seychelles - north of La Digue
Added: May 29, 2014
We have visited 2 beaches at the northern end of La Digue. It is quite far from Belle des Iles and it can get tedious when you walk at noon. But don't worry. When you reach a cemetery, you are on the right track. Anse Sévère is just around the corner.
Seychelles - arrival to La Digue
Added: May 28, 2014
After 4 days in Mahe we moved to the island representing the highlight of whole trip - La Digue. I was thinking about arriving one day earlier, but 1st of May was state holiday in Seychelles and I was worried about morning bus to port. I did not know bus drivers don't take travelers with their all luggage then. It is pity, we could spend there one day more. Even it would be cloudy and raining.
Seychelles - eastern side of Mahe
Added: May 25, 2014
I am going to skip many days now, to our last full day at Seychelles at 10th of May, because it was on Mahe again. We returned from Praslin by Cat Cocos ferry scheduled at 9am, allowing us to spend most of the day at Anse Royale.
Seychelles - beaches at south west of Mahe
Added: May 24, 2014
Maybe we have made a mistake to stay at place where it was quite easy to find accommodation with good price. Maybe we should have invested a bit more money and time searching, so that we could stay closer to south end of island. It would allow us better possibility to visit surrounding beaches. Who could know it will be so tedious to travel by local buses.
Seychelles - north west of Mahe
Added: May 24, 2014
We arrived to Seychelles at 28th April. It was hot, partially cloudy. Whole this island was very nice sight from landing plane. But after visiting other islands I consider it waste of time. Yes, I know, our planning and selection of places to visit makes big part of that feeling. Maybe if we stayed here for a week or 2 and had enough time to visit all important beaches and do some hikes in National Park I would feel differently.
Fortunately my impression improved a lot the last day before our return home, because we visited Anse Royale. Those photos will come later.
2 weeks ago we have returned from our trip to Seychelles. As is normal for us we went there on our own, and we used information from last-minute travel deals just to beat their prices :-) Our expenses were about same to prices offered by holiday search engines (self-catering), but they offer just single island and we were on 3 of them. Plus our sum contains everything we've spent.
This is my last post about our trip to Rhodes. It is about beaches in Lindos.
We have seen the first only from distance, even we planned to go there originally. But then we decided we like the other one more and went only there.
After spending 3 nights in Rhodes city and making trips to western coast, we moved to Φαληράκι on east coast. East coast is preferred by people wanting to spend their holiday at beach, because it has much calmer sea without strong winds which happen on western coast. I we can only confirm that. We did not see big waves here at all.
Our last trip on Milos was to Papafragas. It is a beach with very interesting geology. It is not so far from Sarakiniko, yet it looks completely different. How many designers were designing this island and why they did not talk to each other? :-)
While yacht trip to Kleftiko was wonderful experience thanks to amazing places like Sykia and Kleftiko, it is nothing compared with what Sarakiniko can offer. If Sarakiniko was the only interesting place in Milos, it still would be worth of visiting for me.
We took a taxi to get there. It is just a few kilometers from Adamas. We also instructed taxi driver to come back for us at 9pm (hint: after sunset).
Southern part of Milos is not accessible by car. But it offers very nice attractions well worth of visiting. What to do? Just pick from many boat trips! It takes whole day and Captain will also prepare a lunch for you.
Kleftiko and Sarakiniko (next post) were main attractions why we came to Milos. And if it is the only way how to get to Kleftiko than a boat sounds like a great idea.
Μήλος was the 3rd island we visited during our trip around Cyclades in June. We picked it from other possibilities because it offers wonderful natural sights. It is volcanic island, but completely different from Santorini. I have mentioned white houses on Santorini and Folegandros. They were here too, but most importantly and surprisingly, natural wonders are white over here too.
Beaches are probably not phenomena that attracts tourists to Folegandros. At least not most of them. Apart from some beaches around port Karavostasis all other are not very accessible. I don't mean those you need to use boat to get there, just those accessible by walking 20 minutes from bus stop or even more if you don't settle for the first one.
BTW, plural in title might suggest there will be "analysis" of many beaches, but you cannot do that in 3 days. So 2 beaches must be enough. I am sorry for that.Santorini - beaches and ruins
Added: August 04, 2013
There is more to Santorini than just towns with white houses and churches with blue domes. There are also beaches and ruins of ancient towns. Definitely, the beaches are different compared to what most of people are used to.
Let's look at them in order we have visited them.Gran Canaria - last couple of hours at Canaries
Added: November 02, 2011
We used the last day of our trip until last minute. Literally. We flew back to Gran Canaria afternoon and wanted to go to Palmas de Gran Canaria. Our flight back was scheduled on next day at 6am, which was a bit inconvenient considering a need to find our way to Palmas, look around, find some accomodation to leave it early in the "morning" to gat back to airport.
So we changed our plan at last possible moment and I have studied Lonely Planet to find out what we could do instead while waiting at the airport in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Our new plan has been born - we will rent a car and go to the south of island to check how it looks like.
Canary islands are synonym for summer holidays at beach. That is not kind of holiday I prefer (but Zuzka says I will get used to it with time). Regardless, we have been to some beaches on Tenerife.
Not only that, we went to beach on our first day in Tenerife - in the afternoon after visiting Auditorio de Tenerife.
Our short 3 day trip to Spain ended in Alicante. It was more convenient and cheaper to flight back from there. Also beach was more conveniently located (regarding train station and bus to airport) than in Valencia.
That suggests we did not see much - after ariving to Alicante we headed directly to beach and stayed there until it was time for return. But looking back, I could take more photos of beach. I just did not want to attract any attention. That means I don't have many photos to show this time.
So it's over. We knew it has to come. After 2 months of travelling we are packing and going home. OK, we were packing nearly every day, but this time it is serious. It is our last day abroad.
Yesterday evening I made a plan for today. We will get up 7:30, have breakfast at 8:00 and then head to beach. Checkout is at 12:00, so we will have more time than I would like to spend on beach at once :-)Attractions of Rio de Janeiro
Added: August 01, 2010
Flight to Rio de Janeiro was uneventful and rather quick. We flew around Rio and landed at Galeão airport ahead of schedule. It seemed we will get to city during daylight, but it turned to be wrong assumption. We were waiting for a bus to Botafogo more than one hour. Some buses arrived but all of them were heading to different parts or Rio.
When our bus finally arrived it was full. A driver did not want to take us, but the "bus employee" at the bus stop helped us to get in. He was probably tired of my periodic bothering him When is our bus due? Driver finally said he will take us if we don't mind standing 50min. No problem for us, just get us there. It was dark when we stepped off the bus. Now to get oriented quickly and find our hostel. We selected Botafogo because it was cheaper than Copacabana and Ipanema and still rather close and safe. Our next task is to blend in and look like a Brazilians to avoid being robbed. At least that is suggested in all descriptions of Rio de Janeiro. Plus walking quickly so lazy muggers don't bother. This part should be easy, but how can we blend in with 2 backpacks each? :-)
Karekare is picturesque area near Auckland. There are nice hills, wonderful beach and small waterfall. Enough reasons to go there. Maybe we will manage to visit also Piha and certainly we should spend some time in Auckland.
Two wonderful days at Abel Tasman - Day 2
Added: May 16, 2010
Our stay at Abel Tasman was nicely enhanced by wonderful place we stayed at - Shambhala in Onekaka. It was completely different to all other places we have been to till now. Beautiful surroundings enhanced by peaceful atmosphere, about 4km from "civilization" by private (terrible) road.
After our arrival I was a bit suspicious of many long haired people around and the presence of meditation room, but it turned out it was not lair of some sect as a paranoid me suspected :-) Whole New Zealand tries to be ecological, but this place uses solar energy, collects rain water and has composting lavatory and trees for men :-) Missing TV only added to its charm. And the night sky was even more beautiful than we could see at Mt. John Observatory. All in all, if I returned to Abel Tasman I would like to stay at this place again.Two wonderful days at Abel Tasman - Day 1
Added: May 09, 2010
During our round the world trip we looked forward to 3 places with fantastic beaches. We slept over Bondi Beach in Sydney more than 2 weeks ago and Copacabana or Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro will have to wait for another month. But beaches at Abel Tasman are here and today!
It was not only about fantastic beaches here, but also weather is usually sunny and hot here. After 2 weeks of rain, clouds and occasional fair weather we really hoped this place will show us what a good weather looks like. But it did not look very promising as we were getting close. Since morning there were many clouds in the sky. And they did not scatter. Contrary, when we were climbing winding road to Takaka Hill we could see thick clouds everywhere around. My hope was over. But then, when we got on to the other side of hill, we could see thin band of blue in distance. We could see also some sandy beach ahead. Are they close enough? Will clouds pass before we get there? A slight taste of hope returned.Amazing scenic drive to Franz Josef
Added: April 18, 2010
Landscape we have seen on Tuesday 12th of January was as close to my dreams about New Zealand as it could get. Snowy mountains against nice blue sky are reflecting in deep blue lakes. Lot of greens in tropical vegetation around.
Our only reason to rush through this paradise was to be at Franz Josef at about 2pm to catch so long awaited helicopter ride to Mt Cook. And the only reason to have negative thoughts were occasional, but cumulating clouds ahead.
During planning of our trip in New Zealand I had hard time to persuade Zuzka to accept big side trip to Moeraki. I wanted to see those famous boulders and she preferred other places - there are so many of them in New Zealand. Peter sided with me so she finally accepted. But everything was resolved in favour of Moeraki after we failed to book Milford Track for beginning of our trip. The first available slot was at 6th, so that we needed to spend more time in south - the side trip sounded better now.
After we returned from Isle of Wight to Southampton we went to Brimar Guest House. It is very good guest house and I can endorse it. Friendly staff, clean, quiet, very good breakfast.
Our program for Sunday was to explore coast line of Dorset. Me and Peter have been there before, but other people in our group have not. And it is worth of seeing it more times. It took me longer than usual to decide which photo to select as main for this post. I like to select photo containing red or earth colours if there is some to complement "greenery" of the blog, but I realized many of recent "cover" photos are like that. And it would be mistake if I did not use Durdle Door to represent Dorset.
Another trip waiting to be published for about 1 month (and there are more waiting). This time we went to the south of England.
Our destination was Isle of Wight as main attraction for Saturday and nearby coast up to Portland for Sunday. The weather was beautiful for whole Saturday.Iceland Day 8 - Northwest Iceland
Added: August 19, 2008
We plan to spend Saturday 21st of June in Northwest Iceland. Beautiful weather started later yesterday and it is the same today.
We need to travel a lot today again, there is no chance we could reach our destination Reykir soon. But there should be plenty of light as we have learned from previous days. Not to mention it is Summer solstice today.
Early May Bank Holiday
Added: May 17, 2008
Finally I got enough time to process and sort photos from previous trip to London, Brighton, Seven Sisters, Norwich, Ely and Cambridge.
We had wonderful time there, nice weather, a lot of to see and enjoy. Very good way to spend 3 free days (I hope following Bank Holiday will be even better. Location has really potential, so stay tuned for photos from folowing weekend).
I have to skip one 3 days trip, because I am not able to process all photos fast enough. And this short trip came out of blue after realizing Sunday is going to be hot. We decided to go to beach somewhere near Swansea. Frantic looking for places, buses, trains, cooking lunch.
3 hours of traveling (1 hour waiting for next bus in Swansea is counted), then only 2 hours to spend in Gower (and still 1km to go to Three Cliffs Bay).
Very nice place, beautiful and surprising weather for UK and May, but water is quite cold. Unfortunatelly I acclimatized to its coldness only during our walk back to bus. It is pity that last bus leaves to Swansea at 17:54 on Sunday :-(
We left with very good feeling and resolution to get here sooner next time.
Note: I experienced some problems with color management and I am not sure about it, thus these pictures might look differently than I intended them.
We spent 3 of 4 free days provided by Easter in Cornwall and partially also in Devon (but also in Somerset).
All was organized and planned quite fast, so it was not ideal (places to visit vs. places to sleep at). Also weather did not seem promising.
Completely we did about 1080km.
Greetings from wet and windy Cardiff! This is my postcard 1.0 (or better 0.5 :-) ). Finally, I was able to get to some sight-seeing here at March 7th-9th. Pictures follow, some also with explanation. The original idea to keep it like postcard with 3-5 pictures failed due to incorrect scope estimation :-(
RSS feed