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.
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.
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.More from Chora, Folegandros
Added: August 04, 2013
For such a small island I wanted to show too many photos. They would not fit into single post and my original approach with several pages per post was not very successful - people haven't noticed there is another page (at least those looking at photos). So now I try to separate them in individual posts.
That leads me to this small and potentially strange post - about our accommodation in Chora and about nearby church. What links them together is direct visibility from one to other.
The second island belonging to Cyclades we had visited was Φολέγανδρος. What a difference to Santorini. I don't mean different geology, but how I felt there. While Santorini is touristy, busy and commercial, Folegandros is quiet and not many tourists find it. Locals live their lives and that is part of its magic.
I felt much better in Foldegandros than in Santorini. Finally we had an option to relax. Lonely Planet said it nicely: "Turn off the clocks on dreamy Folegandros". Some people might say there is nothing on Folegandros, but for me that is the point. 3 or 4 full days are probably sufficient to see everything interesting, but more might be needed for proper relaxing. We have been there for 3 days (arriving in the morning of the first day and leaving in the evening of the 3rd day) and certainly we could stay longer.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.Santorini - Oia
Added: August 03, 2013
Οία is the Santoriniest place of whole Santorini :-) When you search for Santorini, you will probably find more photos from Oia, than from any other place. Even web ad companies still show me glimpses of Oia thinking I am interested in holiday again. Stupid cookies.
Santorini - Firostefani
Added: August 03, 2013
Firostefani is another town in Santorini or maybe it is part of Fira, I don't know. It's name suggests that and also there is no clear separation between them. Nevertheless I decided to write about it in separate post.
Santorini - Fira
Added: August 03, 2013
We wanted to go to Santorini for quite long time. Long enough we have already forgotten whose idea it was. Eventually we planned it for following September. That was, according to our information, the best time of year to go there. But I started to be impatient in April and started searching for information just in case our source of information was wrong. And eventually we have learned, that we like more weather statistics for late May or early June than what September offers.
Quick preliminary search for flight and accommodation prices, then allocate free time and we can start serious price hunting. I handled before mentioned areas, Zuzka looked into our itinerary. And it would not be her if she wanted to stay at one place for whole time. So she added also nearby islands Folegandros and Milos. "Those are beautiful islands, but they don't have international airport. Do you see my point?". "Yes, I do :-)"
Capital of former Incan empire, Cuzco is wonderful. We liked it a lot. There are hints of Incan architecture and also colonial. It is quite touristy, I haven't seen so many touts at one place before, but there has to be some price you pay for famous place.
We spent morning exploring centre of city and we will go afternoon to nearby places (it will be a separate post). We were not in a hurry, those a few places we wanted to see can be handled in half a day. The worse "problem" is Peruvian approach to tickets. You cannot buy any individual ticket, there are only for 10 days and the cheaper is I think for 3 days with limited number of attractions. It might not be bad deal if you stayed in Cuzco longer, but we were bound to leave soon.
We spend whole day 15th of February in bus from Puno to Cuzco. It was very nice scenic road and that was also reason we decided to travel during day, compared to alternative night trip. That would save us some time and also money, but we would not see anything.
Copacabana, Bolivia
Added: June 24, 2010
It's 12th of February and we are finally heading to Lake Titicaca! A pick up bus again arrives 30 minutes ahead of scheduled range, this time a driver is not willing to wait 5 minutes until I finish packing. We have to go to Vicuña Tours near main bus terminal to catch our bus. Fortunately receptionist is very helpful - he shows us the place on a map and catches a taxi for us.
The bus is packed, no wonder due to strike there are more travellers keen to get to Copacabana. It is really cloudy, clouds are quite low, because in El Alto they form fog.
It was the 35th day of our travelling, Monday 1st of February 2010. Our flight landed at El Alto. We walked about 100m to passport control and it was sufficient to get light headed and heavy breathing. No wonder, El Alto is at about 4100m above sea level and we flew there from Santiago de Chile at 520m. With such high elevation any strange feelings in head cannot be ignored.
I cannot help myself, I have to show many photos here. No wonder, we've spent more days in La Paz than at any other place we travelled through. We wanted to acclimatize to this altitude well before heading to "wilderness" and spent there 4 days. And then later 3 unplanned days. During that time I found I like La Paz a lot. It's atmosphere, people, colours, mountains, even weather was amazing. Our stay was enhanced by very good hostel Cruz de los Andes we stayed at. Staff did not speak English much, only one lady was able to help in all cases, but for simpler needs we managed well also with others. We liked especially old lady in kitchen who served breakfast. While staying in La Paz to get acclimatized to altitude you don't need to be bored. You can make many small trips in surroundings. We went to Tiwanaku and Valle de la Luna (those are easy) and later we made a hike to Chacaltaya (~5300m). You can go further away, like for example visiting Copacabana at Lake Titicaca.
We woke up to see terrible storm on 3rd of January. Great, it was wonderful weather yesterday and it is terrible today. We got completely soaked just after running to the other side of road and packing our luggage into car. That did not help with our mood.
And we had two attractions asking for fair weather planned today! We planned to go into Lake Tekapo and to have helicopter trip to Mt Cook. We can move that to next day or to next week when we get to Wanaka or Franz Josef. But we will not be able to move visit of St John observatory to any other day, so let's hope sun starts to shine.Norway Day 3 - beautiful fjords and mountains
Added: September 07, 2008
Sunday 20th of July starts as cloudy with ocassional blue patches in the sky. One of main highlights of our trip in Norway should happen today - cruise in Geiranger fjord.
I appologise for tons of photos here. I just could not edit them tighter.
Norway Day 2 - waterfalls, mountains and summer skiing
Added: September 06, 2008
Saturday 19th of July we woke up to weather as was forecasted even I refused to believe it will be cloudy previous day. Well, it was. End of blue sky and good photos...
Some waterfalls are planned for this day, 2 national parks, old wooden churches, we will go through interesting tunnels and there are some alternatives. It depends on time, but we have no illusions that this time we could progress faster :-) And of course - cherries has been added unexpectedly to our daily menu yesterday.
We need to get to Bøverdalen in the evening.
Iceland Day 9 - Back to Keflavik
Added: September 03, 2008
Saturday 22st of June is our last full day in the Iceland. Our flight is scheduled on Monday at about 7am, hence I do not count it.
I wish we had such weather whole time as it is these days. But at least we have seen all possibilities.
The biggest (and the tallest) attraction today is hike to waterfall Glymur. Otherwise we just need to drive to south with occasional diversion and stop.
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.
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