Is this my first post about Slovakia? Well, I think so, because I am introducing a new category - Slovakia.
We have been thinking about visiting Vršatec every time we passed along it on motorway heading somewhere else. Interesting silhouette attracted us a lot, but it was easy to postpone visit every time. Until 3 weeks ago when we decided to take advantage of unbelievably nice weather for this time of year.Tenerife - hike at El Barranco de Masca
Added: November 01, 2011
Masca is described in Lonely Planet as a place similar to Macchu Picchu and you could get impression you have just discovered this place if you arrived before 10am. But after 10am, buses with tourists arrive and shops open... They got that after 10am part correctly.
The place is very nice, but small. Fortunately it is not just Masca what you can see here. There is also El Barranco de Masca - a gorge, where you can spend 3-4 hours walking in beautiful and narrow gorge down to ocean. And optionally the same time walking back.
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.
It is obvious Valle de la Luna (Moon Valley) is not really Moon-like landscape, because it was created by water erosion and there is not so much water on the Moon to create anything similar. That does not make it less impressive, though. And that name is not so bad after all. At least it says it is something worth of visit. Previous sentences probably show why programmers don't like marketing - it usually insults their analytical thinking :-)
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.
Full of experiences from Franz Josef Glacier we were speeding to the next point of interest - Pancake Rocks at Punakaiki. Punakaiki is 171km from Franz Josef. It was side trip for us and visiting that place was the only reason we did not book full-day walk on glacier, but only half-day. After finishing the walk we felt like we could be there for longer, but we looked forward to see Pancake Rocks.
We stopped in Greymouth to accommodate and continued in our ride to Punakaiki. It was getting more cloudy and late.
Next day we woke up full of hopes to do helicopter flight to Mt. Cook. It was partially cloudy, but nearly half of sky was clear. We called to Tekapo Helicopter at 9am and they did not know when they will fly. I tried again at 10am with the same result. That's it, we could not wait longer.
According to original plan we wanted to do about 3h long hike in Hooker Valley under Mt. Cook. But due to bad weather we decided to skip it too. We had about 200km to go for today plus some stops and we lost some time by waiting for helicopter friendly weather.
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.
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.
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