From 18/09/15 to 27/09/15 we spent 9 amazing days in Iceland, including 7 days travelling the Ring Road, also known as Route 1 and our final 2 days we spent in Iceland’s Capital – Reykjavik.
As we landed in Keflavik, Iceland’s main airport, it became clear to us that this was going to be a place unlike any we have visited before, and I could see why people describe it as like “landing on the moon“. We looked out to see a breathtaking landscape
View of Navagio Beach, from Anafonitria
Chloe and I chose the Gorgeous Greek Island of Zakynthos for our annual mother-daughter holiday in June/2015. Every year the boys go fishing in France, and every year the girls go play in the sun!
We had been in the Island for about 3 days already when we decided on a boat tour to the Island’s most famous landmark, Navagio Beach, also know as Shipwreck Beach. We chose to go with a tour company called “my Tours” and we were picked up from our hotel at about 7:30 am and taken
Canyon Itaimbezinho, Brazil
Our time in the South of Brazil was coming to an end, so we wanted to leave on a high note by visiting the Canyons of Itaimbezinho and Fortaleza and also to spend this last few days doing a fun activity with my father, sister and nephews. Unfortunately my brother and his family were not able to join us. These two Canyons are located near the town of Cambara do Sul, only about 1:30 hours from my home town of Canela or about 170 Km from the State capital of Porto
The setting for this Big Fat Brazilian Wedding, was Canela in the deep South of Brazil, the land of the gauchos and Bavarian style architecture, a town situated in the green, lush hills of the “Serra Gaucha”. See my earlier post about this little picturesque, Southern town named after a Cinnamon tree.
The bride is my niece Caroline, who like me was born and brought up in this quiet and quaint little town. The groom Benjamin, British, born and brought up in the
Catedral de Pedra, Canela
Canela is a pretty and picturesque town in the South of Brazil, located at 837 meters above sea level in a region called Serra Gaucha ( Gaucho Highlands) or Regiao das Hortensias ( Hydrangeas Region) named after its beautiful blue Hydrangeas flowers that frame roads and landscapes throughout the spring and summer months. Located in the state of Rio Grande do Sul ( it means Great Southern River) which is the Southernmost estate of Brazil, bordering with Argentina and Uruguay. Canela
Cheers to the Bride
According to Wikipedia a Hen Do or a Bachelorette party is a party held for a woman who is about to get married. It is modeled after the Bachelor party, historically a dinner given by the bridegroom to his friends shortly before his wedding. Hen parties were uncommon until the mid-1980’s and they are not at all common in Brazil.
As it turned out the Bride was already married when we set off for a long weekend of debauchery in Barcelona mid May 2014, but this Hen Do was not,
2 – 4 of May 2014 – We attended the wedding (Take One) of our lovely Brazilian niece Caroline, to Englishman Benjamin on the beautiful Isle Of Wight (IOW) just off the South coast of England.
The happy couple met in 2007 in Bournemouth, Dorset. Ben was in Bournemouth attending a friend’s stag do (bachelor party) and Carol lived with us not far from Bournemouth, and on that particular night, she was out with friends clubbing in Bournemouth. I believe it took Ben few beers
Since we were going to be in Rome for a whole week, we thought a day trip to Naples to visit Mount Vesuvius and the Ancient Roman town of Herculaneum would be doable, and worth the travel.
If you remember from my blog post on Rome (previous post), our Rome apartment was very near the Termini train station and therefore it was rather easy for us to catch the 7:30 trains to Naples.
There are significant fare differences between the various categories of trains and there is an opportunity
We could probably have done a better job of recording all the incidental costs which we have just captured here under Misc…. things like food and drink, taxis, tours, haircuts, massages, ice creams etc etc etc, but that will have to be an improvement for future blogs as we just didn’t really record these as we went along. All the major travel and accommodation costs are in here though, and the total is about right.
We could have saved on this amount and cut corners,
Day 7 ( Friday, 31/01/14) – Our 2 weeks backpacking adventure continued, now to the South of Thailand on the Andaman Sea. We flew from Chiang Mai to the large Island of Phuket.
From the Airport in Phuket we took a minibus to Patong Beach, arriving at our hotel tired and hungry at about 4 pm. Also annoyed with the mini bus driver, for stopping randomly at a place where they were clearly keen to sell excursions etc. to all of us when all we wanted was to be taken to our hotels with no