While in Switzerland I took a drive away from my hotel in Honegg and made my way to a model village seemingly dropped off in the middle of nowhere. I was clearly there in the off season as the parking lot was huge with lots of spaces for tour buses but there was hardly another soul there.
I can’t remember what the place was called, but it was pretty cool. They’d disassembled old houses from all the different regions of Switzerland and reassembled them in this rambling mountainside village.
Setting out for Sisteron, France I wasn’t sure what I would find following the hour and a half drive there. I also wondered what the roads would be like. I was pleasantly surprised as it turns out there is a nicely paved highway running from Aix-en-Provence most of the way to Sisteron. Once we arrived there, it was immediately clear that the drive was worth it. The town is perched on the bend of the River Durance and works it way up the valley walls. At the top is the Sisteron Citadel, which has significantly hindered the efforts of armies trying to enter Provence from Roman times through to the second world war.
What you see here is the Devil’s Sentry, posted high above the valley on an outcrop of rock. It’s not difficult to understand why it earned this name, especially when you imagine winter winds whipping through the valley and directly into the sentry box.
The photo below shows what is left of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. This temple was home to the Pythia who sat upon a tripod and provided messages from the gods in answer to pilgrims’ questions. Unfortunately the answers were always worded as a riddle and could often be interpreted to align with the results, whichever way they fell!
I didn’t know this before visiting, but it turns out that Delphi means dolphin. Sure enough, while enjoying lunch at a restaurant on the sea not far away three dolphins appeared and spent quite a while playing in the water in front of us.
I had heard from friends who had visited Delphi that it’s far hillier than you’d expected. Sure enough, it’s built on a steep slope, with the stadium at the top. On the way up to the stadium you get this view back over the theater, giving me a good excuse to stop and catch my breath.
In my post about Delphi I mentioned that I had made a return to Greece last February to tick a couple spots off the list that I’d missed, while inter-railing across Europe, due to an extended stay in Thessaloniki. The other place that I’ve been wanting to get back to is Meteora, where monasteries perch atop rock pinnacles. They used to be cut off from civilization with no roads leading to them. The method used for entry by most was formerly a rope net basket that the monks would climb into, to be hoisted up by the monks above turning a wooden winch. Standing on the edge of these and looking down was pretty terrifying.
Do you think the cows that inhabit this hillside recognize that they occupy some fantastic real estate?
When planning my Cinque Terre trip, there was something about Vernazza that made me decide I had to stay there. This was despite the fact that there was a dearth of hotel accommodation in the town, I was only booking a week in advance after all. The end result was that I booked into a two star hotel next to the train track. Upon reading the reviews, it seemed like it was clean enough but that I’d be greeted by a grumpy old lady at the front desk.
Sure enough, after 24 hours of traveling via two planes, a bus, two trains, and my feet, I arrived to meet the grumpy old lady on the front desk. I think the fact that I expected a cold greeting softened the blow a bit as I sat, chuckling to myself, while she finished whatever it was she was doing on a computer. Ten minutes later I was being rushed up the stairs and into my room, where I was shown the light-switch, bathroom, and balcony and was left alone. I was on the top floor – at least if I was in a crappy hotel, I was in the penthouse of the crappy hotel. I stepped out onto the small balcony and was shocked to discover a family of four sat on the balcony right next to me.
Anyways, I loved Vernazza and want to go back. On my first night I walked down the central port for dinner. I ate, surrounded by locals, under the multi-coloured umbrellas you can see in the shade down there. Pesto and local pasta to start, which was the best I’d ever had followed by veal Milanese. It was fantastic. It was then that I discovered that I was in a restaurant renowned for it’s seafood… naturally I went back the next night to try out the sea bream.
This photo was taken from on top of the small fortification guarding the town. While up there a helicopter with video equipment passed over me a few times. If you spot me on the travel channel, let me know.
Watching this sunset from this spot was not part of the agenda. While still in Hanoi, we had booked a ferry/bus combo from Ha Long Bay out to Cat Ba island. We had decided to bi-pass Ha Long Bay for the less trafficked but similar Cat Ba island.
I’m normally pretty good at avoiding getting ripped off when travelling, but this time we fell into a bit of a trap. We were promised a direct boat trip to the island, as we wanted to get there and be able to explore at our own pace. Instead, after getting to the port we discovered that we were being bundled onto a tour boat, which made numerous stops. The hour long trip was going to take us a whopping 8 hours!
We weren’t the only people to fall into this trap as there were about 6 others who were also stuck on this boat unintentionally. The worst part was, as we’d paid for a transport and not a tour, when they gathered everyone together to tell them what the plan was, we discovered that there was going to be food served, but there was none for us. As we thought we were on a 1 hour boat ride, we had no food with us at all, and we were already hungry!
So, when I look at this beautiful sunset I can’t help but feel a little bitter about the fact that I was starving, captive, and miserable.
It got worse though, once we got to the island we needed a bus to take us to the main area. Our bus arrived, we boarded it and it promptly broke down. Cue another hour wait for another bus to arrive!
When I arrived at the Hotel Honegg in Switzerland, I was recovering from a sprained ankle, so naturally I decided the first thing I should do is walk up the mountain behind the hotel. On the way back down, I stopped to take this panorama. This is comprised of six pictures so it took me quite a while to take them all. Once I was finished and packed up, I realized that I’d been stood blocking the view of a man sat on a bench behind me… jumped out my skin when he said “hallo!”.
Rio de Janeiro is set in an amazing setting as the city seems to drape itself over the mountains that grow out of the ocean. I was only there for a few days during the World Cup so didn’t really get a feel for the city, apart from a couple of interesting nights out in the Samba district. My dad and I also stumbled upon a restaurant for lunch one day in Ipanema that was so good we had to bring the rest of our group back there for dinner the same day.
We worked up our appetite that day by first visiting Sugar Loaf mountain where we got this view back over the Botafogo district, where we were staying.
