Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China Well here we are, in a flash hotel room in Chengdu, China, having just woken up from a pretty good night’s sleep in a lovely comfortable bed. (previous readers of this blog will know I place high value on bed and pillow comfort!) China doesn’t allow Facebook, so what better excuse to revive…

To start: a selection of photos from our last day. Click on each one for a description. We have reached the end of our holiday. As the saying goes ‘all good things must come to an end’. Personally, I’d rather they didn’t! I am writing this post on the flight home to Australia. Thanks to…

نحن تتمتع البحرين. واليوم نحن نذهب إلى قطر. = We are enjoying Bahrain. Today we go to Qatar. We had a great day in Bahrain yesterday. We ended up walking quite a bit. 7728 steps before lunch, which is not bad in 32C and 95% humidity. Admittedly we mostly walked inside air-conditioned shopping  centres. The centre attached…

We bid a fond farewell to Europe yesterday after a wonderful 24 hours in Fiumicino. I’m really glad we stayed there rather than in Rome. It was certainly much easier to get to the airport – just a 10 minute €16 taxi drive. Breakfast at the little hotel was sensational. The guest rooms were on the…

Ciao. Siamo ora in Italia presso una città chiamata Fiumicino, vicino Roma. Hello, we are in Italy in a town called Fiumicino, near Rome. I think I might learn Italian. I’m not sure when I will fit that in, but it is such a lovely language and for some reason it seems to come quite naturally…

  Our last day on the cruise, and not much to report because, basically, we did nothing! So a few snaps from the last week or so. (including the obligatory cruse towel sculptures) Tomorrow – Rome 🙂 (There was an earthquake in Italy today – no where near where we are going)      

Well it’s happened. This is it. I’ve liked certain places before… I was really impressed with Venice. Historical, yummy food, beautiful architecture. When Victoria and I went to Japan I so enjoyed Tokyo. Who wouldn’t adore Athens on a sunny day like we did in May 2014. But I now have a new thing. Barcelona: my…

Dave, Victoria and Will have all been to Spain. Today I can say that I have too. It has always been on my list, but you know, already having six ‘S’ countries up my sleeve: Singapore, Solomon Islands, San Marino, Switzerland, South Korea and Slovenia, meant it was hard to convince Dave of the need to come…

SORRY – uploads are working at one picture an hour 🙁 Will try to get them to load in port tomorrow. Today was a lovely relaxing day at sea made up of three simple things. Eating, sleeping and a little exercising. For Dave, the exercise was 8500 steps around the walking track after breakfast this…

Why is Malta famous? Is it about the Maltese Terrier? Nice dog, but no that’s not it… Is it the delicious Maltese Pastizzi? We enjoyed a couple of the cheese filled pastries today (50c each), but no, not that either… Perhaps the Maltese Falcon? A great book and Humphrey Bogart film, but not enough to make the…

It seems, that seasoned ‘cruisers’ have differing opinions on the value of sea days. Some like a lot of them, some don’t like them at all. Dave and I like the odd sea day, but not too many. Today we definitely needed a rest after a full-on three stops in three days. We are not,…

Kotor is a seaport town, in the Kotor bay on the coast of Montenegro. We arrived early, just before sunrise, so I got up and watched our arrival into the bay through the narrow Verige strait which leads from the Adriatic into the bay. The mountains, which surround the bay, are tall and lined with limestone…