We left the sunny California desert and headed for the largest megacity in the world – Tokyo, population 37,274,000. February weather in Tokyo isn’t terrible, by Canadian standards. During our stay temperatures hovered around the 10° – 14°C (50° – 57°F) mark (we did have one day of snow with a high of only 0°C…
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From Portugal we crossed the Atlantic, and a good chunk of North America, to spend Christmas with my parents at their winter home in the Palm Springs area. Our boys flew down from Calgary for a few days too, and we all enjoyed soaking up the desert sun together. Because we were staying with family,…
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I wonder how different the world would look if the Portuguese hadn’t been such intrepid explorers. Their maritime empire lasted for nearly six centuries and touched every continent save for Antarctica. Expansion began in 1415 with the conquest of Ceuta in North Africa and, ended in 1999 when they transferred sovereignty over Macau back to…
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We drove from Montefiascone, Italy to Malpica, Spain, which is roughly 2200 km (1367 miles). In Canada Howard would think nothing of an 11-hour day of driving, making a journey of 2200 km a very doable two-day trip. European roads are not so conducive. Vehicles were travelling anywhere between 70 km over the speed limit…
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This post is a bit of a weird combination of destinations. Our time in Sicily was separated by a two-week stint in Malta, and then we did a couple of quick stops on mainland Italy before embarking on a 2,200 km (1,367 miles) trek to Spain (that will be the next post), so I apologize…
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While the Maltese Archipelago may be tiny in terms of land area (316 sq km / 122 sq miles), it has big history – two of the three inhabitable islands (Malta and Gozo) have the remains of megalithic structures predating Stonehenge by more than 1,000 years! Phoenicians established settlements on the islands around 750 BCE…
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After 66 nights outside the Schengen Zone (see our Italy to Hungary post for Schengen rules), we headed back to spend the balance of the year (mid-October to Christmas) in Italy, Malta, Spain and Portugal. We averaged $191/day Canadian ($140 USD / €141) for this leg of our travels (1 night in Dubrovnik, the overnight…
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Our travels through the Balkans have made clear to us how the histories of these countries are inextricably intertwined. If you haven’t read our previous posts, you may find the ones on Serbia and Bosnia & Herzegovina particularly interesting. Originally one of the many Roman provinces along the Adriatic, the Slavs (ethnic Serbs) migrating into…
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We took an early morning ferry from Hvar to Split and I’d hoped to catch a catnap in the car, but they put us in the bowels of the ship and you aren’t allowed to stay in your vehicle down there. The ramp into the ship’s hold was about the width of our car’s wheelbase…
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From the Istria Peninsula our next destination in Croatia was the island of Hvar, but we scheduled a couple of overnight stops along the way – Zadar and Split. I won’t bore you again with the history of Croatia, since I did that already in our previous post on the Istria Peninsula, but feel I…
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