We had 5 days to explore a smidgen of Southern Italy before our ferry to Croatia. The diesel is as expensive as in Norway, and the drivers are diabolical so we decided not to do a 1000km detour to Mount Etna and instead drove to Maratea on the western coast. We drove through a barren…
Tag: culture
Cave dwellings in southern Italy
Half of Matera’s population lived in cave dwellings, called Sassi, until the 1950’s. The Sassi have been inhabited since the Paleolithic age and were brought to public attention when Carlo Levi’s book, ‘Christ stopped at Eboli’ was published in 1946. He described the poverty and poor conditions they lived in. The book shamed the authorities…
Italy – the India of the West
After a 10 hour ferry from Greece, we reached the top of Italy’s heel at Bari. An announcement told us to head down to the car deck, so off we all went. To get to the lower deck though, we had to squeeze our way through trucks. The gaps between them were the width of…
The unknown wonder of the world
Our jaws dropped as we drove closer to the huge rock pinnacles of Meteora in Northern Greece. The rock formations alone would of wowed us as they seemed to appear from nowhere within a green valley. They had sheer walls but rounded tops, like fingers reaching up. Caves and cracks penetrated the walls and trees…
Change of Plans – We’re off to Italy
Travelling is easy breezy until decisions have to be made. We’d hoped to drive through Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo but since looking into our insurance it turned out we weren’t covered. I’ve read you can buy it at the border which were we thinking about doing but couldn’t find out how much it would all…
Remember When: The Hotel Fire in India
We managed to see our first ever wild Elephants while hiking within Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerela. It was a fantastic experience seeing these beautiful giants on foot, but not a safe one as we were charged by one and had to run for our lives. We were shattered by the end of the day…
Sleeping under Olive Trees on a Greek Island
As soon as we crossed the border into Greece, everyone looked Greek. Tanned and hairy would be the best description. They look like they’ve spent everyday of their lives basking in the sun and eating fresh food. Oh, and there are olive trees and cats everywhere. Greece was never really on our planned route, I…
Painted Monastery and Spikey Hoodoos
Rila Monastery is a unesco world heritage site and definitely on our agenda for Bulgaria. As we drove towards it we saw a sign advertising Stob’s Pyramids, so we turned off to check them out. The village of Stob was really sweet, everyone seemed to have a grapevine that spread over the pathway creating a…
Romanian Rumours
We wanted to get a good vantage point of the mountains in Retezat National Park, and after our unsuccessful hike the day before, we took the southerly route into the park. The road led through a beautiful valley, it would’ve been a lovely drive, had it not been for the grotty area. One town led…
A unique look inside a Gypsy Mansion
As we approached the end of town we spotted the tell tale silver roofs of the Gypsy mansions we’d seen a couple weeks back in Western Romania. Then there was another and another. All painted bright colours, with three stories, Chinese style tiered roofing and aluminium decorations. This time we took our time and stopped…
NON STOP TRAVELLING 