The next day we decided to visit Old Cairo, also known as Islamic Cairo. We walked from downtown to Khan-El-Khalili which is where the souqs (markets) are. On the way we seemed to walk through the furniture neighbourhood where narrow alleys were filled with tacky upholstered chairs. Seemed like a really stupid area to focus…
Tag: religion
Monks, Pagodas and Sunsets in Mandalay | Myanmar
Mandalay is a big city with plenty of sites in and around the area. We’d spent two days out of the city, exploring the Mingun pagoda up the Irrawaddy River and also in the waterfalls to the east. So on our final day we took the free bicycles from our hotel and whizzed around the…
First impressions of Myanmar and exploring Mingun Pagoda
We had the opportunity to visit Myanmar back in 2009 but we decided not to as we ignorantly thought the only reason to visit was to see pagodas. We’d seen our fair share of temples already in South East Asia so Myanmar was missed off our itinerary, but now, almost 10 years later we are…
Exploring the Silk Road Cities in Uzbekistan
We were really excited to visit Uzbekistan, the altitude and heat had got to us while exploring the mountains so the idea of leisurely strolls around Silk Road cities sounded like a rather appealing change. We crossed the border from near Panjikent in Tajikistan, the border only reopened this year after a long time being…
The Taj Mahal of America | West Virginia
Set amongst the rolling hills of West Virginia is a little slice of India, and what some say is the Taj Mahal of America. A wiggly, hilly road took us past farm houses where the American flag swayed in the wind and shortly after we arrived at the majestic palace. Swami Prabhupada was the founder…
An abbey on an island, the ‘route du cidre’ and a church built in a tree
Mont-St-Michel is another of France’s major landmarks, and a very distinctive image. I’ve seen the photo numerous times; an island close to the mainland which has stone buildings leading up a hill with sharpe spires rising above it. I didn’t realise it was actually a town, albeit a minuscule one at that. The vast majority…
A little drive through Southern Italy
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…
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…
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…
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…
NON STOP TRAVELLING 