On 30th September 2014 I took an ill advised boat trip in Turkey.
After the debacle of the IMX excursion to Ephesus and Pamukkale and the road side break down we seriously considered cancelling our next IMX trip to Bodrum because this was by boat and whilst breaking down in a car is bad enough, in a boat it could be catastrophic.
Posted in Beaches, Europe, Food, History, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Altinkum, Boats, Bodrum, Culture, Greek Ferries, IMX Travel, IMX Travel Altinkum, Life, Travel
The visits to the Ancient sites of Turkey complete on 28th September 2014 we were making our painful return journey…
Hagi wasn’t in the AA roadside breakdown service or whatever the equivalent is in Turkey so there now followed a long winded debate as each of the passengers looked inside the engine compartment in turn as though they knew what they were talking about and offered alternative diagnoses and possible solutions.
There was a lot of head scratching, nodding and general agreement but the truth was however that there was no more engine technical knowledge between them than you could expect to find in an average reception class at a primary school and one by one the suggestions all inevitably failed.
Posted in Europe, History, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Altinkum Turkey, Culture, IMX Travel Altinkum, Life, Pamukkale, Travel, Turkey Breakdown
Even though travel restrictions are easing I am not yet minded to risk it so I still have no new stories to post so I continue to go through my picture archives and see where I was on this day at any time in the last few travelling years.
On 25th September 2014 I was on a coach excursion visiting Ancient historical sites in Turkey…
The problem with bus trips is that you cannot choose your travelling companions – it is a game of chance!
I imagined that we would be accompanied on this trip by middle aged historians in crumpled linen suits and battered panama hats, archaeologists carrying trowels and leather bound notebooks and the entire cast of a Merchant Ivory film but at the first pick up we were joined by a Geordie and boisterous Lithuanian family and then horror of horrors by a noisy bunch of women who looked as though they should really be going to a market rather than one of the World’s finest archaeological sites.
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Cathedrals, Europe, History, Hotels, Natural Environment, Postcards, Turkey, World Heritage
Tagged Cathedrals, Culture, Darts Team on Tour, Didim Turkey, Ephesus, Europe, Food, Greece, History, Hotels, Life, Literature, Natural Environment, Roman Empire, Travel, Turkey, World Heritage and tagged Altinkum Turkey
Even though travel restrictions are easing I am not yet minded to risk it so I still have no new stories to post so I continue to go through my picture archives and see where I was on this day at any time in the last few travelling years.
On 15th August 1972 I was in Edinburgh in Scotland…
Even though travel restrictions are easing I am not yet minded to risk it so I still have no new stories to post so I continue to go through my picture archives and see where I was on this day at any time in the last few travelling years.
On 30 July 2010 I was on the Greek Island of Symi close to Rhodes…
On arrival in Symi there was no one to meet us, no notes pinned to the door of the room or instructions giving any sort of advice at all on what to do and the phone was not being answered.
It was eleven o’clock and extremely hot and all we could do was sit on the sun terrace, sweat and wait. Luckily I had a couple of tins of Mythos in the bag so I had to drink them quickly before they heated up in the midday sun and after an hour or so and I had almost recovered from the ordeal of the climb I went all the way back down the steps to get some more and to buy some food for lunch.
Getting back up the steps returned me to my previous state of sweat streaked exhaustion and what I really needed was a cool blast of air conditioning but still the phone remained unanswered and still no one came.
A French guest came and went and told us that usually someone came by at about two o’clock so this meant that we would have an hour or so to wait so we made some lunch and drank some more Mythos and competed with each other for the shade of the wooden pergola.
Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
Posted in back packing, Beaches, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, History, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Ano Symi, Dodecanese Islands, Life, Photography, rhodes, Symi, Travel
The architecture of the town is Venetian; the houses above the old port are built up elegantly into slim tiers with narrow alleys and colonnades running between them; red, yellow, pink, umber – a jumble of pastel shades which the moonlight transforms into a dazzling white city…” – Lawrence Durrell –“Prospero’s Cell”.
While the current travel restrictions are in place I have no new stories to post so what I thought that I would do is to go through my picture archives and see where I was on this day at any time in the last few travelling years.
On 22nd July 2012 I was on the Greek island of Corfu.
Corfu Town boasts the stateliest of Neoclassical buildings, legacy of the nineteenth century British Protectorate of the Ionian islands.
Earlier during two short spells of Napoleonic occupation the French left their mark. This influence is best seen in the arcaded Liston, a tribute to Rue de Rivoli in Paris and a sun-drenched venue for sipping coffee and people-watching.
Before all this, the Venetians bequeathed all of the Ionian islands a distinctive landscape of Italianate buildings, silver-leafed olive trees and grape-heavy vines.
I am very fond of Corfu. Click on an image to scroll through the Gallery…
Posted in Beaches, Cathedrals, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, History, Literature, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Boat Rides, Corfu, Corfu Cricket, Kerkyra, Life, Photography, Saint Spyridon, Travel
While the current travel restrictions are in place I have no new stories to post so what I thought that I would do is to go through my picture archives and see where I was on this day at any time in the last few travelling years.
On 18th July 2005 I was on the Greek island of Tinos in the Cyclades…
“If you’re spending your holidays to the popular Greek party island, hop on a ferry from Mykonos to Tinos and 20 minutes later you’ll arrive at the holy Tinos island. It’s a great chance to have a taste of both sides of Cyclades! Trust us, you’ll be bewitched by the pristine beauty of Tinos!” – Greek Islands Travel Guide
One of the reasons so many Greeks visit Tinos is that it is an intensely religious island famous most of all for the Church of Panagia Evangelistria which holds a reputedly miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary and is the venue for an annual pilgrimage that is perhaps the most notable religious pilgrimage in all of the eastern Mediterranean.
Many pilgrims make their way half a mile or so from the ferry wharf to the church on their hands and knees as an extreme sign of devotion.
The day I was there was extremely hot and it was hard enough work just walking up the long hill to the church so I imagine that you would have to be seriously determined to do it on all fours, although to be fair there is a ragged strip of dusty red carpet at the edge of the pavement to stop pilgrims ripping their hands and knees to shreds or getting stuck in the melting tarmac.
Posted in back packing, Cathedrals, Cyclades, Europe, Greece, Greek islands, History, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, World Heritage
Tagged Culture, Life, Mykonos, Photography, Pilgramage, Religion, Syros, Tinos, Travel
We stopped at a desert recreational area and took a walk amongst the Saguaro cactus which are sometimes called the ‘desert monarch’ on account of the fact that they can be fifty feet tall and up to two hundred years old. We walked among them a short way but became understandably nervous when we read a warning sign about rattle snakes and we remembered Mike’s gruesome stories of painful venomous deaths where blood turns to cement and you die in seconds so we didn’t stay very long.
I think Mike was exaggerating. I looked it up later. There are about eight thousand reports of venomous snake bites every year in the USA but on average only five people die which is about twice as many in Australia. That is about the same amount of people who die from dog attacks in the UK each year.
Posted in Arts and Crafts, Childhood, Food, History, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, USA, World Heritage
Tagged Arizona, Deadly Snakes, Life, Phoenix, Photography, Scottsdale, Sonora Desert, Travel
This might sounds a bit ungrateful but I just wasn’t enjoying this part of the trip. I preferred the Grand Canyon excursion.
But I suppose it was the real reason for the visit and I tried as best as I could to try and stay focussed and show some interest in the Rapid Rail and the STARR system equipment, the Formula 7000 Square body and DPF Formula 7000 automated side loaders, the Formula 7000 split body co-collection automated side loaders and the DPF Half/Pack front loaders.
Finally, after what seemed a lifetime or three, the visit was over and the Managing Director gave each of us a bag of corporate gifts which included a polo shirt and baseball cap, a Swiss army knife and some unusually high quality pens.
Posted in Food, History, Hotels, Literature, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, USA
Tagged Arizona, Culture, Heil Trucks, Life, Phoenix, Photography, Refuse Collection Vehicles, Travel
For an Englishman a four hundred mile trip seems a very long way to drive for a day out.
If I drove that distance in any direction from my home then I would run out of road and reach the sea. Going east it would take only fifteen minutes. It is a journey like this that makes you realise the immense scale of the USA. Arizona is 115,000 square miles of emptiness and long stretches of never-ending road between towns, the UK is just less than 95,000 square miles and Arizona is bigger than forty of the fifty-one countries in Europe. It is bigger than half the countries in the World.
Posted in Food, Grand Canyon, History, Hotels, Natural Environment, Postcards, Travel, USA, World Heritage
Tagged Arizona, Arizona Cardinals, Grand Canyon, Life, Phoenix, Photography, Pointless Souvenirs, Travel
