Traveling in Turkey

Since well before we arrived in Europe, Turkey has been near the top of our “must visit” list. It’s a very interesting country in terms of landscapes, history, food and culture – oh and history, did I mention history? There’s a lot of it there! Turkey is also a huge place and we were faced with difficult decisions choosing which parts of the country to see! In the end we opted for quite a well worn tourist track from Istanbul down the western coast via Gallipoli, Ephesus and Pamukkale before finishing with a relaxing week in a small resort town called Kalkan.

See Full Post...

Oslo, Norway

Last weekend was a bank holiday here in Dublin, so we took an extra day off and had a 4 day weekend in Norway. Scandinavia has been on our todo list for a while and given that we haven’t managed to visit any new countries yet this year it seemed like a good time to see a new place. We had an enjoyable weekend in Oslo, although when they say that Norway is one of the more expensive euro countries to travel to they’re not joking!

See Full Post...

California Sunshine

We’ve been in Mountain View for 2 weeks now and I’m enjoying many things about life here, especially the warm sunny days and the wealth of fresh food available at the weekend market and the local Whole Foods store. I’d forgotten what fresh veges should be like after so long shopping from Dublin supermarkets. Everything seems to grow bigger and brighter and tastier here as well as lasting much longer (coz its local and fresh!

See Full Post...

Easter in Donegal

Happy Easter everyone. I hope your long weekend was well-stocked with chocolate goodies, plenty of relax time and some quiet moments to reflect on the reason behind the holiday. Matt and I spent this Easter visiting Donegal, in the north-west of Ireland. It was great to get out of the city, see some beautiful natural landscapes and breath in the fresh country air. We stayed at Coxtown Manor near Donegal town, a charming place nestled in the country amid spring daffodils and frolicking lambs.

See Full Post...

Photos, Photos, Photos…

We finally had time to sit down and sort through the 600 or so photos we generated over the past week. For your viewing pleasure we’ve cut them down to the following highlights: Zurich and surrounds (Winterthur, Rapperswil) – ignore the first 10 winter photos, they’re from an earlier Zurich trip! The Rhine Falls – one of our day trips out of Zurich, it deserved a gallery all of its own.

See Full Post...

More on Zurich

Last week in Zurich was nice and relaxing. I enjoyed sleeping in and spending afternoons visiting different places in the city. I visited a Museum of Design one day and the Zurich zoo on another. I wandered around the old city and browsed the shops a lot. Zurich seemed very orderly and very expensive. The people there were generally quite reserved. Nobody smiled on the tram and most people are quite unwilling to speak English.

See Full Post...

Zurich and surrounds

We’re in Zurich this week, I’m here for work and Kat managed to get a week off work to relax and join me which certainly makes my traveling for work much more enjoyable. We arrived yesterday (Saturday) in the late afternoon and found our hotel/apartment with no problems. After settling in I took Kat on a quick tour of the central city / lake area which I’d sort of explored on a previous visit last year.

See Full Post...

Cruising the Caribbean

Ever since we booked our cruise holiday in January I’ve been eagerly awaiting May 29th, excited to flee the grey cold weather of Dublin and cruise the Caribbean in style with our fabulous friends Kieron, Lucy, Joey and Robbie. There was so much packed into our holiday last week that I don’t know where to begin in describing it. Lets just say it was 9 days of fabulousness! Memories of our tropical sunny holiday will keep me warm through the Irish ‘summer’ 😛

See Full Post...

8 Days in France and Spain – part 3

Thursday morning saw us make an early start from Avignon as we tried to fit in a quick trip to Carcassonne to see the walled city that one of our favourite board games is named after before catching our train to Barcelona from Montpellier in the early afternoon, a total of roughly 400km of driving. Thanks to the French motorway system and the generous 130km/h speed limit we managed this in just under 4 hours which gave us just enough time for a quick visit and a few photos in Carcassonne itself!

See Full Post...

Photos from France – part 1

We came home with over 600 photos between our two cameras and spent a good few hours today sifting through them and writing some captions. The first installment can be found via the link below: Photos from Nice, Monaco and the Cote d’Azur More to come in the following days as we find some more time to edit and caption the rest.

See Full Post...