Category: Travel
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Camino de Santiago: Portomarin to Palas de Reis
Date: Tues Oct 15th 2024 It was very misty in the morning. The countryside was similar to the previous day and would remain that way as we made our way through Galicia towards Santiago de Compostella. The walk passed through a mix of fields and forest punctuated by frequent villages with small Romanesque churches (most…
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List #19: US National Parks (AND Historical Parks) we Visited
In 2009, we took the kids on a road trip from San Francisco to Utah and Arizona and back to LA via San Diego. The kids were 10, 8 and 6 and visiting the National Parks was one of the highlights. I was so impressed with their Junior Ranger program, which allowed the kids to…
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Camino de Santiago: Sarria to Portomarin
G and I had no intention of stumbling through the countryside in the dark, so we waited until full light and left at 8:40 am. As we stepped out of our door and turned up the hill, we found ourselves behind a mass of people. Fortunately, a large portion of that mass was a school…
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Camino de Santiago: Leon to Sarria
The transport options between Leon and Sarria on a Sunday were not great so we organised a private transfer with a stop at Ponferrada, a little town on the Camino just over 100km from Leon. The main attraction in Ponferrada is Castillo de Los Templarios, the Templars Castle. The castle was commissioned in 1178 to…
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Ask Me Anything: Vol 2
I’m finally getting around to answering some more questions from San. What place have you travelled to that surprised you, and why? This was a tricky one, but I will say my second trip to Hangzhou. I first visited Hangzhou in 2000, and my second trip took place in April 2013. I was blown away…
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Camino de Santiago: Leon
Before Christmas I left off my recap of our Camino in Burgos. Our train from Burgos was running late, so we didn’t get to Leon until after 6 pm. We were staying at Hotel Real Colegiata de San Isidoro, which was the monastery in the Real Colegiata de San Isidoro complex. The complex also includes…
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Lorne Long Weekend
We spent last weekend at Lorne with friends at their beach house. Their place is stunning, set up on the hill, backing onto the Coastal Park bushland that abuts the Otway National Park. We were socialising on the deck our first evening, eating cheese and drinking wine while two wallabies munched on the grass down…
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Camino de Santiago: Burgos
I left off my Camino recap in Pamplona. That afternoon, we caught the train to Burgos, the next major town on the Camino. For the next four days, we would be fast-forwarding through the central section of the Camino. Once we’d checked in to our hotel, we headed out to look at the town. Our…
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Camino De Santiago: Zubiri to Pamplona
We woke in Zubiri to an email from our travel company advising of a severe travel warning—the tail end of a hurricane was sending high winds and rain across Spain and France. The forecast was for fine weather from 8 am – 12 pm so we got started and walked fairly quickly without a break…
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Camino de Santiago: Roncesvalles to Zubiri
Continuing our pilgrimage, we left Roncesvalles around 8:00 am and started walking. I think I’ll leave the photos to do most of the heavy lifting for this day’s walk. Although the trajectory was mainly downhill, you can see from the elevation detail above that there were a few steep uphills. After the previous day’s effort…