oops, photos ( 4 sets of photos to view)

amalfi more photos click here

rome and san gimignano click here

sienna photos click here

Florence photos

Aaaaahhhh, Panorama!!!!!

The beautiful Amalfi coastline.... it is what all the postcards look like (but unfortunately not our photos as it was quite overcast on the 2 days we were there).

Off the Beaten Track

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One last comment on Santorini - we spent our final night there at Perivolos beach, and while we were sitting at a restaurant enjoying the view across the water and waiting for our dinner

Spectacular Santorini

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We have loved having 3 days here on Santorini. We had prebooked accomodation at Hotel Babis in Fira - and he met us and a couple of other tourists off the ferry. The ferry trip took about 8 1/2 hours and was reasonably boring so we were glad to be met and not be bothered by touts and trying to find somewhere to stay. The hotel was oldish, but clean and the Babis family who run it were overwhelming in their welcome. The hotel also had a nice swimming pool which we enjoyed as a change to swimming at the beach. We walked into Fira town in the evening and had fun exploring all the tourist shops and restaurants and taking lots of stunning sunset photos. The main towns on Santorini are all on the very steep cliff side of the island, so make for stunning photos and views. There is a winding road up from the port - or you can walk - or some lazy tourists off the cruise ships take donkey rides up the path! Poor donkeys! In that heat, and there is this beautiful path up the cliff and along the edge of town - and it is covered with stinky donkey poo!

As we left in bike on the mainland, we hired a scooter the next day so we could explore the island. We went first thing in the morning to Oia and spent a few hours there taking oodles of photos (a bit of an "arty photo" competition thing going on! ) It is amazingly beautiful with the whitewashed buildings and contrast of blue. Then we rode across to the other side of the island to Perivolos where the "best beaches are. They are not a patch on beautiful NZ beaches with their grey sand - but still they were nice. Then our last stop was at Red beach, which was supposed to be amazing and have good snorkelling. But after a long steep climb down to it, the water was quite dirty and low viz for snorkelling, and not much to see anyway. So we left fairly quickly. We went back to Oia in the evening (only just in time!!!) to see the sunset. It was quite funny with hundreds of people all at one end of the town on every perch and ledge available to watch the sun set ... and then clap once it had!

The next day we changed hotels to spend our last night over on the Perivolas side. A beautiful hotel with lovely swimming pool, and bright pink bouganvillia everywhere. Unfortunately it was quite windy, so we spent most of our time by the pool and not on the beach anyway. We had dinner than night at one of the local restaurants beside the beach -- and were so surprised to see Abby Scott wander by! So we called out her name, and she was equally shocked and sat with us for a couple of hours chatting and catching up on lots of travel adventures.

A fabulous couple of days, but alas it was time to head back to the mainland for another long ferry ride and the next adventure.

Awesome riding in Peloponnese

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OK – all you bikers out there who are following our travels, and think a trip through Europe like this is a really great idea that you must also try before you get too much older …. here's a route to put on your itinerary for Greece that is not to be missed !

Olive Groves and sunshine

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Well, we have found the sun and its hot, hot, hot. Driving through olive groves perched on the sides of mountains with the Mediterranean on the other side is what we came here for.

A Greek Odyssey

 
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Relaxing in Greece .. and so glad to be out of Albania. So our first night in Greece after the escape was at Ioannina.

Escape from Albania

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After 2 days recharging the batteries in Sveti Stefan ( the beach was fantastic and the swimming pool at the apartment even better) we headed off in search of Ostrog Monastery – man, the road to that place was pretty bad with large potholes, very narrow and kamikazi drivers coming at you - its a monastery built high up a cliffside.