flojohntravels.com
Spring has definitely arrived in the Cote d’Azur and I’m making the most of it by getting out and biking before the weather gets too hot. I’ve been revisiting my favorite rides and discovering some new ones. This past week I made my way to Mont Chauve, a mountaintop behind Nice and near the small hilltop village of Falicon.
Continue reading “Bike Ride to Mt. Chauve”Portugal’s Atlantic coastal highways are lined with numerous restaurants that specialize in serving fresh seafood. And they are very popular. Like all restaurants, there are good ones and not so good ones. Inexpensive and over the top. There’s so many that it’s hard to find the good ones from the bad.
We are back in Europe and recently made a visit to Portugal, a place we keep coming back to and hope to move to in a few months on a more permanent level. We start in Lisbon, but enjoying exploring the areas around the capital.
Continue reading “Ericeira, Portugal”
In years past I would hire an airplane so I could take aerial images of the Puerto Vallarta region for our print and online publications. When the market was hot I’d have to go up each year as so much would’ve changed because of real estate development. That said, I hadn’t been up since 2010 as the market in Vallarta really leveled off. But it is in full swing again, so it was time to update our aerial image bank. Even though I no longer have the print business, we did keep our MLS service and we make good use of the aerial images there.
Continue reading “Drone Photography of Puerto Vallarta”(If you’ve ever had to deal with bureaucratic red tape, you’ll love the short clip above)
We became residents of Portugal in 2017. Initially we purchased a small apartment in the Alfama area, the old town district of Lisbon, and then began the process of establishing everything else that comes with residency – bank accounts, home services, tax accountants, and deciding whether to buy a car/motorcycle or not, or both. We decided on both. And that’s where the fun began.
I’ve posted what the views are like when walking the cliffs of the Carvoeiro coastline a few times, but after dealing with a paddle board that badly needed patching, winds and strong swells, I finally got the opportunity to explore the coast by water.
Continue reading “Exploring the caves of the Algarve Cliffs”
I’ve already posted a number of photos of the shoreline cliffs around Carvoeiro in the Algarve area of Portugal, but we’ve been out walking more of this coastline recently, and the area and views are just too breathtaking to not post more.
Continue reading “Back to the Algarve”
Every now and then we like to do a trip on the spur of the moment, especially in the fall when the weather can be iffy. We choose a few places in different parts of Europe, and then as we get close to the time to leave, we go with the one where the weather looks best. This year the Lakes District of Northern Italy won out. So we loaded up the car with paddle boards and put our bikes on the bike rack, and hit the road.
Continue reading “Exploring Lake Como & Portofino”
We drove down from Nice to Frejus last week and rented a small runabout to cruise westward towards Cannes, while visiting the incredible L’Esteral coastline along the way. This massive volcanic red rock mountain-line juts out of the coastline between Frejust and Cannes, creating numerous small coves to explore by boat. L’Esteral is a national park, well protected with numerous hiking trails on land.
Continue reading “Cruising the Esterel Coastline”