Travels of John and Flo – Page 5

October 17, 2017October 19, 2020

Exploring Lake Como & Portofino

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.

September 30, 2017October 19, 2020

Cruising the Esterel Coastline

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.

July 23, 2017October 19, 2020

Importance of Projects in Life

It’s important we have projects that continually challenge us, keep us busy and engaged. When we are young play and school fulfill this role. As adults, we transition into work and hobbies. Education and employment are most often, however, obligatory. We don’t have to create our own projects, they (or our educators and/or employers), create them for us.

June 29, 2017October 19, 2020

Sailing the Istrian Peninsula

In mid’ June we returned to Croatia for another sailing trip. This would be our fourth; two before out of Dubrovnik exploring the islands to the north of the wall town, and one exploring the islands south of Split. We really enjoy Croatia for sailing, one of the best areas in the Med in our opinion, for number of reasons. Great weather, warm-enough waters, friendly people, short distances between really interesting places, the price, and the variety of ports and boats and companies to choose from.

June 26, 2017October 19, 2020

Return to Venice

We spent a week in Venice in 2011 and, other than the crowds, we really enjoyed exploring its streets and waterways. It is an amazing city like no other, based primarily on water transportation for all services, and it does it all, it seems, so well. And it is so photogenic, with never-ending opportunities for photo ops.

June 5, 2017October 19, 2020

Biking & Boarding on the Cote d’Azur

I’ve covered many biking and boarding opps along the coast of Cote d’Azur that are most worth going to and reachable from Nice. But there’s a lot more happening up in the hills behind Nice, but to get to them I need transportation. This past weekend a friend lent me her car, and as Flo was out of town, I could use the bike rack and put the paddle board in the back of the car and head out and do some exploring.

June 5, 2017October 19, 2020

Bike Trip to Valberg

This is the third day of a long weekend of biking and boarding along the Cote d’Azur. The other day activities are mentioned here. I knew at the beginning of this trip that I was perhaps taking on more than I could manage, but rationalized it by saying I’d start low and slow and work my way up, I knew that if it became too much of a climb, I could just turn around and glide back to where I started.

May 13, 2017October 19, 2020

Bike Ride to the Grande Corniche Park

Since we’ve been back I’ve been getting in a lot of biking while waiting for the ocean to warm up. The weather has been exceptionally cold in the evenings in Nice, so the ocean is especially cold for this time of the year. Even biking early in the morning it can be a little chilly so I’ve been going out with a sweater overtop of my biking outfit.

April 29, 2017October 19, 2020

Weekend in Seville

After a couple of weeks in the Algarve, primarily the Carvoeiro region, we drove east to Seville, Spain, about two hours away. The old town of Seville is quite something, like a maze that at first can be quite intimidating as the streets are so narrow and windy that it is difficult to know where you are or if you are going in the direction you want to be. I highly recommend using GPS at first, as a map doesn’t help much as not all the streets are labelled. And, they seem to change their name every few hundred yards!

April 20, 2017October 19, 2020

Carvoeiro Coastal Walk

In the Algarve, our favorite area is around Carvoeiro, a bench of high land between the towns of Albufeira and Portomao, which offers rolling hills on a an elevated coastline, and an amazing oceanfront with spectacular cliffs, grottos, caves and picturesque beaches. In between the town of Carvoeiro and the beach of Marinha, there is a coastal path one could never tire from walking. We did it in stages, so that we could walk back to our car each time. The walk is posted as medium-difficult, stretches just under 12 km and to walk it all at once would take about six hours.