For those of you following our progress, our next major destination after Tasmania was the City of Adelaide where we would spend four days. To get there we rented a Toyota Rav 4, from the Melbourne Airport and prepared to drive more than 1,200 kilometers, taking in what is said to be Australia’s most spectacular stretch of coast, The Great Ocean Road.
Tassie
This Australian island was only a name to me prior to this trip. It might not even have been that if it weren’t for Errol Flynn. He was one of my boyhood screen heroes, and I knew he came from a place called Tasmania.
Getting Mellow in Melbourne
The city of Melbourne on Australia’s South Coast with a population of 4,200,000 is nearly as large as Sydney, yet we experienced it quite differently. Partly, this was due to the influence of our German friends, Conny and Jocki, who have a long relationship with the city and who enjoy a relaxed style of life. They introduced us to Melbourne in a gentle fashion, first when we disembarked from the QM2 for a day and then again when we arrived for this longer visit after Sydney. It was fortunate that their current visit to Melbourne coincided with ours.
Museum of Old and New Art (MONA)
Today we visited MONA, the Museum of Old and New Art, situated a few miles upstream from Hobart on high ground overlooking the wide Derwent River. We arrived at 10 a.m. and didn’t leave until 3:30. Even with a longish break for lunch and rest in the Museum Café, it was a long time for us to spend at a museum.
Sydney
Ah Sydney, the brash and the beautiful! With lumps in our throat we said good-bye to the Queen Mary 2 at its berth along Circular Quay. In the six days that followed, we tried to look past this amazing harbor with its iconic opera house and bridge in order to begin to get a handle on the greater city.
Fremantle and Perth – The Same Only Different
Only nineteen kilometers apart, linked by history as well as proximity, Fremantle and Perth gave us our first taste of this sunburned continent. Originally scheduled to spend only one day in the port of Fremantle, our ship needed special maintenance, and this happy accident gave us an extra day. We were able to visit both towns.
Continue reading Fremantle and Perth – The Same Only Different
Island Hopping
They’re there, just off Turkey’s Aegean Coast, the Greek islands of the Dodecanese, the Twelve. Actually, there are many more than twelve, some so small they are uninhabited. The thing is they are so close to Turkey (Kos is only 20 minutes away by hydrofoil) that I’ve felt for a while I’d be missing something if I didn’t explore some of them.
Rhodes, the largest, is an island I’ve waited a long time to visit. It has a significant history. Remember the legendary Colossus, one of seven wonders of the Ancient World? Well, the Colossus, if it ever even existed, is long gone, but the harbor and the walls of Medieval Rhodes are intact, as is the Palace of the Grand Master of the order known as the Knights of St John. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.
Sweden Lies North
Sweden lies north, and in August, North is where the cool air is. That alone would have been reason enough for us to go; after all, seven years ago, to cool off was the impetus for Kay and me to journey by train and bus through Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Poland, and the Baltic countries all the way to Finland. This summer, though, we had an additional reason. We had promised ourselves and our former New York neighbor Desiree to visit her in Uppsala. Of course, we were curious, too. We had never been to Sweden. Continue reading Sweden Lies North
Eastward Ho!
Living in our middle-class Moda neighborhood, surrounded by the beauty of the sea and indulged by the delicious varieties of food and drink so near at hand, tends to cloud our view of Turkey as a whole. That’s why it’s good from time to time to rebalance our perspective by spending a few days in a different part of Anatolia, one far from the cosmopolitan delights of the seaside towns and cities. For that purpose. the northeastern section of the country, especially the districts containing the cities of Erzurum and Kars, are an excellent choice. These are the borderlands where the landscapes of mountains and steppe remind us that over the centuries it was through here that the waves of Selcuk and Ottoman Turks and the Mongol hordes from Central Asia passed to conquer and settle Asia Minor.
3 Countries on 2 Wheels in 24 Hours
Well, maybe it was 26 hours, but it could have been 24 if not for the shopping. I’ll get to that later.
The bike ride was the inspired notion of Kathy (aka Easy Rider) who organized and promoted it. In the end, after some defections, we were six. Besides Kathy, there were Altan (aka K9), Tara (aka Trust Me), Aylin and Laura (no aliases), and me (aka Godfarter).