Each year on our world trip, just before Christmas, we take time out of our busy travel schedule to have a few days “family time”, where we relax and have some fun. This is our third Christmas away from the family I grew up with in Australia, and that alone can be tough emotionally. So […]
It is a cold crisp winter’s afternoon when we visit Bran Castle. The pond below is frozen in a crisp sheet of ice. As we wander up the hill, we hear this castle is for sale. Want to buy a Castle for 80 million dollars? This looming castle is a legend, said to be Dracula’s Castle, […]
Three full-time traveling families got together and went on a convoy. Our cars zig-zagged up and down the small country roads of Romania. Past the snowy slopes as children tobogganed. Finally, we turned off on a long muddy road, and over a rattly wooden bridge. Our cars parked on a grassy hilltop, and we grabbed […]
This is our third Christmas away from our Australian family and friends, and we sure miss the traditions we remember back in Adelaide, South Australia. For us, Christmas always started in November. We put up the Christmas tree and decorated it very early. We owned about 50 Christmas movies and we would watch one every […]
YAY – finally I get a new camera, and it is just in time for Christmas! It is a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX200V Camera from Media Galaxy in Brasov, Romania. We walked into Media Galaxy and it was packed with customers. All around people were madly Christmas shopping. It seems to be the same the world over […]
Visiting Brasov Romania for their Christmas Markets We decided to leave Bucharest early and drive to Brasov to stay. On the way, my gut feel was to change the tires to winter snow tires and not just rely on carrying snow chains. It was Sunday, so it was amazing that I found a little workshop […]
This is a really quick blog of our amazing three nights in Bucharest. You can scroll through and enjoy this with photos. So how did we get here? We left Veliko Tarnovo before noon after exploring the cute town. We then headed in ‘pea soup thick fog’ to Ruse. We had hoped to explore this cute city […]
We decided when we were in Turkey that we would head to snow for Christmas. So on the way, we had a stop in Bucharest, Romania and country number 43 on our world trip. We mainly chose here because (we are Australian, and we have grown up with a hot Christmas, so) the idea of […]
Yesterday saw us heading north in Bulgaria. We wanted to see the historical little town of Veliko Tarnovo and arrived mid-afternoon. Veliko Tarnovo is the medieval capital of the Second Bulgarian Kingdom and the town with the most dramatic setting in the country. It is perched on several hills, and the Yantra River meandering through. […]
We finally left Istanbul, Turkey after a great 6-week stay, and headed to Bulgaria in what seemed to be hours and hours of driving on the Turkish side in the rain. For the first time ever we had smiled at a border crossing. I nearly fell out of the car. Firstly the Turkish side checks […]
From even before the moment we stepped foot in the front foyer of Armada Peru Hotel in Istanbul, we had amazing service. What happened to us this day was unique. The roads were blocked so we had to follow a taxi in order to find a place to park and get to the hotel. The taxi […]
We drove into Istanbul at peak hour. We arrived in the dark and stopped outside the front door of the Sirkeci Mansion Boutique Hotel. Like a scene from a movie, staff seemed to spring from nowhere and in one minute our bags were in the lobby, and next thing a staff member (at my suggestion) […]
