Author: Salty tales from Bali Hai

Siena is such a popular tourist spot that we were concerned that we wouldn’t find a place to park our camper van but fortunately we came upon a large car park which was almost empty and only a short walk from the station. Right in front of the station was a shopping mall and to…

From Lake Trasimeno in the Italian region of Umbria we were able to get to Cortona in Tuscany in just half an hour. Cortona was quite a large hilltop town compared to the ones we had already visited but that day we were able to find a designated parking spot for our campervan with no…

The magic of travelling with only a loose plan is that you sometimes you come across wonderful places quite by chance. So it was that we discovered Lake Trasimeno in Umbria when trying to find a suitable place to stop the night. It was the perfect spot for a number of reasons, not least because…

There are probably only one or two movies during which I have witnessed audience members full-on sobbing. One of these was Zeffirelli’s 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet which I went to see with a group of school friends. Memories of this outpouring of teenage anguish came flooding back when we visited the lovely little…

There are so many charming ancient hilltop villages in Umbria and Tuscany that you’d be forgiven for thinking that they all blur into one but we found that each one has a charm of their own and something special to recommend them. Take Orvieto for example. First of all, to reach this small town dramatically…

On our way from Monte Cassino to Cervara de Roma we had a serious mishap – we got stuck in a very narrow back street (it was so narrow you could say more it was more like a back passage) in the appropriately named Medieval village of Arsoli. What a disaster! We missed our turning…

In contrast to Pompeii, we found Herculaneum – also buried when Mt Vesuvius erupted – beautifully cared for, well conserved. and with excellently presented information. Apparently it wasn’t always the case – pre 2001 the town was in a dire state after years of mismanagement. Then the Packard Humanities Institute began the Herculaneum Conservation Project,…

The miraculous town of Pompei should have been one of the highlights of our visit to Italy but sadly we found this incredible first century AD site suffering from poor preservation, unimaginative presentation and spoiled by numerous competing guides speaking loudly in different languages – many to large groups. Exploring this town hidden and preserved…

From Ceglie Messapica we had driven the short distance to Cisternino – a charming old town that has remained virtually intact for centuries. We strolled through the narrow, shady streets gazing at the whitewashed houses, historic churches and elegant central piazza that opens out onto a series of panoramic view points. From the viewing points…

it was honestly one of the most truly terrifying experiences of my life – squeezing between gigantic trucks jammed together like giant sardines in a tin, trying to reach our campervan deep in the bowels of an overnight car ferry travelling from the Greek port of Igoumenitsa to Brindisi in southern Italy. The massive juggernauts…

Retracing our steps along the coast of the Gulf of Corinth, we drove through shady olive groves, lemon and orange orchards and other fruit trees thick with blossom. It was a wonderful sight. During the short time we had in Greece we were also constantly amazed at the prolific wild flowers of many varieties and…

Our trip to Corinth was a really memorable experience – quite apart from finding a great boatyard to store our boat over winter and visiting the fabulous archeological site of ancient Corinth, as described in my last blog entry. Another absolute highlight was seeing an amazing 19th Century engineering feat – the Corinth Canal. When…

We were on our way to view a boatyard where could potentially “winter over” the Lagoon 420 catamaran on which we had just paid a deposit. The plan is to take possession of the boat in October, once all booked charters have been honoured and then have a month’s “shakedown” to learn how to sail…

While we were waiting for the contract for the purchase of our boat to be drawn up we had a couple of days in which to relax and just be tourists in and around Athens On previous trips to Greece (many years ago and not with each other) we hadn’t really explored much of mainland…

At last we were in Greece and heading for Athens where we had an appointment with a yacht broker to look at a catamaran – a Lagoon 420 – which we had been planning to view for what seemed like a very long time. We decided to take the freeway which started very close to…

After an exhausting drive the previous day when we were turned away from the Bosnian border with Croatia, and had to reroute through Montenegro, we were faced with the real possibility that the same thing could happen to us when we reached the Albanian border. We had left the original vehicle registration document in The…

After a great night at the beautiful Croatian campervan park Sirena in Lokva Rogoznica, 26 kilometres from Split, we set off again on our mission to get to Athens as quickly as possible to view a catamaran we were interested in. We continued driving along the spectacular and breathtaking Croatian coast and after about two…

We left Northern Italy on a mission – to get to Athens, Greece, as quickly as possible. The reason for our haste? We were going to look at a boat – a Lagoon 420 Catamaran to be precise! Despite a stop at Lidl to stock up on food after leaving Venice, it only took us…

It seems to me that there are two kinds of travellers — those who plan everything meticulously down to the last detail and then those others- like us- who make decisions on the fly and sometimes luck out and find themselves just in the right place at the right time. That’s what happened to us…

Our time in Menton, a beautiful little town right on the edge of the Côte d’Azur and very close to France’s border with Italy, wasn’t just about taking part in the famous Lemon Festival events. The town is also famous for its beautiful gardens – it has won the French competition for the best city…

We were once again travelling through beautiful alpine country but this time we were in the Piedmont region in the Italian Alps heading for the border with France. The Italian alps were every bit as stunning as the Swiss alps and the views were spectacular as we drove along the Col de Tende Pass. As…

After our inspirational stay in Saillon where we visited the Dalai Lama’s vineyard, we headed for Italy en route to Menton in the South of France for the lemon festival. Nothing prepared us for the absolutely magical trip through the Simplon Pass – a high pass (2005 metres) between the Pennine Alps and the Lepontine…

Who would have thought a randomly selected overnight stop could end up being so inspirational and so full of surprises? Mist over the water as we leave Lausanne We entered our camper van stop just outside the medieval village of Saillon in Switzerland thinking it would simply be somewhere to lay our heads for the…

It was a perfect sunny day when we left La Malachère, France heading to Lausanne in Switzerland but there was frost in the shade and piles of snow on the roadside despite the relatively warm day. We had only been driving for an hour and already we were starting to see a lot more snow.…

While waiting in the Belgium city of Bruges for Ford to give the go ahead to have our camper van’s fuel injectors replaced for the second time, we took the opportunity to pop over the border into France to take a look at Dunkirk, where more than 330,000 retreating Allied troops were rescued off the…

Setting off from Pijnacker in the Netherlands on our next European adventure on such a rainy and miserable day should have dampened our spirits but we set off full of excitement and anticipation. Less than half an hour later we were feeling more anxious than excited and the anticipation was more a like a feeling…

Back in the Netherlands we needed a little time to prepare the van after it had been tucked up in a shed for two and a half months. There was also some time to be tourists – doing what we love to do! It was extremely cold when we arrived in mid-January, especially in contrast…

It was great to be back in the Netherlands after our fantastic adventure round beautiful Brittany. Time now to store the van while we took a break from travelling. We are very fortunate to be able to leave our van in a snug shed at the home of our daughter’s partner’s parents when we aren’t…

I’ve never been a keen gardener – maybe because I’m not a great one for putting down roots (no pun intended) – but I have to admit to loving beautiful gardens and Monet’s garden in Giverny, in Normandy absolutely blew me away. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a garden that was so joyful. I…

One of the things I love about travelling is that you meet really interesting people along the way. Occasionally you also meet interesting animals and this was the case in Quimper, a beautiful cathedral city in Brittany, where we met a handsome and friendly Golden Retriever. We had gone “upmarket” staying in the grounds of…

One of the main reasons for our trip to Brittany was to visit the Carnac standing stones – one of the most extensive Neolithic menhir collections in the world. For that reason we only lingered in Brest long enough to take some photos of the city’s incredible fortifications. Like other strategic French ports Brest was…

Driving through Brittany was a feast for our eyes: Beautiful beaches, cute little villages, lovely cottages, old stone churches with strange steeples and at the coast, boats – lots of boats. We drove from Plestin-les-Grèves through Saint Jean du Doight (population 649) and stopped for a stroll in Locquirec where we admired the bilge keeled…

We had really enjoyed exploring the Champ de Roches (Field of Rocks) in Pleslin-Trigavou and next on our list of “must-dos” was Mont St Michel just over the border from Brittany in Normandy Jonathan, having spent so much time in Cornwall growing up, was particularly familiar with St Michael’s Mount, the Cornish counterpart of Mont…

The drive from Amiens to Rennes, the capital city of Brittany, was easy and uneventful. We camped outside Rennes in a village called Cesson Sevinge, a suburb directly to the east of Rennes. Our spot in a car park edged a pretty municipal park with a section of the University of Rennes on the opposite…

After a fantastic but sometimes rugged round trip of roughly 12,000 kilometres through Scandinavia, we were ready to stop and catch our breath in Pijnacker, near Delft in the Netherlands, where our daughter is now living with her Dutch partner. We had a great few days of relaxing, being looked after extremely well, and having…

It was time to head back and regroup in the Netherlands where our daughter has settled with her Dutch partner. They very graciously welcome us into their home “between gigs” and we were looking forward to stopping still and spending some precious time with them for a while. We headed off from the amazing Egeskov…

Egeskov Castle and its famous gardens were on our list of “must sees” during our Scandinavian road trip. We had seen the turrets of the castle peeping between trees from the car park on our way North but had arrived late in the afternoon on a dull and drizzly day. Rather than squeeze in a…

If you love boats and anything do with boat making, then the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde, Denmark should be on your bucket list. The museum not only has a permanent exhibition of five original Viking ships excavated from the depths of Roskilde Fjord but also has master craftsmen that you can watch building replica…

One of the highlights of our Scandinavian trip was visiting Denmark’s Kronborg Castle, immortalised as Elsinore, the setting of Shakespeare’s renowned tragedy “Hamlet”. Having both studied Hamlet for our “A” Level English (school leaving exams) way back in the day, the castle held special meaning for us and it did not disappoint. We crossed over…

Our stop in Gamla Uppsala was just delightful as there were the wonderful ancient burial mounds to see plus a museum detailing the history of this enchanting and historic area. We were also able to cycle through fields and woods to the nearby town of Uppsala, famous for its University, established in the 15th Century.…

After viewing the Arctic Circle monument in Sweden – just over the border from Finland – we started to look for somewhere to park for the night. For some reason we just couldn’t find anywhere suitable so we decided to cross back into Finland where we found a very pretty camping ground on the shores…

Having spent way longer in Norway than we had planned, we decided to head for Sweden as quickly as possible. This entailed entering Finland at the border crossing just 37 kilometres from Kirkenes in Northeastern Norway and making our way quickly across the most northerly and remote part of Finland and then on to Sweden.…

After our harrowing trip the previous day when we almost ran out of fuel in the extremely isolated and lonely road to Kirkenes, the final leg was much more pleasurable and the scenery gentler and less dramatic. Kirkenes is a small town in far northeastern Norway, close to the Finnish and Russian borders and has…

Around 3.30pm we left the Sami capital Karasjok, in Northern Norway, for the 265 kilometre drive to Kirkenes across the Finnmárkkoduottar (Finnmark plateau) with an ETA of around 7 pm – arriving just in time for dinner. We were anticipating a pleasant drive through a reasonably uninhabited and maybe a little lonely piece of road…

For me, the highlight of our stay in the remote most northern Norwegian town of Hammerfest was becoming a member of the venerable Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society (member number 267,715). To become a member of the Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society (established in 1963!) you have to have travelled to this isolated…

After a fascinating morning in the town’s War Museum we departed Narvik in the early afternoon headed for the city of Tromsø. Located 350 kilometres (217 miles) north of the Arctic Circle on the island of Tromsøya, Tromsø is connected to the mainland by the 1,036 metre long Tromso Bridge. By late evening we were…

The road trip in our camper van along the Helgelandskysten which follows the Norwegian Coast from Holm to Godøystraumen was truly spectacular. The longest of the 18 Norwegian national Scenic Routes, the 433 kilometre journey took us through such breathtaking scenery that at times we felt as though we were on a movie set. The…