This Sunday’s word is Arches hosted by Debbie from Travel with Intent. Starting with a quote I found on Pinterest, a line from a conversation with Kublai Khan.
One Word Sunday – Arches
Tag: travelswithali
Old Buildings around the World
The featured image is the old salt mine in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands
This week’s challenge from CFFC are photos of old buildings, barns, sheds and houses. Here’s mine! I really look forward to Cee’s different challenges. Taking photos of old buildings is something I really enjoy and now I get a chance to show them off.
On one of our trips across the Nullabor from West to East. The old Nullabor Roadhouse.
Somebody’s “sanctuary” in Denmark, Western Australia
Turfed roof farmhouse in Iceland
An old Spanish granary raised on wooden stilts in Ribadesella, Spain
Beautiful green tiled house on the esplanade in Ribadesella, Spain. Built by a returning Spanish merchant from Cuba after he had made his fortune.
I love this quote I found on Pinterest!
All you need is a Passport – Six Word Saturday
At the moment my passport is just gathering dust along with thousands of others I imagine. By the time I get to use it again it may well have expired. So I have dug deep into the archives of my gallery once more and posted a few of times gone by!
From a cruise we took from Singapore back to Perth with a few detours, missed ports, two deaths and long days at sea due to norovirus and pneumonia amongst passengers!
It’s very unlikely we will take another cruise for many years if at all! Given the bad news surrounding cruises at the moment. So I’m so happy that we have been on two cruises during our travels.
Posted as part of Six Word Saturday. Thanks to Debbie for hosting!
Thursday Doors – Doors from around the World – 13 August 2020
Doors from the archives for Norm’s Thursday Doors
From Leigh on Sea, Essex 
Door to the oldest medieval building in Porto, Portugal 
Brightly coloured beach huts on Brighton Beach, Melbourne 
Door to Guia Lighthouse, Macau 
Door on the side of the Ladies Toilets! in a winery in the Perth Hills
I have so many doors it’s hard to know what to post! This is a great challenge, thanks Norm.
Perth to Porongurup – 3 Day Road Trip
Last week we had a mini midweek break with our good friends and drove from Perth to Porongurup for two nights followed by a night in Yallingup. The drive takes around 4 hours and 30 minutes. On the way down we stopped at a small town called Williams that sits practically on the Albany Highway. We had a bite to eat in the small cafe there and a quick wander through the woodshed after. Of course we felt we ought to buy something to bolster the economy. Hubby bought a very smart Merino wool sweater and for me a Merino cardigan.
As we gradually drove further away from Perth the sky was darkening and we could see heavy rain clouds ahead, the weather was not looking good for our first night.
We also stopped at a winery in Mount Barker to pick up some wine from the cellar door to have with dinner that night. Plataganet Wines is actually named after the English Royal House, although it doesn’t date back that far! Inside there is a fantastic framed Plataganet family tree.
Making sure he likes it 
Finally arriving around 4.30pm in Porongurup we checked in and went straight to our cottage. Our friends Cheryl and Vaughan were already there having beat us by at least an hour!
By this time it was very bleak! Cold, wet and windy. There are no restaurants in Porongurup, although there is a bar and restaurant at the place we were staying, Karribank Cottages, but sadly didn’t open until Friday. So a BBQ it was on the verandah of our cottage. We had brought with us all sorts of goodies, plus a few bottles of wine and no-one had to drive anywhere.
Our cottage 
Lamb chops and steaks 
One of the empties!
The morning after the night before I woke up with a bit of a headache! Then Anthony tells me that he’s forgotten one of his medications, which is ironic as when we left Perth he said “do you remember the last time we went away and I forgot one of my meds and we had to phone the chemist in Perth and find one locally to have the script faxed”. “Well you won’t do that again in a hurry”, I said. Sure enough we did exactly that! We drove to Mount Barker to find a chemist and arrange for the script to be faxed, so while we were waiting we had breakfast and a wander around.
Things didn’t seem to be going plan at all. We couldn’t find any wineries open with a restaurant and it was still raining. So we decided on a drive to Albany and have lunch there then try to get to the Porongurups in the afternoon.
Albany
Albany is the oldest colonial settlement in Western Australia and is home to the old whaling station. A convoy of more than 40 ships, with 30,000 troops and nearly 8000 horses from both Australia and New Zealand, sailed from Albany on November 1 1914. There are so many historical buildings and churches in Albany dating back to the 1800s.
Albany Town Hall 
Scots Church – 1892 
St. John’s Anglican Church
The famous Liberte Restaurant and Bar in Albany. First built in 1909 in a style reminiscent of an English mansion. It has been bought and sold a number of times over the last century and is now a restaurant/bar serving Asian fusion food.
We had lunch at a place called Garrison, no surprise that this was located where the army was stationed up on the hill. It has beautiful views overlooking King George Sound. Here we had a fabulous lunch with great service.
Fried Jerusalem Artichokes with feta cheese 
Iberico Pork Pinchos 
Seafood Mix Linguine 
Duck Confit
Happy to see they didn’t feature Pie of the Day on the menu!
We had a short walk around through the old barracks and buildings.
Porungurup National Park
One of the reasons for our drive to Porungurup was to walk on the granite skywalk, I really hadn’t done enough research to know this was beyond my capabilities. Firstly we had left it too late to do anything more than just have a look around at ground level and secondly it was at least an hour’s walk and a “scramble over rocks” to get just to the first level. Well at least we had a look around and saw troops of kangaroos.
A little attempt at walking 😂 
I was warned not to get closer as you never know with wild kangaroos whether they will take a swipe at you or not!
The photos below are ones I have taken from Pinterest just to show everyone how fantastic it would have been!
Another “stay in the cottage” dinner with more wine that night as there is really nowhere to eat within a reasonable driving distance. We had stopped off at a supermarket on the way back to stock up with cold meats, pate and cheese.
The next day we checked out at 10 am and had breakfast at the very cute Porongurup Tea Rooms just at the bottom of the road and then headed to Pemberton with a stop at Lake Muir and then Manjimup for lunch. At Pemberton we said goodbye to Cheryl and Vaughan and drove onto Yallingup for our overnight stay at Caves Hotel.
Lake Muir
Pemberton
Pemberton, the home of the Gloucester Tree. Something I had never heard of before until Cheryl mentioned it. It is the world’s second tallest fire-lookout tree and stands 58 metres high. There are rungs all the way up if you feel inclined to climb it. At the top there is a steel and aluminium cabin and viewing gallery.
And then it was onto Yallingup for our overnight stay at Caves House.
My A to Z Travel Challenge – N is for Nagasaki, Japan 🇯🇵
Nagasaki was part of our 9 day road trip through the Kyushu Islands a few years ago and we spent two very busy days and nights here. There were four of us on the road trip, me, hubby and our two good friends Cheryl and Vaughan. Vaughan and hubby did all of the driving.
We stayed at a hotel called Hotel Monterey, a great location and decorated in a Spanish Villa style.
Our first night was spent at Dejima Wharf, I’d read that it was quite lively and had a few restaurants. Maybe it had just opened or not been open for long but there didn’t seem to be that many places to choose from. We opted for a seafood restaurant where we sat outside and could cook our own seafood. I have to say it wasn’t such a great dinner as half the things we were served I couldn’t identify and the small bbq didn’t seem adequate to cook anything properly.
After dinner we found a bar upstairs called St. Andrews Jigger Inn, playing live music and everyone singing along, we even got up to have a dance!
The next morning with heavy heads we had a cooked breakfast at the Hotel Monterey and headed out to explore.
Nagasaki has a very international feel to it, with many Dutch, Portuguese and English buildings still standing. We headed first up to Hollander Slope, so called because many Dutch people lived here from around 1600.
From here we took a tram to another historical building, Glover House and Gardens.
Glover House
Glover House was built by Thomas Blake Glover, a Scottish merchant who arrived in Japan from Shanghai in 1859. He set up his own trading company, Glover and Co. Glover House is a western style building with imported furniture from Scotland and England. The carpenter is purportedly Koyama Hide who built the Basilica of the Twenty-Six Holy Martyrs. Source: Visit Nagasaki
From the balcony of Glover House 
Koi Pond 
Nagasaki is a big cruise ship port as you can see from above photo.
There is some Japanese influence in the rooms, but mostly it is of the old heavy wooden style favoured during the 1800s in England.
In this bottom right photo my hubby is with the Japanese gardener, and while I popped to the ladies he struck up a conversation with her. He speaks fairly fluent Japanese and she was so taken aback by him that she dropped everything and bombarded him with questions about his life, they found out that they were exactly the same age, even with the same month, now that’s a coincidence!
With the morning over and our visit to Glover House done, hubby said it was his turn now and he wanted first to go to the Sakamoto International Cemetery and then lastly the Peace Park and A Bomb Museum.
Sakamoto International Cemetery
Trying to find our way to the Cemetery was a bit of a nightmare, but we eventually found it tucked away at the back of some houses.
I wish I had taken more photos of the cemetery but felt a bit morbid doing this. Cemeteries in other countries with foreigners are so interesting. It makes you realise how determined people were hundreds of years ago and how easy we have it today. It would have taken them weeks or months to arrive at their destination and we complain about an hour delay to our plane!
Nagasaki Peace Park
It feels appropriate to be writing this post now as is the 75th anniversary of the Atomic Bomb on 9 August. It was the second bomb to be dropped by the United States after Japan still refused to surrender after Hiroshima. The exact number of people killed will never be known as all records were destroyed and many bodies were totally obliterated.
To walk around the museum is very sobering to see the destruction and devastation that was caused that day. Of course there is no mention of Japan’s part in WWII.
After experiencing that nightmarish war,
that blood-curdling carnage,
that unendurable horror,
Who could walk away without praying for peace?
This statue was created as a signpost in the
struggle for global harmony.
Standing ten meters tall,
it conveys the profundity of knowledge and
the beauty of health and virility.
The right hand points to the atomic bomb,
the left hand points to peace,
and the face prays deeply for the victims of war.
Transcending the barriers of race
and evoking the qualities of Buddha and God,
it is a symbol of the greatest determination
ever known in the history of Nagasaki
and the highest hope of all mankind.— Seibo Kitamura (Spring 1995)
And that concludes “N”
SAYONARA!
More of our trip below!
Kagoshima
Nagasaki to Kagoshima 6 June 2017 By now I think our two drivers were getting the hang of the roads and tolls! It was especially useful to be able to input a telephone number into the satnav instead of the actual address – very helpful considering how all the Japanese places were spelt. Because if…
My A to Z Travel Challenge – M is for Minneapolis and Monterey, USA – 🇺🇸
Continuing my A to Z of Travels Challenge with the letter M.
Minneapolis
Minneapolis, Minnesota was part of our road trip through USA and Canada. We had some very dear friends who lived there and we hadn’t seen them for 25 years after they left Hong Kong! Many people asked us why we were visiting Minneapolis as they said there’s not much there! However I enjoyed every minute of our three day stay there thanks to Michelle and Jon who were very good guides.
We chose to stay at the Residence Inn by Marriott because this was very near to where they lived. I can’t say I was very impressed by this hotel for the price we paid, I thought the rooms could have had a good clean to start!
Our first morning was spent at the wonderful Mall of America, Anthony’s dream come true! Unfortunately we did only have a morning there as in the afternoon we would be exploring the town. We couldn’t believe our eyes at the size of the place, it even has a theme park in the middle!
After we had spent the morning there, Michelle and Jon picked us up and took us around the town. I really enjoyed seeing the lakes and river and the Stone Bridge that crosses the river.
Minneapolis was full of surprises especially the grand old houses that stand on the banks of the lakes, very impressive.
The next day we were going boating across the river to another State! Lake Pepin, Wisconsin. We would travel along the Mississippi River in Jon’s boat. We had a fabulous lunch here at The Pickle Factory.
Bye Bye Minneapolis
Hello Wisconsin 
After lunch we had a quick walk around the cute little town of Pepin.
I felt like I was stepping back in time walking around the town looking at all the old weatherboard houses.
That same day we also drove up to an old farm that Michelle and Jon owned and went for a fairly long walk around the property.
My GI Joe 
That was really all we had time for in Minneapolis, just a whistle stop tour and then we were off on our travels again. We flew to San Francisco later that evening.
Monteray
We had only one night in Monterey but really managed to make the most of the next day. This small town was everything I had imagined and more, having read so many books about it. We stayed right in the centre and had dinner at Fisherman’s Wharf.
Not before we came across this Porsche show though!
Gourmet dinner with plenty of wine and a martini to finish
We finished the night at a wonderful jazz bar with a live band and of course more cocktails.
17 Mile Drive
The next day we did the 17 mile drive and managed to take wrong turnings a few times and ended up going back on ourselves, it was confusing to say the least. We certainly stopped a few times to get our bearings and of course take plenty of photos. We ended up having lunch at The Inn at Spanish Bay overlooking the famous Links golf course.
This drive is a scenic road through Pebble Beach and Pacific Grove on the Monterey Peninsula. On the drive you will see huge mansions of the rich and famous and golf courses.
The Lone Cyprus 
I felt we could have spent so much longer looking around and going down different routes, but time was ticking by and we were due in San Francisco later that day. A place to revisit in the future.
Our road trip ended up in San Francisco where we spent four fabulous days.
Mlini, Croatia
An old post converted to blocks from classic!
Five days/Four nights in Mlini
After leaving beautiful Perast we headed off to Croatia again taking the scenic route. After much thought as to how to make this journey I decided to book a driver, although more expensive, as it seemed the most comfortable way to go. Our driver took the coastal route and was able to stop where we asked so I could take photos of the stunning coastline. It also meant that we got to take the mini car ferry across the Bay of Kotor.
Day One
We stayed in a little bay just passed Mlini called Srebreno although the address of the hotel was in Mlini. We had an incredible apartment called One Suite Hotel, big enough for four adults with two toilets and completely fitted out kitchen and most importantly a licenced bar on site! The hotel was approximately five minutes from the beautiful bay of Srebreno with its own ferry pier with boats directly to Cavtat and Dubrovnik both 30 minutes away.
After checking in we went in search of lunch and also a nice restaurant for dinner later. Right on the beach is a newly built Sheraton, slightly out of place I thought in this sleepy village. Srebreno is an extremely well looked after village and many of the buildings seem very new, although there is still a sleepy small place feel about it. I loved it on sight and as we wandered along the seafront was happy that I had chosen this place rather than Dubrovnik.
Against the good advice I was given I did not buy reef shoes to go into the sea. There are very few sandy beaches in Croatia and this one was no exception, most are pebbles. So with flip flops on I walked down to the edge of the pebbles and into the sea and threw my flip flops back onto the beach. The water was very “refreshing”. Getting out was a problem and I most certainly did not look like Ursula Andress/Halle Berry in 007 more like a creature from the deep treading on Lego. Walking on pebbles is painful.
That night for dinner we went to Marinero, up the hill in between the pine trees. We asked the waiter for his recommendations and had a local dish, Brudet, which is a fish stew made with whatever fresh fish they have on hand.
Day 2
After breakfast we walked down to our little pier and caught the ferry into Dubrovnik. Our plan today was just to walk around the old town. Although getting into the old town is free you do have to pay to walk the ramparts. Even though it was September the place was so busy with many tour groups and queues everywhere, so we decided against walking around the walls. Apparently to get the best of this place I read that you should actually stay inside and then you have the place to yourselves in the evening and early in the morning.
Tonight’s restaurant was Puntazella. Another fabulous place with great food and service. We actually went here twice as it was so good.
Day 3
Today we took the bus to Cavtat, a beautiful historic town, southeast of Dubrovnik. It takes about 20 minutes by boat or bus. With its tree-lined harbour and wonderful old buildings its a great way to spend the day exploring.
After getting the bus back we spent the afternoon relaxing on the beach and hobbling in and out of the sea. That evening we walked around the bay into Mlini itself for cocktails and then back for dinner at Portun. Once again a wonderful restaurant just across the road from our hotel.
Day 4
I think today was the highlight of our trip, an excursion to the Elephiti Islands. These three islands consist of Sipan, Lopud and Kolocep. Sipan is the furthest away from Dubrovnik with Kolocep being the nearest. The day trip (leaving from Dubrovnik) included time at all three islands plus a delicious lunch on board with free flowing wine and beer!
Our first stop was Kolocep and we stopped here for around 45 minutes, enough to have a quick walk around and a drink. Next up was Lopud this was also for 45 minutes. Enough time for you to get a feel of the islands and take a few photos. I could just have easily stayed on both for a few days. Then we were back on board for lunch and onto the last island of Sipan where we spent nearly 3 hours. Sipan has one of the few sandy beaches in Croatia. To get there we had to walk for a while before then taking a golf cart down a dirt track, I was adamant that I wanted to see it though!
Leaving Dubrovnik
I would really recommend this trip, it’s really easy to book once you are in Mlini as there are ticket centres everywhere.
Day 5
As we had a late flight back to the UK we could enjoy the whole day, so we headed back into Dubrovnik by bus this time. Even though Dubrovnik is now just a tourist attraction and extremely busy I could still enjoy walking through the old town and soaking up the history within its walls. There are so many alleys, doors and courtyards to walk around and cafes to stop and have a drink. The only thing missing (much to Anthony’s dismay) were shops, proper shops! He does love a department store which I’m glad to say there were none.
And that concludes our short trip to Croatia. We had two more weeks in the UK before flying back to Perth. Still a long wait for our two boys Zac and Rufus who were enjoying their own holiday in kennels ):
Hyper Hanoi – October 2016
Adding onto our Laos/Vietnam trip we flew to Hanoi from Luang Prabang and planned to stay here for three days. Â We decided instead of organised trips we would just explore Hanoi on our own. Â I had booked three days at Hotel Nikko a very large Japanese hotel near Hoan Kiem Lake. The hotel was fantastic with magnificent views over the city. Â Both photos were taken from our room. Â I loved all the gadgets on the toilet!
Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam and the second largest city in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh being the largest. Â Its chaotic and noisy 24 hours a day with horns blaring and hundreds of motor bikes whizzing by. Â If they can’t get by on the roads then they just use the pavement.
As we arrived quite late we had dinner at the hotel, unfortunately we were not very impressed. The restaurant is also where they serve breakfast and they have a smoking area inside but its just an alcove, so you can smell smoke constantly – Japanese business men are big smokers.
The next two days and nights were just spent walking around and eating amazing food. Â Hanoi has some of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten in. Â It’s an incredibly busy city and you take your chances when crossing any road. Â Red lights don’t seem to mean much here! Â The sights we took in were the Old Quarter, the Citadel and St Josephs Church. Â Some photos below:
One of the restaurants we ate in was Pots and Pans which I see now from their website is permanently closed.  At the time of visiting this was a teaching restaurant to help young people get a good start in life.  Another was Verticale a French restaurant, which served gourmet French food with a Vietnamese twist and the staff and service were impeccable, probably one of the best meals I’ve eaten was here!
After Hanoi we drove to Ha Long Bay for a one night/two day cruise, that will be on the next post!