Posts

Showing posts from May, 2011

Portofino

Image
 Arriving in this [pictureque town in Italy was amazing.  From the time we woke up, there was a sense of relaxation in the air, not that we were not relaxed, but the truth be told we had walked far more than we had planned and were determined not to walk too much this time around.  The town was quite small with less than 1000 inhabitants scattered all around 2000 sq/km's.  Debbie and I were always the first ones off the yacht, our enthusiasm to see new things was evident as the seasoned travellers slept late.  Our first stop had to be an ice-cream shop. My cousin Shahaada advised me about the quality of ice-cream and there we wer at 9am in the morning eating ice-cream, the very thing we tell our kids not to do.  Landing on the shore of Portofino   The town square  The town square was just waking up and was quite empty so we decided  to take a walk up the mountain, the walk to the end of town should take 10 minutes up the mountain, but I had the shopping queen

Barcelona

Image
We arrived in Barcelona at about 9am and were taken to the yacht, but could only board at 1pm. I think this is Christopher Columbus. So we decided to take a walk on La Rambla which is a 1,2km walk through the city lined by trees and a some fantastic architecture dating way back to the early 1900. It was so amazing to hear all the different languages being spoken within earshot.  i was in heaven.  At the start of the walk, the flea market shops were quite expensive but just 500 metres later, you saved yourself some serious money.  The imposing statue on the left was rather large and apparently you could go up to the top of this thing in a lift. We were on a tight budget, or should I say I was on a tight budget, my wife shopped like she had all the bucks in the world.  She never stopped smiling and you could hear her oohs and aahs from across the street, with frequent shouts of "ANDRE, COME LOOK HERE", my wallet even trembled.  Debs needed me and my wallet close at hand an

My first trip 'overseas'

Image
Cape Town Airport, Jhb here we come I have never been so excited and nervous at the same time ever in my life. I had never visited any other countries and the furthest that I had been 'overseas' was Robben Island.  As the picture above shows I still looked quite relaxed with no idea what was about to happen once we hit Johannesburg.  The smile that was on my face was soon wiped out as we checked through Jhb airport on our way to Zurich.  At passport control, both Debbie and my passport were carefully scrutinised.  Now I must tell you that i had given my details to a local policeman to check before leaving so that I don't pick up any problems when leaving or entering our country and he found nothing as he could only search locally.  The passport control officer took a long time checking my passport and after joking with him he said that here was a problem. He called the police who took about 10 minutes to get there.  It was the longest 10 minutes ever.  He proceeded to e