sardinia

for those of you who think we've been slacking off on our travels... well we have ;) however, we did go to sardinia for a very short holiday at the beginning of august, and even though we only arrived friday night (spending most of the night at the airport trying to hire a car that had all the important parts attached), we made the most of our time there and in the end it felt like we'd been there for much longer! if only ;)

sardinia is an island off to the west of italy - there are 3 islands, sicily, sardinia and corsica, the former 2 being owned by the italians and the latter by the french. however, we stayed in a place called alghero, which is the only part of sardinia where they speak catalan (which originates from spain). needless to say I was rather confused as to whether people were speaking catalan or italian, as most of the tourists there were italian. fortunately, most spoke english :)

we had 2 absolutely brilliant experiences in sardinia. the first was a dream come true, yes there is actually water that crystal-clear blue colour!! it's not just photoshopped! In my research leading up to sardinia I had noted down a few beaches that were recommended to go to, however I couldn't remember anything about them. one of these beaches was La Pelosa, in Stintino. that was all I knew, but bec (we went with another australian couple bec & jeff) recalled one of her workmates talking about Stintino and seeing as it was the furthest away (1 hr) we decided to head there first. as we reached the top of a hill there was a loud gasp as bec, jeff and I (no, not morgan) caught sight of the colour of the water before us. oh my goodness, I have never been so excited in my life!!! as soon as we parked the car (and worked out how to pay for parking) bec and I ran down to the water leaving the boys to bring down all our stuff. the weather was perfect too - 30 degrees, extremely humid and the water was refreshing!
we stayed there for a good few hours and as a result got really burnt from it :( but it was so worth it!! unfortunately, that was the best beach we found, so all the other beaches we went to (although pretty good) just didn't compare to La Pelosa! If anyone ever goes there, you MUST go to La Pelosa in Stintino - you will not regret it!

the other awesome experience was one we almost missed out on! I'd bought a book on sardinia and bec had looked up the recommended restaurants. she'd decided on one called Sa Mandra, and after driving around for about half an hour trying to find it I was ready to go somewhere else. But bec was determined to find it and so after stopping in at the airport and asking the tourist information people (it's a small airport) we were told it was just down the road and in a farmhouse. We found it and walked inside and after some confusion the waitress sat us down at this big table. After sitting there for a bit waiting for the menu to be brought to us, this dude came and dropped off some bottles of water and red wine. we politely told him that we didn't order that, only to be told that it was included. thinking nothing of it we got stuck into the drink and shortly afterwards people started bringing out all sorts of plates with food and putting them in front of us. we had absolutely no idea what was going on and then suddenly it clicked that it must be a set menu! at which point we had about 8 different plates of just prosciutto and started getting scared about what the bill was going to look like at the end. we decided that it didn't matter how much it was, we'd just enjoy the experience! so we ate our antipasti, and then we had pasta, and then some more pasta, and then main meal was brought out - a lamb dish and roast suckling pig (both so tender and delicious!) and then dessert & some drinkies. and then the best surprise was the bill - we were all so scared to look at it and then when we did, it only came to €35 each! sweet!

the rest of the trip was spent visiting 4 other beaches, driving out to Capo Caccia and walking down a million steps to the most famous cave system -Grotta di Nettuno - only to find out that we'd missed the tour and had to walk all the way back up the million steps again. next time we'll read the sign at the top before heading down ;) we also spent both nights walking around the old town in alghero which was really pretty.... and eating as much gelato as we could fit in!

will definitely want to go back to Stintino sometime and swim in my dream water, but failing that I've discovered I can find my next dream water to swim in by using the satellite view on google maps - type in stintino and check out how blue that water is!!
photos...

stockholm weekend

another long weekend = another country! this time it was stockholm in sweden. We got in at about 11.30pm and by the time we reached the city it was alive and happening! lots of people were out, but we walked straight to our hotel and after skyping steve & ris and seeing little hannah(so cute!) we crashed for the night in our dungeon apartment.

We got up on saturday and found the place to buy our cards to hire bikes (they were only like £22 or something for 3 days) and went and found ourselves a bike! It's pretty cool, they have about 70 bike stations around the city and you can pick up / drop off your bike at any of them, the only thing is that you have to return them every 3 hours (to give everyone else a chance). I've been told they also have this in paris, it's such a cool thing, I reckon more cities - including brisbane! - should do this.

So we cycled around for about 4 hours and did a big loop of stockholm which was a really cool way to see the entire city. Then we went to the Vasamuseet where we had just enough time to see the short film and do the tour. The Vasa is a big viking war ship which sank shortly after it launched! and only 333 years later they got it back out of the water again and then spent years restoring it and now it has it's own museum. It's a pretty interesting story actually, I just can't find the info to put here as to why it sank but there were a number of reasons like there was some stability test that actually failed but the admiral chose to ignore that etc. Also the reason it survived underwater is apparently because of the lack of shipworm in those waters as they can't survive there cos it's not salty enough.

We cycled around a bit more and then enjoyed a nice long dinner at this Pelikan restaurant where we sampled some tasty swedish food/drink - a pickled herring platter with herring served in 5 different sauces, and then we had swedish meatballs with mashed potato and lingonberries which was delicious! We ended up having the same the following night at a different beer hall cos it was so good!

Sunday we did a 3hr cruise through the archipelago which wasn't too exciting ;) but it was good to get out and see it. I would recommend doing it on a faster boat though, ours was so slow, the only cool thing about the boat is that it can actually crush through ice in the winter. Then we went and visited Skansen, an open air museum which was very similar to one we went to in Norway, where someone has gathered all these traditional Swedish houses and put them in one spot and also gathered some nordic animals for us tourists to see. The animals were cool - see the photos :)

Monday we got back on the bikes and had lots of fun riding past the water along the cycle paths (which are everywhere!) and walked through the old city Gamla Stan and then made our way to the Historical Museum which showcased Scandinavian history from the Stone Ages through to the Vikings. Then one last stop to the main shopping street in Norrmalm and that was our trip over!

The photos aren't too exciting, it was more enjoyable to just wander and cycle around more than anything! but here are some anyway...

München - the land of beer and pork

so we (morgan, esther & luke) went to München for the first may bank holiday weekend to see greg who was in town for a conference. The holiday didn't start out too well as we missed our flight and had to wait 3 1/2 hours for the next flight which cost more than our already paid for return ticket :( lesson learnt. And then on the way back our flight was delayed!! If only it had been the other way around! ;) But inbetween, our weekend was most enjoyable...

We went to the Hofbräuhaus every day - it was like coming home each time! there's always a spot to sit, and within seconds a waiter/ress is there to take your order and swiftly comes back with big beer mugs in hand, followed shortly by food involving pork, be it pork sausages, roasted pork or pork knuckle (aka schweineshaxn) = YUM! however, after only 3 days of this diet, we came back wanting to avoid all types of meat, especially pork!

By far the most enjoyable thing we did on our weekend was to do a bike tour. At 4pm we met up with our guide tony from mike's bike tours and he showed us around munich over about 4 hours. We started in Marienplatz and made our way up to the English gardens where we stopped for an hour in the chinese beer garden to have some beer & pork & mash. The cycle back was along the river - München is such a beautiful city and it was perfect for cycling around as there were bike paths everywhere. I would highly recommend doing this if you're ever there!

We also went out to Dachau and walked to the old city centre which was quite pleasant and then spent the next hour walking from there to the concentration camp. Walking around the concentration camp was rather surreal and disturbing. The museum was fascinating and had a wealth of information in it, but it was a bit creepy to look around and see where people were hung / tortured / and especially gassed to death in the gas chambers.

Other than that, we also checked out the inside of the Residenz, walked around the Viktualienmarkt (fresh veges, meats, flowers etc), walked around the english gardens around the lake and all in all had an enjoyable weekend :)

our photos are here

pleasant portugal

hello, esther here. I was told my blogs were more interesting than Morgan's, so this one's for you ben! ;)
so we went to portugal at easter and it far exceeded all my expectations! After arising at an early 2am on Good Friday morning, we waited at the bus stop from 3-3.45am in the freezing wind to then realise that the buses were operating on a saturday timetable! Fortunately one came at 4 and we managed to make the next bus leaving from victoria to stansted. and yes, everytime we have a ridiculously early flight from stansted, I always say I'll never do that again....only to do it again :( same goes for ryanair, but this time we paid a whole £4 extra to get priority boarding - will definitely be doing that in the future.

So we arrived in Porto at about 9am and navigated our way to the hotel which was right on top of the only hill on the north side of the river. We then walked across the cool bridge (the one everyone talks about with 2 levels - one for pedestrians and one for cars) and made our way down to the other side where all the port houses were. We didn't know much about Porto before going there but after our short walk we were already loving it! Plus the weather was beautiful and sunny, blue skies :) At this stage we decided to try some local foods...perhaps not the best idea..just some weird kind of sausage which I didn't fully appreciate! After an hour boat trip down the Douro River passing under the 5 bridges, we then made our way up the hill on the south side of the river (the city of Gaia) to Graham's winery. Once reaching the top, we were greeted with an awesome view over to the old side of Porto. We went on a guided tour given by a 21yr old british(!) dude around the winery - loads of huge barrels filled with port! The smell was really nice as they had been emptying a barrel the day before. It was interesting, I learnt a few things.... such as they have to keep a certain amount of bottles (something like 200) of port for each year declared a vintage year (3 per decade) and they house them in these cool cellars; they have all these old books recording all the trading going on with the british; they grow all their grapes in the Douro valley and to get white port they just don't squeeze the skins; up until recently, all grape squashing was done by men & their feet and many other wineries still do this today; and, I never knew of the existence or ruby or white port! Both of which were absolutely delicious (I'm not a huge tawny port fan). Following the tour we got to taste all three = yum :) We then crossed back to the north side and began working through my list of things to see - azulejos(blue&white-tiled)-covered churches; a really cool bookshop with an antique red staircase inside; the Sao Francisco church; and finally a walk along the Ribeira which is the World Heritage listed area along the river, which is where I decided we were going to eat - much to morgan's dissatisfaction, as it was after all in the most tourist-populated area. And as morgan predicted, the food was terrible. Oh well ;)

Saturday morning, after a breakfast of "cake" (sadly it's hard to find tea in Portugal..plenty of espressos) we caught a 2hr43 train trip to Lisbon - highest speed we reached was 220km/hr. Such a cool way to see the country...we did plenty of reading throughout the trip and got to see lots too, all from the comfort of our seats :) Interesting how a lot of Portugal is quite run-down, it reminded me of a cross between dirty Egypt and pretty Italy...interesting. After working out where we were, we made our way into Baixa (the centre of town) where we checked out the local square; survived a 5minute freak storm; walked around the pedestrianised streets; saw the local friendly policeman on Gob-style transport who would happily pose with tourists for photos; sat in Rossio square to eat lunch and saw the indian people playing their panpipes...seriously, we've seen them in almost every city we go to! Then we found our hotel which was embarassingly 5-star quality - it was the cheapest one I could find, honestly!! Next a trip to Belem, where we treated ourselves with the delights of some custard tarts + tea + port...soooo good. This place was so busy we had to wait in a queue first! Then we checked out Jeronimos Monastery and the Monument of Discoveries and caught the tram back into the town centre and walked up the hills right to the very top to St Jorge's Castle where we were able to see out over the whole city of Lisbon. Watched the sunset and walked around the old streets of the Alfama which was a real lovely area - nice and quiet - and we found THE best restaurant there and enjoyed some great food & wine.

On Easter Sunday we spent the day in Sintra, which is a 30min train trip west of Lisbon. We visited the most amazing fantasy-style palace, Palácio da Pena and then spent the rest of the morning walking around the grounds - and losing my navigational skills :( - and walking up a mountain to what must've been one of the highest points in Lisbon. It was so windy, we felt like we were going to be blown off! I think this would have to be one of my highlights. We then visited another palace, Quinta da Regaleira, which I call the fairytale castle. Wandering around the beautiful gardens (lots of wisteria!) we stumbled upon a cave and followed the dark tunnel for quite a while until we found ourselves at the bottom of what was an initiation well...pretty crazy. We found this door which led into pitch-blackness so tried to use our mobile phones and take photos to light everything up but eventually decided we perhaps weren't meant to go down there... strange gardens really. Back in Lisbon we wandered around the quiet streets of Bairro Alto and ordered some pizza from a local cafe which they took out of the freezer and chucked into the microwave!! actually tasted pretty good, and meant we got to hang out with the locals and watch barcelona play on the tv ;)

Monday we were up early to catch a bus for 3.5hrs to Praia da Rocha. The bus dropped us off and we had no idea where to go! We managed to spy a tourist information sign and eventually found our hotel. There's basically just one main street with the hotels on it and from there you just walk down to what must be the biggest expanses of beach I've ever seen (in terms of depth that is). Not much to do really but lie on the beach! so that's what we did, and morgan even braved the water. So we had a nice relaxing end to our trip, and in 18 degree weather which was lovely!!

all in all, thoroughly enjoyed portugal, would definitely go back to Porto again and do one of the all day cruises into the Douro Valley and more port-tasting.
see photos here

We're still alive!

It's been a little while so I thought I would give a little update on what we've been doing. We haven't left the country since arriving back from our trip home to Australia. We were supposed to head to Finland for a weekend, but as I bent over to pick something up one morning, my back decided to spasm and left me bed-bound for the weekend. So no Finland; and strangely enough, Alun, Anecia and Jodie also didn't make it to Finland because the Stansted Express decided to let them not get to the airport in time - so none of us made it!

So it was time for morgan to live up to his "in sickness and in health" vows as my back caused so much pain I couldn't do anything - he had to move me, roll me over, cook for me, give me deep-heat massages, frequently refill my hot water bottle, ring the doctor, fetch me pain killers - and he was great! He cooked every night for about a week, and since then he cooks quite often now. So, in a way, hooray for the back injury! ;) Unfortunately it's been 6 weeks and I'm still recovering so am now seeing a physio who has me doing exercises & swimming to improve things. Hopefully that will be soon as I haven't been sleeping very well what with having to move a hot water bottle around my entire aching back each night!

The weather has been pretty good and there's been lots of sun, which means it's really cold! We have been to Regent's Park, shopping around Oxford street, walking around the west end, having lunch at our favourite pub 'The Dove', walking around Bayswater and visiting portobello road markets over the past weekends. Also everything is starting to flower which makes me very happy seeing all the lovely crab-apple, magnolia and other trees in flower plus all the daffodils in the parks!

We've also been to see Fulham FC play Aston Villa at Craven Cottage which is a 10 minute walk from our house! We're going again next weekend to see them play Everton and watch our very own Tim Cahill play! We saw Jimeon with Jon & El; went to a cocktail bar with people from church; went on a church weekend away to Newport Pagnell last weekend; walked around Woburn Abbey & had cream teas; had dinner at a Polish restaurant; and have been working hard!

Morgan got me an extremely awesome digital piano for my birthday and the other weekend we went to Denmark street and bought morgan an acoustic bass. He was pretty excited to find a whole street of music shops and a whole store dedicated to bass instruments! Tonight we're going to celebrate my birthday with dinner at a risotto bar which I'm really looking forward to. Also in a couple of weeks is Easter and we're going to go to Portugal, so the next time you hear from us we'll have some stories to tell!

That's it for now, here's some photos - esther :)

Brisbane - "Beautiful one day, 3 weeks of rain the next"

Hi folks, hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas / New Years celebrations.

The last 3 weeks Esther and I have been back in Brisbane catching up with our families / friends etc. We had planned to spend 4 days on Stradbroke Island with friends and also some more time at the beach, but for those of you who wern't in Brisbane around Christmas - it just didn't stop raining! It was apparently sometime to do with a small cyclone up the coast - but it resulted in the strangest Christmas ever.

We were still able to catch up with a few people and spent plenty of time with family, but it was definitely not quite how we had planned it. It was also not helped by Esther being quite unwell for a large part of our time, she might have become allergic to Australia! Anyway - we're back now and the skies of London are clear again.

Today is also my Birthday where I can now officially say that I'm the wrong side of 25! Its been a good day so far with fantastic weather, we went and saw the 2008 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition which once again did not disappoint. We then checked out around Harrods and walked around Hyde Park to High Street Kensington. We then lugged almost 40kg of bookshelf for what seemed like centuries back to our house and are now planning to go out with a few people to my favourite riverside pub "The Dove" for some dinner etc.

Thats all from me, our next trip is in a few weeks to Tampere in Finland.. could be rather brisk I think..

Some photos from our trip Home
Morgans birthday in London Photos

Christmas - German style

Things are really cooling off in London and last weekend we visited Bremen in northern Germany in search of some of Europe's famous Christmas markets. We had a rather large group of 8 this time flying into Bremen on Friday night and wasted no time in locating some delicious late night German sausage. Some of us ate 8 sausages (including one 1/2 metre in length) in the less than 48 hours that we were in Germany. We wandered the markets for the 2 days eating everything in sight browsing other stalls and consuming large amounts of very warming Gluhwein (German mulled wine) and also sampling a few of the famous German beers.

Bremen seems like a nice quiet town with not many claims to fame other than being the home of the world famous Becks beer. A few locals that we spoke to were quite suprised that we travelled just to Bremen, but I would definitely recommend it for a nice friendly town and excellent Christmas markets. Anyway - as I write this it is only 5 days until we return to Brisbane for a few weeks Christmas festivities..bring on the heat - Morgan

Check out our Bremen Christmas markets photos here