THESSALONIKI: 27/28 August 2022 I’m sure many of you would have heard that the Melbourne Greek diaspora, at 425,000 (2021 census), is the third largest Greek population in the world. It takes no guessing that coming in first is Athens, the capital of Greece, with 3.15 million. But who knows which city comes in second?…
Month: August 2022
Why bother blogging?
BITOLA, NORTH MACEDONIA 26/27 August 2022 FLORINA, GREECE 27 August 2022 A couple of people have asked me why I take up valuable holiday time to write blog posts. There are many reasons, not least of which is to keep a record to help us reminisce. We feel incredibly privileged to travel, especially after a…
Hold the press, there’s been a recount!
SKOPJE, NORTH MACEDONIA: 24th August 2022 PRISTINA, KOSOVO: 25th August 2022 On careful review (Dave keeps a simple word document) we have discovered that as we landed at Skopje Airport and passed through North Macedonia immigration, that I had, in fact, hit country number 52! (not 50 as I mentioned previously) Wednesday started earlier than…
A few of our favourite things
BUDAPEST, HUNGARY, Tuesday 23rd August 2022 I know ‘these are a few of our favourite things’ is a line from the Sound of Music, set in Austria rather than Hungary, but today was a day that we each got to do our favourite thing. (Also I have been singing Sound of Music songs since we…
91 and counting…
Budapest 22/23 August 2022 You may remember from my post in Vienna, that we have holiday rules. I listed ‘Passport stamps = quantity over quality’ as #4 when possibly I should have listed it as #1. We are a little competitive in the Morley family, well in certain situations anyway. Dave decided a number of…
Wilkomme to Skoda Country
BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA: Sunday 21st August 2022 Trains, Planes and Automobiles have been our choice of transport thus far, but today we changed it up and caught a ferry from Vienna to Bratislava. The ferry wharf was a 15 minute suitcase drag through Vienna’s cobblestone streets, and set along a tributary of the Danube that comes…
The Living Daylights
Vienna, Austria: 2nd Instalment (Saturday 20th August 2022) The day began like any other… haha, I feel like I am writing a fairy-tale. Actually it feels like I am in a fairy-tale! Saturday did start with – eating, of course 😉 The Neuermarkt’s hotel breakfast was a step up from their hard beds and dodgy…
Holiday Rules
Vienna, Austria: 19/20 August 2022 I hardly know where to begin, it’s been such a fabulous couple of days! 1st instalment: Friday 19th Friday began early with a buffet breakfast, pack up, checkout, brief Uber to Prague station and enough time to work out which platform and carriage we needed to be on for our…
9 to 5
PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC, 17/18 AUGUST 2022 ‘9 to 5’ is usually a phrase I think of about working, but since arriving in Europe, it has been my sleeping hours. By 9pm I am exhausted and ready to crash, and by 5am I am awake, up and ready for action! Thankfully the bouts of tiredness throughout…
City Driving Endorsement
15/16 August 2022 BERLIN For those of you asking – some good news first – our bags arrived in Berlin with us! As we landed in Berlin a storm began, meaning we sat on the tarmac for 1 and 1/2 hours before the ground staff were able to assist us disembark. My favourite holiday gadget…
We have lift-off
And so the holiday begins… Dave has been warning me that I should prepare for things not to go smoothly and, true to expectations in the current travel environment, we were delayed 2 hours out of Sydney which meant that we landed late into Heathrow. Before we landed the cabin manager came to see us…