Photos from Bruges, Belgium

Photos from beautiful Bruges....

In Bruges (not the movie)

Where better to go after the hustle and bustle of big city Paris, than the tiny, historical Bruges?
I know, we couldn't think of anywhere else, either, so off we went!

In Bruges

Photos from Paris, France

10 days in Paris....

Mum joins: trippin' for a month....

So for the next month, mum will be traveling with us (....and her very 'talkative' friend). It's going to be a very busy month.

Daytrippin' to Versailles

Meeting up with our fellow travelers from Myanmar

We are so happy we were able to catch up with Margaux and Paule in Paris!!!!!!

In case you are wondering, they are the French girls who 'saved' Frode while we were traveling in Myanmar back in February!

Remember this?

4 months ago.... waiting for the overnight bus in Mandalay, Myanmar

4 months later..... Happy & Healthy in Paris

Picnic in Paris

As it happened, our visit to Paris overlapped neatly with my friend Mathieu's.

Some sort of tower..?

Mathieu, as you can tell from the name (best pronounced with an outrageous fake French accent), is French, and was travelling with his Italian girlfriend Elena to visit family and friends in France and Italy.
Despite their tight schedule (every hour fully booked of their five days in Paris), they had organised a Saturday picnic to catch up with a bunch of friends all in one go.

The best-laid plans..

An unexpected plan change - or how we learned to stop worrying and love the train strikes in France.

So we wanted to take a nice overnight train from Milan to Paris, saves on accommodation and would put us in Paris on the morning of the same day as Naomi's mum arrived.

No problem, these are both big cities, surely there's a direct train between them that we can use?

Last stop in Italy: Milan

Our last stop in Italy was Milan, financial and fashion capital. Very nice city but also very expensive. We rented a wonderful apartment in Milan via Airbnb where we caught up on our laundry and some blogging.. did some sightseeing and also caught up with friends from Milan.

 Duomo - Very impressive!

Daytrippin' to Venice

Different kind of pastas....

There are so many different kind of pasta in Italy. I am always very confused at the restaurant trying to remember which one's which. I always get mixed up between Tagliatelle and Tortellini (probably because they both starts with T!) Anyways, they are very different. One is a flat pasta, similar to fettuccine and the other one is a stuffed pasta, usually with meat and cheese.

Daytrippin' to Pompeii

We were basing ourselves in Sorrento, south of Napoli, because we wanted to go to the Amalfi coast area, and to see the ruins of Pompeii.

We'd gone to Amalfi, now it was Pompeii's turn!

Beautiful Amalfi Coast - Sorrento, Positano & Amalfi

Rome & Vatican Photos

Our journey to Italy

We survived!

OK, so it wasn't really a do or die scenario, but it sure felt like it...

What am I on about this time?

Our epic rail journey from Barcelona to Rome!!

Rough route

OK, so this will be a bit of a step-by-step description of this leg of our trip, so excuse the boring bits (which may include all of this post)..

Barcelona Photos

More photos from Barcelona....

Catching up with Shirley in Barcelona

@ El Xampanyet

The best part of traveling around the world is definitely being able to catch up with friends around the world. The schedule doesn't always work out but when it does, it is great to be able to see friends I haven't seen in ages.

So I was super happy that I could catch up with Shirley. We were both working in Shanghai about 10 years ago... so it has been that long since we saw each other, wow time flies. But it's good that we haven't aged one bit (yes I am very humble).

Hop on and off

We really like the 'Hop On & Off Bus' that they have everywhere in the world - Very touristy and sometimes a little embarrassing but I think it's a great way to get to know a city I don't know anything about, especially big cities like Barcelona or New York.

It is a fun and easy way to get your bearings in a new city.

Fotos de Madrid

Spent an amazing time in the capital of España - thanks to our good friends, MariaD & Jaime.
Here are some photos.....

Trippin' for a day: Toledo

While we were staying in Madrid, with our wonderful friend MariaD, it was suggested to us by all the Madrileños (people from Madrid) that we do a day trip to Toledo, since it's so nearby.

It used to be the capital of Spain, aka Castile, in the 16th century, before the rulership of the day moved the capital to Madrid, which was in the middle of nowhere and made no sense, according to our Madrileño friend Jaime.

Visiting Toledo wasn't on our itinerary, but since everyone were saying we should go, how could we not go?!

Toledo!