Days 13 – 16 – Tuesday 20th to Friday 23rd October As I said (or at least alluded to) in Tuesday's post, it just didn’t feel right to be doing the whole tourist thing and then telling the world all about it as if nothing was wrong given the events of last Monday. Not that there’s the slightest thing I can truly do about that crazy world. So I just sat with that feeling for a few days and decided that to wrap things up with a farewell post now felt about right. So here I am on

Day 13 – Tuesday 20th October So here I am, touring around the other side of the world, whilst so many other things appear to be going down the gurgler. We’ve just departed from Romania, which borders on Ukraine, and which we talked about with our guide Victor at some length. A couple of days ago it was reported that Presidents Putin, Xi and Trump would meet to decide the fate of that country; this century’s three worst dictators potentially meeting to decide the fate of

Day 12 – Monday 19th October An amusing little anecdote to start today’s brief commentary. We were wandering around the Galata area (more of that later), and a lovely patterned shoulder bag caught J’s eye. The shop owner invited us in, as they do, to see all his wares. Most of the bags had pictures of cats on them, to which J said “I don’t like cats”, meaning “I don’t want a cat bag”. The owner gave her a wry smile and said “It is İstanbul, you know!”. Those of you who’ve bee

Day 11 – Sunday 18th October Unlike the last week in Romania, there’s no societal or community stories to tell here; at least not yet. Yes, there’s plenty of history, both generally about the Ottoman Empire and specifically about places such as the Hagia Sofia, but I think today I won’t dive into that. Today was simply a day of wandering and exploring. We had arrived last night and had strolled down the road to Sultan Ahmet Park to do a quick orientation, and this morning aft

Days 9 and 10 – Friday 16th and Saturday 17th October Our final day and a half in Romania really capped off a brilliant experience. I said a day or so back something to the effect that the trip was delivering beyond expectations. And so it continued. The most graphic standout was learning about life under some 40 years of brutal regimes. I know I have a propensity for intolerance; having listened to Victor's stories over the last week, culminating in standing in Bucharest's R

Day 8 – Thursday 15th October Today was our only 2-night stay during the Romanian leg, staying at the lovely Schuster Boarding House in the centre of old Brașov. After a sensible start we joined Victor for a two-hour walk around the old town. Brașov is a town of just under 400,000 people in the greater metro area, with, like so may places in Romania, a recent history going back 1,000 years (the ancient history rgoes back 10 times that figure). We started with a visit to the

Sighișoara to Brașov via Viscri and Prejmer It’s sort of hard to know where and how to continue this blog/story. The enigmatic gift that is Romania keeps on giving. Going back more than 12 months when we planned this trip, it really was no more than a whim which brought us here. The trip was simply to go to Istanbul and looking at a map I chanced on Romania simply because it was nearby. What a mistake it was to discount it so flippantly, and what a bonus it has been to visi

Rimetea to Sighișoara via at Jidvei wineries and a gypsy town (literally!) After breakfast we trekked to the ruins of the nearby 13th C Trascau Fortress. A pleasant walk to the top, and quite spectacular views from the top as the various guide books state. Perhaps the highlight though was the interaction with the goat herd, who were both friendly and curious. Then we found our way to Jidvie Wines for what turned out to be a wine tasting, a meal, and yet another communist er

Sibiu to Rimitea via Corvin Castle and Alba Iulia Citadel When I first planned this trip Corvin Castle was one of the “must see” highlights (the hyperlink provides some very interesting background). Prior to that I knew nothing of it beyond what my travel AI and Google had told me; everyone visiting Transylvania knows of Bran Castle for example, but Corvin is not commonly known. It took a couple of hours to get to there, and we arrived at 11:30 and wandered, as on Mondays the

Bucharest to Sibiu via the Transfagarasan Road All being well I’ll throw a few photos in to this post. After leaving the hotel at 8am we hit the road towards the Transylvanian Alps, aka the Faragas Mountains or the Southern Carpathians. First stop was a photo opportunity to see Burg Poenari – first constructed in 1453 and one of the “homes” (fortresses) of Vlad III (aka Vlad Drucula or Vlad the Impaler), who lived from 1428/31 until 1476/7. Much more of Vlad later in this jou

Yallingup to Perth to KL to Istanbul to Bucharest – Thursday 8th – Saturday 10th October We’ve been “on the road”, so to speak, for almost 2 days. Actually on the road only from home a little after 6pm on Thursday to Perth, where we dropped off the car at Helen’s place around 10-ish, caught an Uber to the airport, and then two flights – one Malaysian and one Turkish – to Istanbul. About 16 hours in the air in total, plus a couple of hours at KLIA. The Malaysian A330 was nice;

Paris, 19-21 July, 2026 OK, the last contemporaneous blog. I'll probably post a reflective one of some sorts over coming times, particularly of the walk, but as tomorrow we start our long haul home there'll be nothing of particular import to write about. So this is it in this series. Le tour is said to be the most visited ticketed monument in, wait for it, the world. Not just Paris. Now I'm going to be happy to take Mr G's word for it. Might be true, might not (I would have t

Another non-blog; simply a few brief comments on the last four days in this lovely part of the world. 14th July - leaving Nantes We were staying in the central part of Nantes, and the previous day upon arrival had not had time to visit the cathedral - Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Nantes - before it closed. So the start of today was a visit before we hit the road. On 18 July 2020 the 600-year old cathedral was the subject of an arson attack, and was closed for 5 ye

Monday 13th July, Nantes, Britagne/Brittany Not so much a detailed blog (I don't think, I've not written it yet), but a brief photo essay of the highlights of the last few days, with a bit of commentary. St Jean to Bordeaux via Biarritz The early part of the day went well according to plan. Left SJPdP (and the fabulous Les Chemins d'Elika - highly recommended if you ever happen to be there) via the train to Bayonne and another to Biarritz, and then via Bolt (an Uber-like sys

Vingt-quatrième jour - Friday 10th July, Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port Massive thunder and lightning storm at 1am; glad we weren't out walking. Lazy day today. Resting. Wandering the old city and walls. No story, just a few photos. An ever so slightly social end to our Camino last night (Thursday), on the lovely terrace of the very nice Le Relais de la Nive restaurant. From left Cathy from Sydney, J, me and Simone from the UK. (Earlier that night we'd caught up with American couple

Subtitle: 5,000,000 steps Vingt-troisième jour – terminer - Thursday 9th July, Larceveau - Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port - 19.5 klms (final total approx 425) Our trekking poles are a little worse for wear, and with just a little hyperbole I made some comment that they had walked a million miles with us. Janet did some quick processing and came up with the assessment that they'd probably walked 5 million steps!! Now let's not get too precise, but if you think about it, my very first

Vingt-deuxième jour - Wednesday 8th July, Aroue (Etcharry) - Larceveau - 24.4 klms (running total approx 406.2) We were presented with options today. Head down this route to visit this town, that route to see that monument. We chose only one set of options - what would be shortest and easiest!! According to the guidebook the longest set of options turned the day into a "strenuous" walk of over 30klms with an up/down altitude variance of some 800 metres. Ah, no thanks. The sh

Vingt-et-unième jour - Tuesday 7th July, Navarrenx - Aroue - 21.6 klms (running total approx 381.8) I don't even know if "pen-penultimate" is a real word, but hey, it's my blog and if I want to mangle my English/Latin well, who cares? I've written about previously, and indeed experienced multiple times, that the last few klms of any day's walk are usually the hardest. It's a mental more than a physical thing - yes after 20 klms the feet hurt and one is generally tired (and ho

Vingtième jour - Monday 6th July, Sauvelade - Navarrenx - 14.4 klms (running total approx 360.2) Early in the walk we passed many signs with various philosophical statements or sayings. They were all in French, and whilst I translated a couple just for fun, most of them are simply sitting in my phone as a "tomorrow" project. And then today, very early into the day, I passed the sign "Another World is Truly Possible", which gave rise to today's title. It's a gentle exhortatio

Dix-neuvième jour - Friday 3rd July, Arthez-de-Béarn - Sauvelade - 20.6 klms (running total approx 345.9) There's a maxim for/on the Camino Frances that the first third is for the body, the next third is for the mind and the last third is for the spirit or the soul. Given that a maxim is a generally accepted truth, as opposed to an absolute or scientific truth, I hold the third-third-third maxim to be a pretty accurate rule of thumb. For the Camino Frances. Or the Via de la P