It’s almost impossible to summarise Europe as a whole. The highlights reel would run into hours. Europe is the traveller’s lolly jar: lots of epic, distinct destinations and experiences packed into a relatively small space.
Road tripper? Beach lover? Island hopper? Alpine adventurer? Maybe you’re happy wandering ancient towns for hours on end? Perhaps, like us, you’d go to extreme lengths to hunt down an original Caravaggio or search out the remnants of an ancient Roman road. Or maybe you like nothing better than sipping a sunset vino sourced from nearby vines, while watching the world go by in a local town square. Europe offers a little bit of travel Nirvana for everyone. The history, culture, food, people, tradition, architecture and, of course, the nature will always keep us coming back for more.
Posts from Europe
The Marvellous Mosaics Of Ravenna
We’re sipping frothy cappuccino in a café on a charming cobbled street while I run a crash course on the small town we’ve just arrived in. It’s a little over an hour since we decided to day trip here from our base in Bologna.
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Shifting Views Of Most Serene San Marino
San where? Few people have heard of the tiny landlocked microstate of San Marino, even though it’s been clinging precariously to the hills and high places of the Appenine Mountains in north-east Italy for more than 1,700 years. But staying below the parapet seems to have been a tactic that’s …
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Eat, Drink, Marvel, Repeat: A Wander Around Bologna
We had one major objective for our trip to Bologna: Eat ragu. Everything else would be a bonus. Having grown up on Spaghetti Bolognese, this was – for me – effectively a pasta pilgrimage. I’d done my research though and I was under no illusions that there might be any similarity …
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A 36-Hour Flirtation With Florence
We were definitely easing into our travels when we picked Florence as our launch pad for a stint in Italy. With 36 hours in the Renaissance city followed by two weeks in the region, drinking all the wine, eating all the food, drinking all the wine (did I say that already?), if there was going …
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Diving into the past in the Bay of Naples
We’re staring down a wide, stone-paved roadway that winds off into the distance. Nearby, low walls of crumbling brick trace out the arcades, rooms and courtyards of seaside villas in what was once the summer playground of Ancient Rome’s rich and famous. It’s a scene reminiscent of many historic sites of this large …
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Road to ruin in Turkey – Part II
With three incredible weeks on the road behind us, we didn’t think Turkey could get any better. For our final week though, we risked further car-itation to hire another little runabout, and in one day alone, achieved a trifecta of superb ancient sites.
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Road to ruin in Turkey – Part I
For a moment, standing under the fluoro glare of neon lights, a sound like a wailing cat drifting out of a nearby karaoke bar, and a board proclaiming ‘best full English breakfast’ to our left, I wondered if my woeful navigation had somehow taken us out of Turkey altogether.
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Istanbul to Cappadocia and everything in between
Our tour guide looks and sounds frighteningly like Borat. He’s decked out in a safari vest, a neck scarf, and he’s sporting a moustache Merv Hughes would be proud of.
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12 Days In Greece – An Island Hopping Greek Mezze
Halfway into our seventh or eighth consecutive Greek Salad, John confessed that he wasn’t actually much of a fan of tomato. Or cucumber. Or green capsicum and onion, for that matter. I pointed out that this didn’t leave much besides feta, a sprinkling of oregano and the occasional olive to lessen the culinary …
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