So in my last post I had left Galway (eventually), which marked the start of my 2 months travels in order to get home for Christmas!
My travels started with Scotland. I met my friend from home in Glasgow where we attended a film festival and explored the coffee and vegan delicacies of the city. It was a cool city, reminded me of Dunedin at times!
Next was Edinburgh where I mostly relaxed and explored the beautiful architecture of 'the dunedin of the north' as well as a visit to 'portobello beach'.. where the beach weather rather resembled that of Dunedin!!!
Next stop was Denmark where I visited an old high school friend in Aarhus. We spent our days cycling around this beautiful city. It was so nice to cycle around as the motorists give you your space and respect you a lot more than in NZ! We went to the art gallery which was pretty phenomenal and a few really good museums and well as a deer park and Danish Handball match.. Another unique experience!
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Being a 'European cyclist'
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| 'Day of the dead exhibition' |
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Me and Kaila on the infinity walk (built for European capital of culture 2017)
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Greece was next. I flew into Athens and spent a few days exploring the bussling capital. It was a big change from Denmark but the 20 degree heat was well welcomed! It was amazing marvelling at the history of the place and enjoing the cheaper prices after Denmark!!
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| The acropolis |
Next I caught the 12 hour ferry over to Crete, arriving in Heraklion and departing for Matala, a small commune South-West of Heraklion. Matala was a fishing village occupied by the hippies in the 60s due to the caves overlooking the beach. They were chased out by the government and church in later years but the vibe of the village very much still remains.
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| The 'famous hippie caves' |
I spent just over a week here. The village was situated on the beach set amongst a lot of hills and cliffs so i spent my days swimming and walking over the hills to neighbouring beaches. It was about 30 degrees most days so once again, the heat was very welcomed!
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| 'Mystical Viewpoint' |
On my way back through Heraklion I visited Knossos, the capital of Minoan Crete, often called Europe's Oldest City
Next came Portugal where I was to stay for a month. I arrived in Lisbon and caught a train down the south in the direction of 'Carrapateira', a small fishing village in the Algarve where I was going to be working on a farm for the next 3 weeks in order to save some money during my travels. This prompted my first hitchhiking experience! Carrapaterira wasn't reachable by any other means so I walked to the road and began to very timidly lift my thumb and even before I had even lifted it it a car pulled over and gave me a lift. The farm I was working on was called 'Cunca" and was a small self-sufficeint farm consisting of a number of small gardens, a lot of animals and many other pieces of land aroound the area. The farm was between two beaches called 'amado' and 'bodeira', both which hosted surfing and could be accessed by walking the cliffs between the 2 beaches. The work here involved gardening, landscaping and a good few days of removing stones from fields. The weather was high 20s everyday and there was lots going on in the neighbouring villages such as a hippie-flea-market, pizza parties and a chestnut festival where they roasted chestnuts in the middle of the streets. The area was beautiful and the people were all very accommodating.
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| One of the gardens on the farm |
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| The cliffs between Bodeira and Amado |
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| 'Portuguese style bike lock' |
When my 3 weeks was up I began my hitch-hiking-public-transport expedition back to civilisation. In Faro I met a friend from Ireland amd we spent a week exploring the main villages along the south coast. The included the picturesque Faro:, Albufiera where we biked along the coast following its many beaches and caves alongside a spot of dolphin watching, and Lagos where we explored more beaches and narrow winding streets of the old town.
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| A dog lazing in Faro |
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| The beaches along from Albufiera |
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| Lagos beach explorations |
After my month in Portugal I flew to Bologna where I met with two friends from my course (one who lived there and the other who was joining me for central america and moving to NZ). We spent a number of days in Bologna exploring the becuatifl city, riding on scooters, eating amazing food, and drinking delicious wine. One memorable food experience was 'Eataly', which was a huge food expo which was had just opened up as a permanent exhibition the day before!
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| San Luca - a church up on the hills over Bologna |
We also did a day tip to Florence and were blessed with some beautiful weather for it!
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| Gelatos in Florance |
From there myself and Rachel embarked on our flight to Panama where we will explore Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Chile before flying to NZ for Chrsitmas, but that is for another blogpost!
Until then,
Slan,
Ka kite
J x
