Geneva to Garda via Chamonix - Tuesday 31st August 2010

The plan today was to drive from Geneva to Lake Garda via the ski resort of Chamonix. The 331 mile journey should take about 6 hours of driving.

The drive to Chamonix from Geneva is probably one of my favourites. Following the Autoroute Blanche, you drive from the flat and boring plains of France and enter the craggy mountains of the alps with their snow capped peaks and deep valleys.

The most awesome bit of the drive is an elevated flyover along one side of a valley called the Autoroute Des Geants. The views over the Alps from this section of road are outstanding!

Chamonix is one of my favourite places in France. It is only a small town but is home to a great ski resort and there are loads of things to do in the summer as well with a mountain biking route, para gliding and rafting.

We went for a spot of breakfast and to look at going up the cable car to the top of Mont Blanc. Breakfast was sorted very easily. Most of the food in Chamonix seems to be bread containing melted cheese and ham.

The cable car to the top of Mont Blanc was a different matter. We got to the bottom of the lift and it had changed since my last visit. The centre had been updated and there was a large car park. It looked very new and so were the information boards at the entrance. For the two of us to take a return trip to the top, the price was €82, not wanting to blow a weeks worth of food money, we decided that iit was probably a trip for another day, one when we have a grown kid interested in mountains and snow, and one where we actually have money saved up for it. It annoyed me a lot really because last time i came the prices were so much cheaper, only about 20 per person.

Never mind, the time we saved not going up to the top of the mountain we could then spend on taking the scenic route from Chamonix, over the Cul du Forclaz (1527m) into Switzerland, through the town of Martigny then back over the mountains across the Cul du Great St Bernard (2473m) into Italy for the final stretch of the trip.

The winding roads of the mountains soon straightened out as we joined the E64, the main West to East autoroute along the top of Italy. The traffic varied from being standstill to free and open. We passed Milan slowly (due to traffic) and made our way to Lake Garda.

Garda is a town on the East shore of Lake Garda. We arrived close to sunset and got to our hotel with only a little confusion. The Hotel Royal from the outside looked perfectly fine. A little dated in decoration, a bit 60's but no problems, our room however was more of the same, dark wood and a narrow space, our room looked as though in 1960 when the hotel was built, it would have been about 5*, it however had been a little neglected for the last 50 years with only the bathroom being sorted out in the 80's with brilliant white tiles and bright toolbox red accessories.
The room was clean and over the next four days; it really grew on us to being perfect for the money we paid and the breakfast supplied really made up for it. More about that later on!
Once we were sorted we walked into town to find some dinner. We found a nice little restaurant by the lake. We watched go down over pizza and ice cream before heading back for a freshen up and bed.

Dijon and Geneva - Monday 30th August 2010

What a sleep that was! And to wake up in another country and feel rested for the day ahead was just brilliant!
The trip today took us from Saint Quentin to Geneva, Switzerland via Dijon. Google told us that it would take about 6 hours to get there and that the trip would be 401 miles.
These are good distances we thought to be travelling. Anna had found it hard being in the heat of Cyprus earlier in the year and she didn't know how being 6 months pregnant would effect her being in the car for so long.

The Toll roads were once again kind to us and we reached Dijon in good time. I've been to this great town before as a first night stop whilst on my stag do with my brother and two friends.
We parked in the station car park and took a short walk into town. Since my last visit the town has started massive building works everywhere so we skipped some of the nice bits due to the bulldozers, diggers and scaffolding and headed into the town centre.

We moseyed about for a while searching for a couple of Geocaches before stopping at a cafe under an archway for a savoury crepe for lunch. We waited out a passing rain cloud and then headed back to the car. We stopped off to look at the incredible town hall that is more of a palace than anything in the UK, it was just outstanding!

Back in the car and south we flew. We weren't staying in Geneva itself becasue i am incredibly stingy and didn't want to pay out three times as much as the hotel we had. We stopped at the Hotel IBIS in Archamps, just outside the City and on the French side of the border.
Once again, the room was very clean and had a lovely view towards Lake Geneva, the only drawback was that the motorway was in the way.

We shifted all the stuff from the car and into the room and set off looking at the sights of Geneva and attempting to find some food to keep us going. We arrived a little too late for the shops were closing as we arrived and got into the city centre. We had a wander about, looking at all the closed museums and churches. I thought to myself that i'd like a good couple of days here to really get to know the place and actually visit some of the many galleries and blow a large quantity of cash on watches for me and handbags for her,... we can dream right!??!

Anyway, enough day dreaming, up comes my most stupid idea of the whole holiday. I thought that i would be great fun to explore the harbour and go to see the huge fountain that erupts like a geyser from the lakeside. So off we trotted, it took a little longer to get there than anticipated. We walked out onto the pier and up to the fountain, MASSIVE! that's what it was, it was really tall! we kept walking out to a lighthouse at the very end of the harbour wall and looked back. Horror had stuck us as the wind had changed direction. The fountain which was once blowing out onto the lake was now blowing back onto the wall where we had just walked. Vast quantities of water which i couldn't even guess as to the amount were plummeting onto the path in front of us, trapping us by a lighthouse, far from shore.

Only one thing to do i thought, RUN FOR IT! So, we did, and got soaked. Anna was not happy with me. We were both tired, now soaked and very hungry. We couldn't even change at the car because all of the spare clothes were in the hotel. Nothing for it now, lets splash out i thought.
MCDONALDS!

A dirty burger and some fries later, we were on our way back into France and to the warmth and dry of our hotel room.

More Sleep :D

Saint Quentin, France - Sunday 29th August 2010

Another trip in the car to mainland Europe I'm afraid for our latest holiday abroad. This trip will take us south, through France, into Switzerland and Italy, then back out through Austria, Liechtenstein, more Switzerland, Germany, Luxemburg, Belgium then back into France for the last leg home to the UK; all with a boot full of luggage and a pregnant wife on board!
The plan is to do the trip in 9 days so, LET'S GET STARTED!

Day one for us started at around noon with our now well travelled Skoda. I finished early from work and we had already packed the car so we headed straight off and blasted our way to the Channel Tunnel. The aim of the afternoon's drive was to get to Saint Quentin, Picardie, a town about two hours from Calais so a nice and easy first leg of the journey to get us to 'The Other Side' without having to wake up mega early and have a very long drive on the next leg (to Geneva).

The mid afternoon drive was outstanding through France. The road was clear and the sun was lovely and warm as we drove steadily along the E15 and the E17, south to our destination. 
Google told us that this leg of the trip would take us 4 1/2 hours and it was 245 miles in distance. 

To be fair, it probably took us about this amount of time, stopping for the occasional toll booth and rest stop. It wasn't long before we arrived at the Campanile, St Quentin. This roadside motel didn't look much from the outside and was quite small from the outside but it was very clean, had internet access with the room and was very comfortable. I think if we plan another journey out this way, this place is an ideal overnight stop.


We unpacked the valuables into the hotel room and took the car into town. It was getting gloomy at this point and in true Sweeney Family style, the rain clouds had moved in over our heads. Being on holiday and annoyingly stubborn, i'd refused to wear trainers and trousers (being still summer) so i was sporting sandals and 3/4 length trousers. The footwear i would very much regret later on. 

The town of St Quentin is very nice indeed. It has a large town square with a beautiful town hall, loads of places to eat and quite an impressive church, all of which were closed to the public due to the late hour. The only option was to grab something to eat at a local pub / pizza parlour. What a lovely place it was too! It always makes me a bit nervous when continental drinking establishments are called 'Pubs' but this one was great. The food was awesome, the waiters were fast and even the local gendarmes came in (in uniform) for a beverage, something not seen in the UK for a good number of years!


After food a wander back to the car through the soaked market place led me to stub (and take most the end off) my big toe. Classy Andy, very classy, another holiday with a painful foot.... A quick bandage and drive back to the hotel followed and then sleep, a very deep sleep.

Cyprus - Wednesday 12th May 2010.

The morning today began by an enormous amount of eating. We had to work through as much leftover food as we could before we had to leave at 10am. There was no option to take anything from the refrigerator with us as anything that required cooling would be at a million degrees well within the six hours it took us to book into Villa Klouni for our second week.

The melon (named Tara as she was unable to come) was swiftly eaten, and I even managed some more ice cream. Most of the food was binned to be fair.

We were ready, packed and out of the house for 0955hrs, winner.

Gaz and Janey were due at the airport for about 1630hrs so we had almost a full day’s worth of last minute sight seeing to do.

The plan was to stop off at the Limni Jetty (just down the road from the house). It was out most elusive cache and we had failed to find it about three times over the week. With a little help from the cache owner (via Goldy) we found it within minutes, genius hiding place!

The day passed quite quickly. We took in Kourion, the chariot race track and the Sanctuary of Apollo with a spot of expensive (and beige) lunch at Avdimou Beach at the Malanda restaurant. I love this beach so much. It is typically our ‘last day’ beach and is really still and relaxed. If there was a place that I could go, live in a hut and sit about all day in my pants, this would be it.

We drove back towards the airport and stopped of at the Birthplace of Aphrodite, a giant rock on the beach which is said to be one of Zeus’s balls from which Aphrodite burst. In reality it looks like a headland which had been made into a small island by the tides and waves of the Mediterranean or and erratic rock.

After this stop we said goodbye to Gaz and Janey. They are excellent travelling companions and would love them to stay for a second week! Also, Gaz seems to be good at this writing lark

Cyprus - Tuesday 11th May 2010

Today was Goldy’s last day and our three year Anniversary.

We all got up nice and late having a chilled out time reading and having a bit of a swim until it was time to take Goldy to the airport.

He set off with Gaz and Janey who took him to the airport and we followed up a little later.

Annoyingly traffic prevented us from getting anywhere close to the airport in time so we met Gaz and Janey later on at the port in Paphos.

After a quick drink and a bit of people watching we went next door to the Paphos Archaeological site.

It was really very, very arid. It was hotter than Satan’s armpit after three sets of centre court tennis. Wandering round in the dust and the heat we saw all the amazing mosaics and the amphitheatre.

We have been there a couple of times before and it still amazes me that the Romans went to great lengths to have intricate and ornate floors and huge squares surrounded by pillars.

The heat was getting to us all eventually and water was running out so we decided to head back to the house and have another chillaxing session before dinner.

After eating copious amounts of left over ice cream, we saw the best sunset of the holiday. It was awesome. I’m not poetic so I’m not going to even try to describe it. The photo I took shows it quite well though.

Our last night’s meal was in Polis at a place called Finikas. It was by far the best food we’d had all week and had the friendliest staff by far. The menu had local and western dishes available so we all stuck to chargrilled and baked tasty food.

It was a great final night out before the last day for Gaz and Janey.

Cyprus - Monday 10th May 2010

Today was Goldy’s last full day with us so in true Sweeney style we decided to go for a massivly long drive. I mean, what holiday is complete without spending over 12 hours in a car travelling along winding, narrow roads at break neck speeds!

We filled up the two cars at Polis and headed out along the roads out towards Steni, and then through to Stavros. We went to Cedar Valley, Kikos Monastery and then along some more winding roads to Trudos then down the valley to Platres and followed the road down to Paphos.

It was a bit of a mission to be fair. En route to Stavros we found a couple of geocaches. The first was at a small hut on the top of a hill in the middle of nowhere looking out over the valley and hills. The hut was long abandoned and had no roof at all and was only one room but the location was very cool indeed. The heat was rising by this point of our journey. We had risen above the haze and away from the cool winds of the coast. We could tell it was going to be a pretty hot one.

The notes for this cache said “make sure you look for the easy track up”. Turns out we didn’t look hard enough, as the easy-ish but slightly scrably and overgrown route we found was trumped by the gentle, wide-open slope round the corner.

The ruined huts weren’t of much interest in themselves, but the view and location were indeed very nice and the area (being isolated) was obviously used now and again as shelters by people out hunting. Judging by the location and the amount of shotgun shells though, the main prey was roadsigns and empty beer bottles.

We followed the road a little more and retrieved another geocache at the roadside and then continued onwards.

Anna was starting to feel a little bit poorly sick by this point. There was no horizon to look at and the bends were sending me into a bit of a trance. The next welcome stop was a cache at the Agrino helipad. Its odd really that they have very few, completely randomly placed helipads. This one was not really close to a town and once again had terrific views over the tree covered mountains.

I nearly hit a car near here coming the opposite way, as it was on a bend and in the MASSIVE blind spot at the corner of the windscreen that our car had as a result of its overly vast wing mirrors and two inch thick pillars. Sorry, random man – but at least if we had hit you and you’d been hurt, you would have been near an evacuation point for an air ambulance.

The next stop on the journey was probably one of my favourites. Anna missed it because she needed a small sleep in the air conditioned car to try and shake the motion sickness.

This stop was at a Mouflon Enclosure. Mouflons are a endangered sheep/goat that are indigenous to Cyprus. We had a short walk up some stairs and looking through a fence into the enclosure, in a little dell were some Mouflon. They are strange looking short haired sheep with horns. There were some baby ones as well. Very cute indeed, Anna was very jealous.

The mouflons were excellent, and obviously quite happy in their little safety zone. They’ve also sussed out that if they hang out near the back of it, people have to climb the stairs to see them and more often than not won’t because it’s so bloody hot, so they get left in peace. And people say sheep are stupid!

Moving on swiftly we went through Cedar Valley to the Kikos Monastery. It was described by “The Man (Paul from James Villas) as being a sight to behold with loads of gold on all the walls and large frescos.

Upon arrival we parked just round the corner from the coach tours and approached the front door. I put the leg sections of my trousers on and Anna put on a skit that she had brought with her to preserve our decency inside and to avoid being Smited (smote/smitten?) by the lord himself inside.

The Lord was obviously having a day off though, given one lady emerged wearing what appeared to be just a large hanky and a ludicrously floppy hat.

Entering and looking around it was clear that money was not an issue at all for the Greek Orthodox Church. There were new mosaics all over the building and the structure was spotless in spite of the hundreds of tourists a day that go through the doors.

I particularly liked the way the frescos and  mosaics had, in some places, been painted directly over light switches. Bit of a clue that it probably wasn’t that ancient…

We decided to go to the museum section of the monastery for which we had to pay €5 for the pleasure. My word, I have never seen so much gold in my lift. There must have been 20 to 30 different copies of the scriptures all in golden covers, icons, chalices, clothes and paintings. The collection must have been priceless. Wandering round on the polished marble floors in the near darkness looking at the spot-lit exhibits only made me regret giving them any money to enter.

While the monastery did have some interesting stuff, it was overpriced for entry and does always make me quite angry that places like this, dripping in gold, fine cloth and beautiful artworks exist (and indeed have existed in much the same way for hundreds of years) while the people who funded it all lived (and in some case still live) in abject poverty. Something isn’t right in any religion that thinks the most important thing is to have a golden church and vicars who wear crowns rather than churchgoers who have enough to eat and somewhere to live. Rant over, I should also point out that the array of dreadful shops outside to fleece tourists was a tat lover’s paradise. There was a staggering array of crap available, from manky-looking nuts to toy machine guns for the kids (a personal favourite of Jesus, I’m sure), all at healthily inflated prices for the tourist wallet.

Maxibon count: 2.

We continued to look around and I spotted a mosaic that was clearly a typo.

We left the monastery for drinks and a maxi-bon (official holiday ice cream) and then continued to Trudos. On the way I spotted a sign that said “Services” with a cup of tea and a knife and fork pointing up a sharp hill to an interesting looking building with a HUGE cross beside it. We took a very short detour to have a look and once again were greeted with a lovely view and a small white chapel. Unfortunately the food and drink was unavailable but a nice place all the same.

The car park of the church with the outrageously out of scale cross also featured a “wishing tree”, where people tie bits of cloth with (I assume) prayers attached. On a purely technical basis, if God is omnipresent, does he really need the tree and the bits of cloth? He’s getting lazy if you ask me. Either that or he should at least invest in an 0800 service, as a fabric and horticulture based system seems somewhat haphazard.

Trudos is really not worth the effort to be honest. If you go there, have a small drive about and move on to the town of Platres. There is a trout farm there and a lovely waterfall detailed in our last Cyprus blog.

We did stop for a spot of grub at Trudos. It was overly priced, pretty poor quality and the place we went to was next door to the “Ben Nevis Café”. There were local stalls selling generic tourist crap and nothing much else. I’m sure that it would be a lot better in the winter when the snow is around and about but in the ‘off season’ (most of the year) there is nothing going on.

This place was indeed dead as a doornail – even the cats looked bored. In fact, it was so dead they could probably have used the waiter’s outrageously pink t-shirt as a tourist attraction.

While at lunch, and old couple sat down near to us and demanded “Tea” and asked the question “Is this it?” I think “Yes” is the answer. Oh well, food consumed and out on the road again for the best drive IN THE WORLD! If only we could have shared the experience with an Atoz driving mental by the name of RICHARD BENNETT, he would have enjoyed it so!

This was certainly one occasion where I missed my Smart Roadster. Which to add insult to injury was in fact somewhere on Cyprus, seeing as I’d sold it 5 years ago to a Cypriot guy (as they drive on the left too, like all sensible countries).

The drive to the coast took us down onto the valley floor and along graceful bends and long straights with the sun setting around us the heat was incredible but it was good to feel warm. I think I may have over tanned my right arm, I don’t think they match anymore!

Once we hit the coast we drove along to Paphos to have a quick look round the harbour area and “bar street”. Nothing had changed, the restaurant owners were still letchy and slimey and bar street is still a complete hole.

The waterfront and the castle were very pretty in the sunset, once you’d run the gauntlet of people offering you “free wine” and a “nice table, my friend” (as opposed to what – overpriced wine and the worst table we can find because I’ve decided I hate you?).

Prior to this we’d also had an accidental wander round an archaeological site in Paphos outside a church. I say accidental because there were “keep off the ruins” signs everywhere – apart from the entrance where we’d come in. Cue some dirty looks from the German tourists who’d arrived from the “right” direction. There was also, oddly, a King of Denmark in the graveyard (as in a dead one buried there, not the current one out sightseeing). Apparently he’d “dropped dead suddenly” while on a pilgrimage. Which I think is the polite way of saying he caught something tropical and unpleasant.

The sun was really setting now and the shadows were growing longer so, as it was Goldy’s last day we went for a swift one at the Kings Road Bar. It was closer to Paphos than I remembered and in the early evening it was populated with slightly red English types and had E4 Music playing in the background. It felt a little bit homely but dirty at the same time. We didn’t stay too long. Gaz was getting an urge to order “egg and chips”.

The King’s Road was basically a hot version of Blackpool – ropey bars and clubs aplenty. “Lovely” mural in the King’s Road bar gents loo as well, assuming you like poorly rendered yet absurdly buxom ladies. They made Lara Croft look flat chested.

Our last stop of the day was at Latchi near to home. We drove over the hills in the darkness and stopped finally at Porto Latchi. Janey, Gaz and I shared a Sea Bass (his name was Stephen) and (not being a fish person at all) I thought it was actually very nice! Janey managed to have two orange juices delivered to her with some small insects doing the backstroke in them and Anna (who had ordered the Mousaka) found that it had been made with Qworn – not happy. Still it all tasted good and eventually Jane managed to get an orange without any extras. The bill was reasonable so at the end of the evening we paid up and left to get back home and to bed.

The fish was very nice indeed. The orange we got as a free dessert was also very nice, but I don’t get on well with fruit in kit form and this one was no exception. Basically, I couldn’t have made myself much stickier if I’d just punched the orange for about half an hour. I even had to wash under my watch strap as I’d got juice up my arms past my wrists.

Cyprus - Sunday 9th May 2010

We got up and went to a drive today to grab some Geocaches. We managed to get four of them today.

We drove out to our local dam at Evretou. The dam is named after a small village that we visited later on in the day. As dams go it was fairly unimpressive.  It’s not like the Mohne Dam in Westphalia or the series of dams outside Brecon. These are massive brick built emplacements designed to stand out and be a marvel of architecture and engineering. This one at Evretou was a little more subtle, overgrown and rocky. Oh well, each to their own. . There was no cache here but the area was nice and a good visit all the same. The water on the lake side looked very inviting and quite clear.

The dam was a mild disappointment – I’d been hoping for some sort of epic, but it was actually more or less a road over the end of a (very large) pond. Some very nice rugged scenery though.

There was a cache we were looking for at the other end of the lake to the south and on the way we logged a few.

The first one we snagged was at a church called St Aikaterini. It was a classic Greek Orthodox style church that was locked up so we were unfortunately not allowed to enter. It always surprises me how much litter is left laying around, even at religious sites.

The church was very pretty and quite rural, with an ornamental bell in the grounds. Shame the wall paintings outside were so faded/damaged.

Our next stop was at a random chapel in the middle of nowhere that we could only have found with the help of a Geocache. The small one roomed chapel was on the side of a valley along a very narrow single tracked concrete road with, at some points, a sheer drop to certain death – just how we like it *gulp*.

Inside the chapel were painted icons of holy people and candles, oils and other religious paraphernalia.

Being as we were in the following car, we had absolutely no idea where we were off to down the tiny dirt track. So to turn up in a steep valley (with a fairly serious drop-off) at a tiny church was actually quite a surprise. It was a nice little place – and to be honest, not being religious I find simple places like this one much more interesting than massive cathedrals and the like. This is where the real people go, not some gold-encrusted palace populated by bishops in hats a mile high.

Hunger started to set in soon after this cache and we went up to the town of Simou. The town is very small but has a large church and a school. The only place that looked open to eat was called “Pomegranate”. It was open (but unfortunately had a private party going on) I spoke with the owner “Kevyn” and we all looked hungry and tired. Much to our surprise he let us stay for some drinks so we stopped outside at a table and sipped away at our much needed beverages. Soon after he brought out possibly the best plate of chips I have ever eaten. They were very obviously hand cut and very fresh. The man is a Geordie Legend and EVERYONE should go to his place to get food. (Thursdays and Saturdays I think)

Kevyn was a top bloke indeed, even if he does spell his name in the most absurd way possible. As was the bloke who’s private party it was, who looked a bit like Richard Branson. Even though we’d crashed it he happily came out and said hello.

Simou was otherwise pretty dead, though there was the fascinating site of a bench that had been placed on a wall 8 feet in the air looking out over some bins. They really like to make their pensioners work for a nice sit-down round there. The large church in the town square also seemed to be hugely out of scale for the size of the village – like plonking St Paul’s down in the middle of a little country hamlet.

Feeling refreshed and happy again we continued our mystery tour and the next place we visited was an ancient bridge. It didn’t go over water anymore, something, probably time’ had shifted the course of the river about 20 meters away. The cache was found, logged and we moved on.

Our last stop of the day was the deserted village of Evretou. This was a Turkish village which had its occupants removed during the mid 70’s. It was now being used to house goats and farm equipment. It was really eerie and it seemed a great shame that the village, which was in a prime location next to the Evretou reservoir, just sitting abandoned.

Weirdly, despite the village only being emptied in the 1970s there seemed to be no roads between any of the houses. And not that the roads were just overgrown – they literally weren’t there and there seemed to be no space for where they might have been. It was very strange – if you’ve ever played “Resident Evil 4”, it’s more or less just like the beginning of that.

We returned home for a leftovers barbeque and at the end of the meal we were attacked (well invaded) by a giant creature that Jane thinks might be a field cricket. He was VERY ugly and a little bit wrong looking.

The terrifying thingy turned out to be a mole cricket, according to Janey’s guide to bugs and thingies. During the barbecue we were also visited by a very stupid cat – stupid because it left precisely before we were actually going to give it some meat.

Cyprus - Thursday 6th May 2010

Slept like an absolute log last night. Nothing woke me all night except for the ear splitting alarm I set for this morning. Waking up with no Suzie was WELL weird, didn’t like it at all, 5 more sleeps and counting, heard movement downstairs so got my shabby ass out of bed, quick shower and went down to investigate.

There is a need to get up this morning as “The Man” from James Villas is coming over to (in all certainty) sell us stuff like days out etc.

Jane is up and the Kettle is on, good times. I’m probably going to forego a shower this morning in favour of an outside shower and swim in a bit. I might have to wait for the sun to come over the house though and start warming the pool.

Good coffee Jane.

“The Man” also known as Paul came round and didn’t actually try to sell us anything surprisingly. He did mention that if we said “Paul sent us” in a couple of tavernas then there would be free wine. In reality we don’t feel confident in the coolness of Paul. It seems that he may have some outstanding bar bills so I think we might try and blag some wine anyway. Paul sported a nice line in nylon slacks. I suspect on hot days he’d generate enough static electricity to power his own villa. He probably treats himself to a nice pair every few months with the cash raised from backhanders from his recommended restaurants. Obviously the local Irish pub hasn’t got in on this scam as he was quite damning with faint praise about it being a place for stereotypical ex-pats. Quite ironic coming from a stereotypical ex-pat. Maybe they’d just laughed at his slacks once too often and he’d taken offence. Or he may have accidentally electrocuted the bartender’s dog.

Today we went out to the end of the road intending to go to Polis for the day. In stead of turning left to Polis, Goldy suggested we go right, so we did. We took a coastal road east and got as far as Pachyammas before we decided to stop and head back as there was nothing really going on at all. In hindsight, using the force on this occasion seemed rather crap as there was less than nothing that way, however…..

I checked my Geocaching App on my iBore and there were a few on the way back so we gave them a try. This did lead me to finding out about Geocaching which is a bit like pokemon with regards to finding something that someone else has put there, marking that we’ve found it and then going to the next one, and catching them all and it’s awesome.

The first was at Pomos marina. It is a lovely little cove, close to the town with a good size restaurant serving local fish and all the typical Greek dishes, more on that later. Disappointingly, Pomos looked like “Pornos” on the map, but wasn’t actually called that. I was expecting a town built on the sale and distribution of VHS copies of lewd films like the ones Five used to show when it was still called Channel 5 and had no money. It was, though, a really nice little place.

We had a gander at the marina, lots of little fishing boats with nets and ropes and stuff, there was a big dead fish floating in the water and a shouty kitty living in the rocks which shouted at us, then on to find the cache. We had a short walk along the beach, then up a rockface and doubled back on ourselves. Typically, it was under a stone near to the cliff. The cache itself was a bit worrying. It was cylindrical about eight inches long and about and inch in diameter, who knows where it had been *shudders*.

Opened, signed and replaced with no muggle interference. Which whilst in the right area (read on the cliff not down by the sea) I had in fact walked right past it, but not knowing what to look for it was a bit meh but good that we got it, my first Geocache, Suzie’s gonna love this as it means we can go walking lots J

The restaurant was our next stop. We had a simple meal of Halloumi (squeaky) cheese in pitas, a spot of Tzatziki and a round or two of water to replenish the reserves. Didn’t come to a great deal of cash so we paid and left quickly, just in case it was an error. Please note, I’d just had a can of pepsi, the rest are the dishonest scumbags :op though I’ve no idea how they came to that price on the bill

I dropped a 2 euro coin over the balcony, which Simon kindly retrieved for me, finding a small dice along the way. Prizes! Also, at this point some very religious looking people arrived at the restaurant. And by that I mean they were wearing Orthodox garb, not that they were crucified or doing miracles or anything. There were some splendid beards on display, which seem to be compulsory for being a Greek-style vicar. In fact, their entire theology may be based around amount and length of facial hair rather than piousness. Not necessarily a good system as that’d make Hitler a higher rank than, say, a clean-shaven deity type such as Buddha. Still, you’ve got to start somewhere I suppose and at least Hitler would be a lot lower down the pecking order than Santa. But then again ZZ Top would be equivalent to a whole squad of Jesuses (Jesii?).

We got back into the car and drove west, to the abandoned Paradise Taverna for the next cache, struck out on this one. It wasn’t so bad, it was nice and hot, the cache didn’t seem to exist though. I even looked in an abandoned commercial dishwasher and under some pallets that I think something was living under. Bit scary.

I got a seed stuck to my shoe here that looked like a tiny conker. Excellent.

The next cache was towards Polis and it was at a beach (if you could call it that). Limni Jetty is in the middle of nowhere and used to be used as a local copper mine which was closed in the 70’s. The buildings had fallen into disrepair and looked more home to tramps than anything at all useful. Loads of odd graffiti, like the now legendary “put your Nazis in the bin” slogan and advertising for the Low Bap society – perhaps a self help group for ladies with saggy boobs? I don’t know. Cache-fail, couldn’t find it anywhere. I don’t know where it was. Looking at the log on the iBore I think it may have been moved a number of times or even washed out to sea. Boo hiss…..

The graffiti also featured the tags of 91Boom, who seems to have written on literally most things on the island along with his chum 93Panic. Rather than being skilled street artists though, they just rudely scrawl their names on like obsessive flatmates labelling Tupperware containers in the fridge. Slackers – they could at least draw the occasional rude picture or write “If you read this you are gay”.

We continued on to Polis and parked up. We had a wander round in the now very arid early afternoon so we stopped off for a round of drinks and ice cream at a place called Savvas in the town square. If you need wi-fi, it is free here with the password DIMITRIS30. And good wifi it is too, emailed Suzie, she’s got a lovely dress for our trip to Spain woop woop

I had a pint of iced coffee, which was quite literally ice (cream) in a coffee. Not quite what I expected but surprisingly pleasant.

Polis has one geocache at a campsite. We had a wander round, Goldy found it and by this point he had the Geocaching bug. This was AWESOME !! with this little app I’d downloaded at the café I had the radar thingee and distance thingee, it was so cool we we’re trying to find it, found the rough area and we were trying to triangulate with Andy, Gaz and myself with our little apps on our phone, all 5 of us were searching and it all came back to the point where we’d almost started, so I climbed back up this little slope and had a look about and bingo a glimpse of white “container” was to be seen, of course I’m not going to tell you where it is exactly, that’s not the point of the game but I’d found my first one myself, most awesome. Inside were two travel bugs which Andy now has and a frog who wants to go island hopping… the UK is an island so I’ve grabbed that one and will be planting it in my first cache back home.

On the way to find it we saw a rat, he was actually quite cute.

On the way home we stopped off for supplies and then drove back to the villa for a coke float and a dip in the pool.

Oh, before I forget, I got hit with a water balloon as we drove along the main strip. Next time, I will stop and throttle the little bastard, BIG SENSE OF HUMOUR FAILURE!

In spite of this, we had a lovely, relaxing afternoon. Personally I thought the silver lining here was that all it was was a water balloon, it could have been a lot worse…

Well, we assume it was water anyway…

At the moment, I’m sitting on a sun bed, the sun is dropping in front of me and everything is well in the world.

Tonight, we have Liza’s for a mézé dinner.

2231hrs, just got in from Liza’s, crikey, €14 per head for more food than you could shake a stick at. It was a lovely meal but just tasted a bit ‘mute’. It was a perfectly good meal and very enjoyable but I don’t really know how to describe it. I’ll leave it to Gaz. Meal was nice, not to the level of Stavros’s (in Chlorakas from last year) maybe I can see if we can pop there on Sunday or Monday depending on the mood of the squad.

I’d describe the meal as “relentless”, given the conveyor belt of mostly meat that the waitress kept topping up. Most of it was quite nice, but all a wee bit bland – the sausage of death had us all stumped as to what was in it (red wine, it turned out – and most likely some less than prime cut meat if I’m honest), but prize for oddest dish was the one that looked like someone had dismantled an omelette and swept it into a small, greasy pile. Got some free wine without even having to drop Paul’s name. Unfortunately, soon realised why it was given away free.

Now coffee and I think soon to bed. Surgery (Trauma Centre on his DS) and Coffee and see what movies I have and speak to my Suzie and then to sleep to count one more off the 5 till I have her again, “have her”, yuk, bad turn of phrase,  wondering if we can sort out a Geocache now for next field trip J

Vianden and Luxemburg – Monday 12th October 2009

Happy Birthday to ME! And for my birthday, a trip to Luxemburg was on the cards. It took us about an hour to get over the border due to our junction on the motorway being shut. This was not really a problem, we just had to go cross country and the scenery was stunning. It is a bit like Bedfordshire, travelling along roads where you can see the landscape for as far as the eye can see to the volcanic mountains in the distance.

It was a bit wet and rainy but this cleared up when we left Germany and got into Luxemburg, travelling through Diekirch (where they mainly make beer) to get fuel (at 86.1 cents per litre) and then on to our first stop, Vianden.

I’d seen the name on the map and it rang a bell, I don’t think I have ever been there before but we were not disappointed when we arrived. It was a very quaint little town in the bottom of a valley with a river running through the bottom. The old town was classically cobbled with lovely old buildings, good for a wander should you wish to.

Above the town was a dominating castle which was in the process of being renovated however it had got past the stage where scaffold was needed so it looked quite pretty actually.

The castle was a complete ruin up until the end of the 1970s when funding was found to bring the place back to life and work continues to this day.

In the cellar of the castle all of the archaeology was on display. The ancient Roman walls of a fairly modest outpost that were originally there had been built on top of over the centuries until the large castle was formed.

Much of the renovation consists of concrete replacement pillars in the darker more rough areas where the servants would have existed, but in the real places that mattered the stonework has been recreated to the original specifications and the castle looks pretty much as it would have done when brand new.

Probably the most impressive thing about the castle I can think of was a large gallery in the main building. It is covered by the pitched roof and is as wide and as long as that section of the building. With a flagstone floor and large open windows running along each side it was a sheltered, light room that looked like it belonged in “Theed” from Star Wars (Where Queen Amidala is from in Episode 1)

We were at the castle for just over an hour before we left and continued the drive to Luxemburg.

It was our second trip to Luxemburg. We went there with Sean and Laura this time last year but this time the weather was completely different. Today we were blessed with puffy white clouds and sunshine. We could see the whole valley and the park at the bottom of the old city ramparts.

We wandered round having a look in the shops. Anna found an H&M which (by being in Luxemburg was tax free) and they had a 50% off sale, score! I didn’t buy anything though!

We also caught some things we missed the first time like the beautiful park below the town and we also went to have a look at the court complex.

The courts were very interesting. It seems that they have county, magistrates, high and youth court all in the same courtyard opposite each other. The site looks very new as well. It has polished stone floors and the buildings were Daz white.

We grabbed a couple of Geocaches whilst we still had light and we headed off to Prüm for my birthday dinner.

I love Prüm, mainly for its Post hotel Restaurant but it has a lovely looking Abbey. To my despair and disgust, the Post Hotel had been made into a coffee bar and a chaps fashion shop, RUBBISH! We shared meals at that place with Sean and Laura and Chris and Faith and the food was always brilliant, home cooked and in man size portions. It was the kind of place that locals would come as a complete family for a regular meal. The other thing we liked about then was they sold really nice Schnitzel in every style known to man, veal, pork or turkey with creamy mushroom, Jager and cheesy sauces to name but a few.

With no glory food of wonder and joy, we had to find another place to eat as we were starving. We happened upon a place next to the Abbey called “The Old Abbey”.

Inside the bar was pretty cool actually. It was wood everywhere and furnished as if it were an old brewery with copper pipes and drums everywhere. One of the booths had been cut out of a massive copper vat and seated about 8 people inside.

It looked ace, so what about the food.

We Anna had a pork schnitzel with cream and mushroom sauce. It was pretty nice actually but it didn’t come in the same quantities as before. I on the other hand had a turkey schnitzel with a cheesy sauce. It had some chip shaped vegetables in the sauce but we couldn’t work out what they were. I think they must have been turnip or some such. It wasn’t obvious from the menu but hey, it tasted nice so I wasn’t overly bothered.

The whole thing, including drinks and coffee came to about €30, which was very reasonable!

We left Prüm after food, and made our way back to Sunparks where we discovered that most of the world had descended for ½ term week, joy!