Happy New Year 2011!!!

Dear Reader,

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you a happy new year 2011. May all your wishes come true and I hope that the new year will bring you lots of joy, happiness, satisfaction and especially good health.

Thank you for following my blog and I hope that you will continue to do so in 2010 too.

Yours
Gordana

Switzerland in December

I had a great time on my recent visit to Switzerland. Visiting family and friends is always exciting for me as I don't see them very often. This Christmas, I stayed in Schaffhausen, a lovely city where I have many friends and where my family lives.

A shopping trip to Zurich is a must - especially before Christmas. All shops display lovely festive decoration which invites customers to spend money :-)

People put up cute decorations and this year I was lucky to celebrate a white Christmas. Usually it snows weeks before Christmas and by the 25th December, the snow is gone.

Unfortunately, the snow did not last very long as temperatures rose above zero degrees Celsius and after a couple of days, little evidence of a white Christmas was left.

Nevertheless, the city of Schaffhausen offers a lot for visitors.

The architecture of the old town is very interesting; the city offers a variety of pretty little restaurants and bars and its rural surrounding is ideal for biking, hiking, walking and sledging.

The Rhein river is great for canoeing, riding kayaks or boats, swimming or simply just walking along the shore to the nearby Buesingen.

Tips for visitors:
Europ's largest waterfall, the 'Rheinfall' can  be found in Neuhausen, a suburb of Schaffhausen and is definitely worth a visit. Every year, ten thousands of visitors from all over the world travel to Neuhausen to see this spectacular waterfall. Click on the link of 'Rheinfall' to see some images I found on Google. For more information about history, facts and figures etc. click here.

--> Photos of my trip to Switzerland in Dec. 2010

SWISS WINTER WONERLAND

  

Dear reader,

I am currently in Switzerland, visiting family and friends and I thought I'd share some of the pictures I took in the last few days.

At the moment we do have snow in Schaffhausen, where I am staying but it rained today and I am not sure if the snow will stay until Christmas. We all hope that it will snow again in the next couple of days as it would be just fantastic to have a white Christmas. The hills have been fantastic for sledging and walking and my friend and I are planning to go sledging next week if the conditions are right.




I also learned that Schaffhausen had a new ice rink built recently which is very exciting. There are now two ice rinks available - an indoor and an outdoor one, both around 1800 square metres in size which is great! My friend and I are planning to go ice skating next week so I am very excited.

I will post more photos of the hills that surround Schaffhausen shortly.

Happy reading and have a lovely pre-Christmas time!

SARDINIA - PART 2

I just discovered that I had more pictures taken in the north of Gallura and Santa Teresa di Gallura, which I would like to share with you.

This photo was taken in Santa Teresa di Gallura. It shows the busy town centre and the main road, leading to the shore.

Santa Teresa di Gallura is a lovely place by the sea and, as mentioned in my previous post, the landscape and nature in this part of Sardinia is breathtaking.


The Torre Spagnola is worth a visit and if the weather is good, you should be having a spectacular view.

After leaving Luogosanto, we headed south towards Tempio Pausania.

Every once in a while we stopped for pictures and simply just to enjoy the beautiful nature. The mountainous landscape is breathtaking and absolutely lovely.

The picture of  Nuraghe Majore, the 'cave', was taken somewhere between Cantoniera Padula and Tempio Pausania.

Just followe the brown signs to the sight. What we found is a stony small cave looking building with a curious looking entrance.

When we entered the 'cave' we noticed that something was living in there. Soon after we spotted bats all over the sealing, hanging upside down and resting.

Some of them were even flying around which was interesting to watch.

Hope you are enjoying the travel report of Sardinia.

Feel free to drop me a line should you have any questions or simply click on the 'comments' button and let me know what you think about my blog or individual posts.

Thanks!

SARDINIA - PART 1

Sardinia is an amazing place to visit.

There is so much to see and to do and I won't even start mentioning the food.

John and I travelled to Sardinia at the end of May for two weeks. The timing was great as it was not as busy as it usually gets in the summer and the accommodation prices are much lower too.

We flew with Ryanair from Edinburgh to Bergamo, near Milan, where we spent a night because the connection flight was not leaving until 6am the next day.

As soon as we arrived in Alghero (around 8.30am), we picked up our car at the airport and headed north west. The road along the coast went through some lovely villages where we stopped and took photographs.

The scenery is amazing and I could have stopped every five minutes to take a photograph of something interesting.
The first night we spent on a farm B&B, in the middle of the woods, 1.5km from Luogosanto, which is a small village in the hinterland of the Gallura.

We just wanted to stay somewhere in the nature, nice and quiet. Somewhere from where we can go walking and discover other places.





The B&B we stayed at was called Stazzi La China B&B. Have a look at their website for more information and for prices.

John and I went for a walk after we checked into the B&B. As mentioned before, it was in the middle of the woods, away from civilisation.



All we saw that evening was a tortoise (see photo) and the B&B's guard dog.


The next day we went for a drive in the northern part of Sardinia to explore the north a bit more. We only had a couple of days in the northern part but we managed to visit some towns and sites.



One of the sites we visited was the 'Necropolis Le Muri'. This is an archaeological site, dating back to 3000 B.C.


Click here for more information on sights in and around Olbia.

We also went to Santa Teresa Gallura for a day visit, where we had a lovely lunch (pasta per favore).

Sardinia is a beautiful island... the nature is breathtaking and it is almost a shame to stay in one city only. There are so many beautiful places to discover. Two weeks is not enough time to see it all, but it is enough to explore this lovely island a bit.

This is only part one of our trip so watch this space! The next post will follow shortly.

A photo album on facebook will be available at the end of the Sardinia series.

EDINBURGH 2010 - WINTER WONDERLAND

So far, Scotland has been getting all the snow in the world. 

It's been snowing in the past few weeks like there is no tomorrow and it will continue like this next week.

I love walking on snow and feeling the snow crunch under my feet but I do not like the slush at all. 

Nevertheless, I went for a walk a few days ago and took some photos of Edinburgh and surrounding. 

The Edinburgh Castle looked particularly gorgeous, all covered in snow.

Hope you like and enjoy the photographs as much as I do.

Have fun!

LUXOR

I just looked at some photographs from my trip to Luxor and I thought I'd share them with you.

Luxor is a very interesting city with an amazing history and architecture and a population of just below 490,000. It is sitting on the banks of the river Nile with a view over the Valley of the Kings and Queens.

It takes only approx. five and a half hours by plane from the UK and it is a good base for trips to other places.

We spent only 5 days in Luxor but there is so much to do and to see that you can easily spend a whole week or longer in and around Luxor.

I was fascinated by the Valley of the Kings although the tombs were mostly empty. All mummies and valuables are either in the museum in Luxor or in the one in Kairo.

The Temple of Deir El-Bahri, better known as the temple of the Queen Hatshepsut, also left a great impression on me. Also, you cannot stay in Luxor without visiting the Karnak temple.

The museum in Luxor is also a must-see. It showcases architecture and other interesting ornaments and valuables that were found in the tombs, as seen in the following photographs.

The Sonesta St. George hotel was our hotel, located  in the middle of Luxor. Staff were nice and it also had a swimming pool which was a nice thing to have as temperatures can get very hot.

Sunset on the river Nile...

John and I were visiting Luxor at the end of November and it was over 32 degrees Celsius. So if you are looking for a nice getaway and to escape the winter, Egypt is the place to go. It does get cooler in the winter thou but not as cold as in Europe.

A lot of my friends went on a Nile cruise from Luxor to Asswan and they absolutely loved it! I would like to do that next time I visit Egypt. There are some fantastic places to discover and the Abu Simbel temple as well as the pyramids of Gizah are on my list of things to see before I die :-)

To find out more about what to see and what to do in Luxor, click here.

Unfortunately, all my other photographs were taken with the non-digital camera, hence not more photographs of the other places I have mentioned. But I will try to scan them and create an album in the near future so watch this space!

Tips:
Don't accept the first price offered on taxi rides or other transportation. Haggling is the major activity in Egypt so go ahead and haggle yourself silly :-)  John and I managed to get a taxi for $25 for 5 hours!!! The driver took us to the Valleys, the Hatshepsut temple as well as the Karnak temple. He waited for us in his taxi while we did sight seeing.

Alternatively, you can book a tour in air-conditioned buses with tour operator that will charge you slightly more. We would have paid around $100 per person for a trip to the sights. If you don't feel comfortable doing it on your own, book with the tour operators but if you are travelling on a budget, get yourself a private taxi. You don't have to miss out on anything!

That's all for now - if you have any questions, send me an email and I will try to answer it :-)

Have fun!

AVIEMORE - PART 2

In January, Aviemore hosts the annual Husky competition which is great fun and a must see for dog lovers.

John and I went to see the competition twice and believe it or not - last year was the first time in 15 years where the race took place on SNOW! Check out the BBC report for more information.

I know, it sounds strange but they haven't had any snow up there during the race weekend for the last 15 years.

Nevertheless, it is good fun to watch those lovely dogs racing.

My favourite part is to walk around the car park and to cuddle the dogs :-)

I hope you like the pictures I took a couple of years ago. As you can see, there is literally no snow. 

Hard to imagine, after all the snow we've had so far in Edinburgh! I am sure that this year will be different altogether where lack of snow won't be an issue.

For those who are interested in attending, the next event will take place from 22 January - 23 January, 2011 at Loch Morlich, Cairngorms, Scotland.

As mentioned in the previous post, Aviemore is popular with skiing.

Every year thousands of people take their ski up to Aviemore for a weekend or during the school holidays so if you want to visit Aviemore in the wintertime, make sure you book your accommodation in advance.

For more information about skiing in the Cairngorms national park, check out the Cairngorm website.

Do you have any tips or recommendations of accommodation or restaurants? Drop me a line and I am happy to publish your comment, tip or advice.

 --> More photos about Aviemore and the Husky event

AVIEMORE - PART 1

Recent posts of mine were covering stories about travelling to warm countries and I am the one to blame for people wanting to escape the cold (sorry guys).I have therefore decided to write about winter activities rather than snorkelling and scuba diving in the next few posts.

The following pictures were taken in and around Aviemore, where John and I went snowshoe walking.

This picture of a frozen lake Morlich was taken on the way to the ski slopes.

We were lucky that day as the snow was ideal for snowshoe walking and and the scenery was breath taking and we did not come across many people either.

It was very romantic and idyllic with a phenomenal view.

Very often you can spot deer in the distance so don't forget to bring your binoculars.

Meall a'Bhuachaille, with an altitude of 810m (2657 ft) is the hill, also called a Corbett, you see in the photographs. That's the area where we went snowshoe walking.

Only 3 1/2 hours from Edinburgh and approximately half an hour east of Aviemore, this area is considered one of Scotland's gems. It lies within the Cairngorm national park and is well known for its skiing and as a winter holiday destination.

Accommodation is easy to find as there are many bed and breakfasts (B&B's) as well as hotels in and around Aviemore but I advise you to book in advance to avoid disappointment as Aviemore is extremely busy in the winter. 

If you are interested in what the weather conditions are like in the Aviemore area, click here.

In my next post I will report about the annual husky competition, taking place at the end of January in Aviemore. Definitely an event to attend if you are a dog lover.

--> More photos of Aviemore