Sunday 14 August 2016

Introduction


To read the posts in order, it's easiest to click the labels to the right of the screen.

We are Grant and Gill - we are a South African couple in our late 40s and we love to travel, especially to Europe and to the countries on the Med in particular. The cruising bug has bitten us in recent years - we enjoyed cruises on the Med in 2012 and 2014.  We have also recently developed a love for long distance walking, so this year we incorporated that into our travels for the first time and spent a week walking along the Camino de Santiago - you can read about that here.

This year's visit to Europe was a little different in that we had our 2 year old granddaughter with us.  We did a cruise to Greece in 2014 with our younger daughter, Paula, and absolutely loved it - unfortunately our eldest daughter, Roxy and her husband Jon couldn't join us as they had recently welcomed little Isabella to their family - traveling with a newborn was not an option!  We were determined that they should also experience a cruise and a visit to Greece, so we waited until Issy was big enough to travel and then set about planning this trip - just in the nick of time too, as Rox discovered she was pregnant again 10 days before we left home!

My very best friend (of 42 years!), Lisa and her husband Trevor joined us for the cruise part of our trip.

I hope you enjoy reading about our travels!



Friday 15 July 2016

Corfu - Day 7


Today is our final day in Corfu, we leave this evening to fly, first to Athens and then, in the early hours of the morning, to Doha, where we have an hour and a half before our flight to Durban via Jo'burg... 24 hours of travel... oh the joy..... NOT!

But we have a few more hours in our happy place first!

Paula and Jon went parasailing this morning!


note the South African flag in the background!








And then we chilled on the beach with cocktails and donuts!





And I spent some time trying to capture the moment, to store the loveliness in my heart to bring out and mull over in the days to come.....









Good-bye Corfu, it's been amazing, we'll be back!!!


Thursday 14 July 2016

Corfu - Day 6

Another morning, another beautiful sunrise!




Today is our last full day in Corfu.  We went on a tour of the island with 2 drivers, Spiros and Mike.  We started off by driving to two viewing points on the East side of the island.  Lovely views.








We then drove to The Golden Fox at Lakones - what an incredible view!






We enjoyed some baklava and kumquat cake at the restaurant.





Next stop was George's wine cellar - where we got to sample some lovely traditional Greek specialities - homemade bread with olive oil, feta, incredible tomatoes and fresh basil, olives with various flavours, kumquat preserves and some of George's red wine.  It was so delicious!  A really charming place.  We bought some goodies to bring home.





Then it was off to Paleokastritsa beach, passing La Grotta cove, where some parts of the James Bond movie "For Your Eyes Only" was filmed.  We had a short stop at Paleokastritsa (try to say that when you've had a few!!)




Finally we made our way to the Donkey Sanctuary where we had a short tour and got to brush a couple of donkeys.










Then it was time to head for home and start the unenviable task of packing....

This evening Sotos and his wife, Lela, picked us up and took us to Corfu town for the evening.  They dropped us off in "old town" and we had a lovely wander through the town.





We found a little restaurant where we had a delicious supper.  After that we wandered some more, finding some lovely shops along the way.  We made our way to the Liston - the main square in Corfu town and strolled across to the small garden with monuments to the Durrell brothers.

The Liston













Then it was time for Sotos and Lela to pick us up and take us back to Barbati.  They have been so incredibly kind to us.  We had a lovely last evening in Corfu.

I have just fallen in love with Corfu, I feel so at home here.

Wednesday 13 July 2016

Corfu - Day 5

The early mornings... my favourite time of the day:

view from our veranda




Today we hired a boat with Jon as our skipper and we cruised around, stopping at various bays for a swim.










We stopped for lunch at a taverna at San Stefano.






We saw a couple of beautiful luxury yachts.  One in particular was really huge, would love to know who was on them!





We had a quiet evening at the villa.