On Monday 10th November, I flew into Bilbao, Spain to meet Ged Hart, who had been traveling Portugal, waiting to meet up with me. We hired a 7 seat Mercedes van and drove to Biarritz, France to pick up my surfboard and golf sticks. There we met Phil Grace who found us great accommodation near St Jean de Luc. The weather had turned foul, cold, lots of rain and bad news about Black Pearl. It had broken down on its way to Gibraltar and had retreated to Cartagena o...

I met Mike Parr to see his Retrospective Show at the Kunsthalle. The show which is vey impressive features prints, video, sculpture. Mike explained during the 2 hours I was with him that the show represents his art practice over some 30 years. At the Kunsthalle there are quite a number of other museums, one being The Leopold, which has a great show of the work of Austrian artists, Egon Scheile, from the early part of last century. Another show there, which had...

We finished part 1 of our European adventure by returning to Australia to celebrate Ford's 21st birthday. After we left Sweden we returned to Porto Ercole for a few days rest. The weather was bad with rain and cold temperatures for Italy. We spent two days with our Captain Paul working on the Black Pearl itinerary for the Mediterranean from May to October. In brief from Italy to the Greek Islands, Turkey, Croatia, France and Spain. With that all done we played ...

What a beautiful city Stockholm is, home of 'Mickael Blomquist and Lisbeth Salander'(The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo). With the help of our guide Lisa we found their apartments. In the pm we take a walk in the old city to get our bearings. The city is made up of many islands and bridges. We have a stunning view from our hotel room across to the old city. We walk along the waterfront to visit the 'Vasa' museum. 'Vasa' is a massive 16th century war ship that sank ...

It is snowing heavily in Flam. We are waiting for our ferry to Gudvangen through the Norwegian Fjord land. We have a restful morning in our rural hotel as its cold outside. At 3.10 pm the ferry departs full of excited Japanese travelers and a few Australians also, as we later discover. It is very moody with snow falling, very high snow capped mountains on either side of us and the occasional colorful rural village, with houses largely either of red or white. The...