Porto is another tick in the box; no one has ever had anything but great things to stay about their time there. Having arrived by train, we negotiated an excellent, cheap metro system to find our hotel, a Mr & Mrs Smith recommendation, Tipografia Do Conto, which is one of those shuttered, polished concrete buildings which are wonderful to stay in, not so sure to live in, though! The staff cannot be more helpful, a genuine love of the city has us with a map of wha...

Our hotel was on the metro line to the airport so, we headed off there to pick up our hire car for the day, or so, we are to spend enjoying the Douro Valley. We have a Fiat 500, once referred to by an Antipodean cousin as like driving a hairdryer! The journey is nearly all motorway, it seems everybody else is flying by, however, our more sedate speed means we get to marvel at some of the magnificent bridges that must have made the A4 one of the most expensive roa...

Europe is such an easy continent to navigate; English is everybody’s second language, and, they like to practice. Most signs have two languages and it’s efficient, quick and not too stressful. We are crossing the border between Austria and Germany, not knowing how? This is answered by a sms telling us we were on a German telephone network and two Politzei, who, adorned with blue plastic gloves, check our passports! We had to change trains on the outskirts o...

Our first stop on our “sur le continent” tour, is Austria. The Austrian Lake District weaves its way into the Tyrol and we’ve flown into Salzburg. Why here? Angelka’s next door neighbours, as she grew up, were Ian and Rae Lawson. For many years they had walking holidays in this region and it was their favourite place. Rae is sadly no longer with us however, Ian has given us copious notes, including best beer with a view… let’s go! You immediately not...

Time for another tick off the travel bucket list; the wildebeest migration in the Masai Mara, Kenya. Once again, we fly via Johannesburg, albeit, there are occasional direct flights from Nairobi to CPT, more of that later.We are taking an overnight flight, hardly a red eye as the time difference is only +1hour. As flights from CPT to JNB are not as frequent in pandemic times, we take a mid afternoon flight, which means we've booked into our usual airport hotel de...