The pandemic would seem to be in its final stages as I have at last been able to return to my old job as a stowaway on cruise ships. This is a more important role than you might think as I do an alternative ship’s navigation from my cabin using the bow camera on the …
For mein Schviegervater Roland’s 87th birthday H organized a trip to places where he grew up to the south of Berlin in the Spreewald area. Retha’s daughter, Freddie, came from London for the celebrations. We used the old and moated Schlosshotel Fürstlich Drehna as a base for three nights. Roland’s childhood home was above his …
This Cuba trip was a long time in the planning. It could have been weeks compared to our usual days or hours. We had some classic pre-trip chaotic moments. Twelve days before travelling, Hurricane/Tropical Storm Elsa roared across Cuba near Havana and hinted at disruption to electricity, roads, and food supplies. Six days before travelling …
2021.06.12 Berlin to Düsseldorf. We collected my Schwiegervater Roland, drove from Berlin to Düsseldorf and checked in to the Steigenberger Parkhotel. Very fancy. We walked to the Altstadt part of town for dinner and were completely surprised by the huge number of people out for a Saturday night on the town jostling mask-less in the …
This was a short trip to sightsee Armenia in a window without quarantine restrictions for us at either end of the trip. We have visited the Caucasus area before. I had a business trip to Azerbaijan many years ago and H and I visited Georgia in 2018. 2021.05.28 Frankfurt to Yerevan We had taken care …
This was a long-weekend Wedding Anniversary trip for us. We discovered that the German exclave of Mallorca could be visited with the correct QR-codes and tests and with no quarantine either end. Unfortunately, it looked as though everyone else in Germany was also going. Friday 30.04.2021 We were staying in our apartment in Oberursel, so …
Day 1, 10th April 2021, Flight Berlin-Brussels-Entebbe The new BER airport was ghostly quiet. It was our first time there since its very delayed opening. The place was considerably more tasteful that the old Russian-sector Schoenefeld airport which it replaced. Our first stop was Brussels as we were flying Brussels Airline. The paperwork for Covid …
This was a road trip from Frankfurt, through the German Alps and across Austria and Slovenia to Croatia. The intention was to buy a used motor yacht located in Zadar so it was a sort of business trip and not just a jolly outing in these Coronavirus times. As we planned to leave Croatia by …
Having recently explored the boundaries of our German Coronavirus cage from north to south by bicycle, we thought travelling from west to east might also be a good idea. This time on the water. Germany has many rivers and canals that make this possible. The plan was for H and I, together with mein Schwiegervater …
Continue reading “A Boat Trip West to East – Moselle to Danube”
30.07.2020 – 16.08.2020 Quarantine Kommandanten in Berlin. Towards the end of July H volunteered to baby-sit 50 Filipinos in transit to various cruise ships. They had been quarantined in the Berlin Radisson Blu hotel for a couple of weeks awaiting negative Covid-19 tests. The hotel famously houses the world’s largest circular fish tank, the DomAquaree, …
As epic foreign journeys have been hard to arrange recently, we came to the conclusion that epic domestic journeys may be the way forward. H came up with the idea that we should go and visit our friends Mayk and Peter in Walchensee near Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the far south of Germany. Then it became a …
Continue reading “A Bike Ride North to South – Berlin to Brindisi.”
Well this kind of thing really messes up a travel blog. Maybe forever, who knows? We had extensive plans for the summer with many airline tickets and marina berths booked and paid for. The plan was to spend some time on our own boat in the Ionian Sea area, based in Preveza or Corfu. H …