Hello everyone, Happy May Long to all of our Canadian friends. We love all the pics as you blow the dust off of your trailers and fire pits to get out camping with some cold ones. And also a Happy Birthday weekend to Junior and Glenice, as we understand you are celebrating together in Calgary! Tip a couple back for us. Thanks for checking out our latest update. We just returned from two weeks in Greece so will share stories and pics from there and will also update you on what we've been up to this spring. Saudi ArabiaBefore we jump into the travel, things sure are changing in Saudi Arabia. Last year, they allowed ladies to drive and brought back movie theatres. This year, they've started bringing more entertainment to the Kingdom. There have been many concerts and Russell Peters, the comedian is coming in a couple weeks. We were very excited to go see Pitbull in Dammam, only about 10 minutes from our house. Unfortunately, we got to the event and found out he had plane troubles in Iceland and had to delay the show until the next day. We had plans already in Bahrain that day so just got our money back. We were that close to our first Saudi concert...and our first one without drinks! BahrainWe have spent many weekends in Bahrain this spring, popping over the causeway to get away and enjoy time with friends having some drinks. Here are some pics from some of the hotels, brunches, as well as the Spring 2019 Tribfest, which has become a tradition for us and a great day out with live music. GreeceSantorini We were very excited to visit Santorini and it did not disappoint. It looks exactly like the images you get in your mind when visualizing the island. We didn't know this, but the island is the remnant of a volcanic caldera, and was formed from one of the largest volcanic eruptions ever, about 3600 years ago. Santorini is officially called Thira or classic Greek Thera. The crusaders named it after a chapel of Saint Irene - Santa Irini, which then came to be Santorini. The population of Santorini is only about 15,000 people but it gets very busy with tourists, especially with the many cruise ships that stop by daily. We stayed in a cave called Aura Caves. These caves were excavated and inhabited in the late 18th century after the explosion of a volcano in 1707. After the earthquake of 1956 the front part were destroyed and ruined. In 2016, it was reconstructed by architect Stogiannidis Grigoris and a team of builders and then converted into a small hotel you can stay in. We stayed in Fira, which is the largest town on the island. There were tons of shops, great restaurants, and many bars with patios overlooking the Aegean Sea to view the amazing sunset! We spent our first full day doing a 'Best of Santorini' private tour: - Imerovigli and Oia (pronounced "ee-a") - small towns that offered unique buildings and amazing views - Monastery of Profitis Ilias - built in the early 1700's, this monastery is built on the highest location of Santorini, 1860 feet above sea level - Megalochori - traditional village and shops - Lunch at Forty One 41 in Agios Georgios. This was a very cool beach restaurant and bar built in an old tomato paste factory. It is located on Black Beach - yes, the sand is like real sand, but only black...from the volcanic ash. - Wine Tasting at the Estate Argyros - they have some great white wines on the island Crete We stayed at the all-inclusive Cactus Royal Resort in Stalis on the north side of Crete. It is a great resort and located right in the beach town so it is easy to walk out and right onto the tourist street to visit shops, bars, and restaurants. We love buying the authentic greek spices for souvlaki, greek potatoes, greek salad, and tzatziki. We found some great restaurants along the water to go for lunches and dinners - so cheap...pita, tzatziki, greek salad, 2 large beers, and 2 shots of ouzo for less than 20 euros. We also sampled a few shots of Raki, which is a famous 'moonshine' originating in Crete. Love Crete! Beautiful island, beautiful people! Athens Athens is definitely a city full of history and stories. We checked in and went venturing out down one of the many 'walking streets'. We will never forget turning the corner and looking down the street to see the famous Acropolis and both dropping our jaws in awe. What an amazing piece of architecture. We stopped for pictures of it down the narrow street (pics are below). Acropolis is the name of the ancient citadel on the rocky outcrop in the centre of Athens. It is the home of the famous Parthenon, built in 438BC. It was heavily damaged 1687 Great Turkish War and restoration didn't begin until the late 1980's. We decided to continue onto a few rooftop bars to enjoy the view of the mighty Acropolis and then to visit it on day two. On our second day in Athens, we boarded the Hop On, Hop Off bus. These are one of our favorite ways to see the highlights of a city, all while listening to the history of each site. It first drove us past the 'Runner Statue', and incredible 12 m tall structure built from thousands of pieces of jagged glass. Our tour stops included:
Overall, Athens is a very old city with some incredible history and views. Be sure to check out the sights at night, as all of the ancient architecture is lit up and looks amazing. And you can't go far to find a great greek taverna for a meal. Love greek food! Oh yeah, and what is the Greek fascination with wooden penis carvings and threesomes? As you can tell, we loved the Greek vacation - so much history, so many beautiful places! Pretty amazing to think that we are just a 4 hour flight from this amazing country!
It is starting to warm up in Saudi now, with humidity rising and temperatures closing in on 45 Celsius, dropping to about 27-28 at night. It's Ramadan for a couple more weeks, which means there is no public eating or drinking in Saudi. This also means we will take advantage of less traffic on the Causeway to Bahrain to go to the rugby club a few times, just to enjoy some cold beverages! Eid starts the beginning of June to celebrate the end of Ramadan. We get those Eid days off and will be going south to Uganda and Rwanda for some adventures. Trekking with chimpanzees, gorillas, and lions/leopards through the jungle. Send your safe wishes as we venture out on foot to observe these beasts! Lisa will be back in Canada for a week in late-July and will fly out to meet Jeff in Portugal for 3 weeks as we tour across Europe. Lisa is also excited to meet our friend Anita in Ireland in September! We will update the blog with Africa pics and stories once (and if) we return. Until then, here are a few pics to close off... Love, L&J
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Hi everyone, we are back from Greece and figured we would share a few pics from a great trip. Here are a couple pics of Lisa at the Cairo airport. We didn't know if she needed to sport her sexy abaya there so arrived in it but she quickly 'stripped' it off. It was a tough decision, but after a healthy debate, we settled on 2 Egyptian beers for breakfast. Because you haven't really visited a country if you don't sample their beer....right? We love how there appears to be no spell check in the Middle East as this Pastry Shop was known as the Pasty Shop. Thought we could get some great nipple covers for fewer tan lines at our pool, but no luck. Unless we strap on a couple croissants. After a quick stop in Athens, we arrived at the Heraklion Airport on the island of Crete. A 20 minute taxi ride took us to our hotel in Stalida. The beautiful Cactus Royal Resort was an awesome getaway. We loved how we could walk to the front gate and there was a long street that had shops, great restaurants, and cool bars with views of the ocean or the street for people watching. We are kind of wishing we had toured the island, as there are many INCREDIBLE beach areas that we didn't see since we stayed in town, with the exception of the Pirate Boat excursion, which you'll see in a bit. What could you find in the shops besides typical souvenirs like shirts, magnets, shot glasses, etc? Olive oil, olives, greek seasoning was everywhere. We bought a ton to make souvlaki, greek salad, greek ribs, roasted potatoes, and tzatziki sauce. There was also some great jewelry and pottery. The weather was warm (21-25 degrees celsius) the first few days but overcast. The last 2 days smartened up for the boat ride and poolside relaxing on the last day, with the Grecian sun providing some colour and also making us quite thirsty! Not sure why, but cats seem to be everywhere. Lisa found them in flower pots, along the grass, everywhere. There's even a calendar you can buy called "Cats of Greece". Really?? The last day there was a foam party that was pretty fun. This one was poolside, not in the pool like the last one we experienced with Mark & Gayle in the Dominican. Sorry Mark, not many pics as my camera wasn't functioning too well in the foam! We met so many great people at the resort over the week - from all over... UK, Norway, Belgium, Latvia, Ukraine, Holland, Portugal, Sweden, the US, and even a singer from Canada who was doing wedding music for someone at the resort. Gotta love meeting so many cool people! Here are a few pics from the trip. Scroll your cursor over them for some comments. We took the Pirate Boat excursion on Friday. It was a perfect day to cruise the coast line with dancing on the boat, ice cold beverages and a killer BBQ'd meal...probably the best meal we had there. We even jumped into the Mediterranean for a dip. Enjoy some of the pics... The magnet collection continues to grow, with these being the paces we've visited over the past month. Guess we should get a Bahrain magnet since that seems to be our second home (for some reason!).
What's up next for us?
We've booked a trip to the Shangri-La Resort in Muscat, Oman for our long weekend from Nov.10-13. All the expats here rave about Oman and it's beauty. We're in the adult part of the resort with the swim-up bar and lazy river so we are excited for that! We'll post the next update after that trip. Cheers everybody! |
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