We’ve been handed a baton by our friend Keith Savage to continue a travel blogging meme: Taking the blog archives out for some fresh air!
Who are we to argue! Time to get reminiscent:
Most Popular
Siena Duomo – The Gothic Marvel the Renaissance Forgot — When we first heard about this place, we knew we had to go there — a cathedral in zebra stripes! Most definitely one of the most visually striking man-made things we’ve ever seen, and the HDR photography we’d recently discovered worked beautifully. Jaw-dropping.
Most Controversial
Belfast Taxi Tour — You only have to take a look at the comments at the bottom of this entry to get an idea of how much feeling is still around in Ireland. We actually changed the name of the guy who showed us around out of caution. We learned some astonishing things about the Troubles and Ireland’s history in general on this short drive around Belfast with a local. Then we discovered that we’d parked Nettle in one of the most dangerous places in the whole city — a discovery made at the same time as we came across a car on fire. Good one, us.
Most Helpful
Mobile broadband — One of the most important issues to us, and judging by the popularity of the notes I’ve posted about it, it’s on lots of others’ minds as well. We discovered that in general, the best way to stay connected is to buy local, pre-paid SIM cards with a mobile broadband allowance. Some countries are better than others — I have notes on all the places we’ve visited so far. Incidentally, the UK wins by a long shot.
Surprisingly Successful
Winter in a Country Cottage in Wales — For a series of posts that are about not travelling, they invoked a fair amount of interest on our travel blog. We had the wonderful opportunity to look after a beautiful Welsh farmhouse over winter, and we wrote about our experiences.
Most Beautiful
Mount Etna, Sicily — We were there in autumn, and the flanks of this very active volcano was the most beautiful and dramatic place I’d ever seen to date, and probably still. The bright oranges and yellows of the woods straddling the edge of a vast, grey, lunar landscape of lava fields, the stark blank and white of ash and snow on the volcano’s upper reaches…It was like nothing I’d ever seen.
Didn’t Get The Attention it Deserved
Wandering Venice With Simpatici — Venice! Who doesn’t love Venice? We had the grand fortune of getting to see it with some just fantastic new friends who lived nearby and had studied in the magical aquatic city.
Most Proud Of
Hanging From Our Fingernails — This was a well-recommended “walk” we tackled, discovering along the way that it was a billion times more hardcore than we’d thought! Two hours of rock climbing over a long and precipitous drop — I thought we did pretty well. And the views were fantastic.
Further reading
Got a hankering for more travel yarns? I couldn’t recommend more the frequently-nail-bitingly-good stories from our friends Tara and Tyler of Going Slowly — they travelled from Scotland, through France, Italy, North Africa, Russia, Mongolia and Thailand on a couple of bikes for almost the entire way. And they wrote about every day. Check it out.
