For a country that looks like a chicken, Slovenia definitely punches above its weight! It is a genuinely beautiful place that also manages to be effortlessly charming. Everyone just seems happy there. Most of the 5m population live in rural areas (rather than the urban centers) so maybe that contributes to the general sense of well-being and contentment that its people exude. My tour began “proper” on Sunday evening when I met the rest of my group – only 5 of us in total, so it should have been nice to have been such a small, intimate group. However, as…
Author: Sarah Holloway
Greetings from a sunny/soggy/sunny Slovenia!! I’ve been here a couple of days now and the crushing fog of jetlag has lifted enough so that I can share with you a bit of what I’ve been up to so far – and what’s to come! I arrived in Ljubliana after a rather eventful journey – basically, I got delayed for almost 2hrs leaving Chicago due to weather – which pretty much ate up my entire transfer time in Munich airport. Those of you who have traveled with me know that a) I always like to get to the airport super early…
Day 9: Farewell Egypt!! And so. It’s now time to leave the chaos and dust and noise of Egypt behind and head off to Jordan for one of the highlights of the trip – a visit to the “Rose City” of Petra. I must confess that, as we were planning this adventure, this was the part of the itinerary I was looking forward to the most. I grew up absolutely IN LOVE with Indiana Jones and so the scene with the Treasury in the Last Crusade is indelibly printed on my mind – so the opportunity to recreate that walk…
Day 7: Today was a bit of a slower day today – after breakfast, our first stop of the day was to visit Edfu temple – this time, our transportation was via horse-drawn carriage! Peter had arranged for two carriages to be waiting as we disembarked from the ship and Matt and I got in one, and Lisa and Lee Ann hopped in the other! The horse was a bit smelly tbh (Peter had given us facemasks to use to help muffle the smell) but ours was fast and made short work of the 15min ride to the Temple entrance.…
Another incredible day today. Super early start again with the alarms set for 3.30am, ready for a 4.05am pick-up from the boat because today we were going to watch the sunrise in a hot air balloon!! We had breadfast supplied by the boat (basically a bag full of bread for breakfast) and soon we were all jammed into one of little white vans that number by the dozens here! We made a few stops to pick up some additional folk from other hotels in Luxor before we were driven down to the docks where there were lots of brightly decorated…
We said farewell to Cairo today as it was time to transfer for the next part of our trip and head to Luxor for our Nile cruise. It was also time to pick up our 4th travel buddy as Matt was joining us for the remainder of the trip! We had a crushingly early start as our transfer to the airport was scheduled for 4am – Mohammed was there to meet us as well as our driver, Karim, who’d been with us for our whole Cairo trip. The drive took about 45 mins (less traffic at 4am!) and finally I…
Whooo-hooo!! Had bit of a lie-in today as didn’t have to get up until 6.45am (I was meeting Lee Ann in the gym at 7am) as our pick up today wasn’t until 9am. Our schedule for today was a bit less frenetic that the last few days (thank goodness!) – this morning, we were to visit another mosque followed by a trip to a bazaar for shopping, coffee and people-watching. The mosque today was in the center of old Cairo, so part of the fun was the experience of driving through the MOST insane traffic (and I’ve been to Old…
So a quick aside. Given our tendency to have lunch super late, we’ve now learned to have larger breakfasts (“breakfast like a king, dinner like a pauper” etc etc). As a result my breakfasts have been getting progressively weirder. The food at the Marriott has been excellent and they have obviously figured out a way to feed the (predominantly American) tourists without giving everyone a case of the Hot Trots. So I’ve been going All In with the salads (I know, Loopy, I know) as they have been just delicious. So today for breakfast, I found myself eating a big…
Made it to the gym again (so virtuous, right?) and ready to be picked up after breakfast at around 8am. The food at the hotel is great although we skipped dinner last night as lunch was so late and we were all completely knackered after our epic day! (I did have a slightly larger breakfast this morning, in case the late lunch becomes a trend…). Our hotel is perfectly situated as we have a wonderful view of the pyramids from the Marriott Mena hotel. Founded in 1886 by some rich aristocratic Brits, its early history is a veritable who’s who…
What a terrific first day in Egypt! We finally arrived in Giza after a long day travelling – which included 3hrs stuck on the tarmac in Chicago while several issues with the plane were fixed (no water, needed de-icing etc). Our German pilot (we were flying a Lufthansa code share) was NOT impressed and complained about it several times as he kept us updated on the delays (“Well, this is ridiculous here in Chicago – but safety first, I suppose” – umm, you think??!!). But eventually we were underway, stopping en route in Frankfurt for our transfer – and to…