greondastravels

We have found our way to Tirana and we can tell you that it’s been bloody hot! We still managed to be out and about, and tried the food , beer and wine.

It didn’t start well when our taxi driver dropped us off in the middle of the city and pointed us in the direction of the hotel. Eventually after searching for a while, we found it and we were told that we didn’t have a booking for us that night! You can all imagine Gregory’s mood!🤦‍♀️😬. It was sorted out relatively quickly so we dumped our bags and headed off for a well deserved lunch and drinks….in the 40 degree heat! We tried an agulua salad and stuffed aubergine. It was bloody delicious and really cheap!

Our hotel was in the Old Bazaar area, quite colorful, and resonable! We wandered around the afternoon quite close to the hotel, had a few drinks, a delicious SEA BASS dinner and were in bed early due to our very early flight with our 4 am wake up call.

We were up early the next morning to have our coffee fix and found a great little cafe called Noor. We were told that Albania has a coffee culture and Noor proved it correct.It was a day of wandering around Tirana. We found the remains of the Tirana Castle. Only some walls remain now but now it is a small pedestrian lane way full of trendy bars and cafes.

We wandered past a rather unusual sculpture called “The Cloud”, we wandered through the fish market, and lastly the Namazgah Mosque.

We wandered on….in the heat…..🥵 to The Pyramid of Tirana, built originally as a museum but now a convention centre and no we did not walk up those steps, too bloody hot! By that stage we needed a coffee so wandered through the trendy Blloku district and found a “nearly Brunettis” coffee place, and a lot of healer too!

We crossed the Lana River and Greg had a rest on one of the ladies laps on the bridge. By this time we were rather thirsty and rather hot so needed a refreshment. We went to the rather eclectic Bar called Kometiti, a bar/museum for a well earned aperol and GnT. Then headed back to our morning place, Noor , for an early dinner, a calabrese salad and a Caesar wrap.

We noticed when walking around the city there is some very interesting a modern architecture. The Skanderberg Building is built to the likeness of the head of Albanias National hero, Gjergi Kastrioti Skanderberg. Quite unusual, and another has the map of Albania protruding out on its facade.

That evening we met our group for the first time for drinks. Out of 15 people, we are the only Aussies. The remainder are Scottish and English. On that first night the jury was out as to how the group would come together but we had already made our first impressions which have ended up being what we initially thought!😂

Day 1 of the tour, bloody hot again, and we started with a tour of Et’Hem Bey Mosque., situated on the main square, Skanderbeg Square and built at the end of the 18th century and spared from destruction by the Communist Party when 10000 people protested and it became the onset of the fall of communism in Albania. There are beautiful frescoes in the interior.

Then onto Bunk Art 2, an underground Cold War nuclear bunker now converted to a history museum. It was built between 1981 and 1986 under the dictator Enver Hoxha as a secret shelter for the Ministry of Internal Affairs Officials. There were 175,000 bunkers built across Albania in the Communist era. There was an interesting sculpture in one room with the following quote..” we built socialism by holding a pick axe in one hand and a rifle in the other”.

We then hopped on our tour bus and went into the hills surrounding Tirana for a rustic lunch at a family guesthouse. It would have been a lot more pleasant if it wasn’t so hot. Then we made our way to the Dajti Express Cable car to admire the views of Tirana below however with the heat haze and smoke coming from fires still burning, we did not get much of a view. At the guesthouse there happened to be a pink flamingo, the symbol of the ongoing protests held in Tirana each evening against the impending resort that Ivana Trump and her husband wish to build. Rhonda didn’t get a chance to join the protest but had the photo taken with the flamingo instead!😂

We headed back to the hotel for a rest then time for a final drink and dinner in Tirana. As they say in Tirana…” if you haven’t eaten a salad in Tirana, then you haven’t been to Tirana”. Well we’ve eaten plenty of salads so we have certainly been to Tirana. The stuffed aubergines and peppers and the grilled vegetables have been absolute delicious and so very cheap.

So that is Tirana in a nutshell. Sorry it’s been a while since we did a post being this being on a tour does not give much time for relaxing! Will try to give another update soon!

So bye for now until the next time

lots of love

Greg and Rhonda

After an un eventful flight from Melbourne to Singapore, then Singapore to Zurich we had a safe landing. The only difficult part was getting through immigration at Zurich Airport with the new rules that apply now to anyone entering the Schengen countries for the first time. After one and a half hours of waiting in a very long queue, we finally saw daylight and also our Swiss son Claudio, who very kindly came to pick us up.

We stayed with Jean Pierre at Richterswil, about 30 kms from Zurich overlooking the beautiful Lake Zurich.

We caught up with Claudio, Sandra and the boys, Lio and Mailo for lunch. Lunch was at Luegeten, a beautiful place overlooking Lake Zurich. We had a speciality of the house…..riesen-pastetli…..Swiss meatballs with mushrooms in a huge vol u vent. It was delicious.

The next day we went out with Claudio and JP to Burgunstock Mountain, which has a 5 star resort and hotel overlooking Lake Lucerne. We walked to the Hotel Villa Honegg , a beautiful rather classy 5 star hotel for lunch.

Our lunch was delicious. We started with a beer to quench the thirst, then Rhonda had lake pike fish on a bed of risotto with broccolini and Greg had chicken with rosemary gnocchi. The setting was delightful with the views of the lake and the lovely hotel which was built in 1907.

Claudio decided that we should take a different track back to the car. It was a route march, going up and up and up. Rhonda was not happy. She decided she should have had a glass of water for lunch. But in saying that the scenery was lovely and once the track flattened out it was very enjoyable!

We didn’t realize how big Lake Lucerne was with its 4 arms winding around tiny villages making for spectacular views at each bend.

That night we had a lovely bbq at JP’s with Claudio and Sandra and the boys.

Claudio decided we hadn’t walked enough so the following day, along with Sandra and the boys we went to Stoos. Stoos has a funicular which is the steepest funicular railway in the world featuring a “ jaw dropping maximum gradient of 110%” It was pretty cool.

Once the funicular reached the top, we took a ski lift further up the mountain. It was great seeing and listening to the Swiss cows with their bells ringing.

Once we got to the top, Claudio decided we should walk down to have lunch. In his words, it’s downhill and should take 45 minutes. Well, it was certainly downhill, quite steep and rocky and took us one and a half hours!😂

The Mountain views were spectacular and it took our minds off the rather difficult path……at times!

At least we only had ourselves to carry. Sandra carried little Mailo the whole way and a lot of the time Claudio had Lio on his shoulders, except when Lio wanted to run fast fast fast down the hill!😂

Thank you Claudio and Sandra and JP for giving us such a great time. It was wonderful to catch up with everyone and meet little Mailo for the first time.❤️

Last night we stayed at a hotel at Zurich airport as we had a very early flight to Albania. We arrived in Tirana , have settled into our hotel for 3 nights with our tour beginning tomorrow evening. Gregory has already had some issues with things!Things can’t only get better!🤦‍♀️🤞😂 Details later.

So that’s it for the first blog. More to come. By the way the weather is bloody hot here, 38 degrees today!

lots of love

Greg and Rhonda

xxx

It’s goodbye to Sunrise Beach and also goodbye to sunshine and warm weather! Not looking forward to that at all. Tomorrow we head for home, 2 nights on the road, Nambucca Heads and Yass.

We spent a lovely 3 days with Jude, talking rubbish, drinking wine and of course going to have pizza. We were so busy we forgot to take a photo of the 3 of us….sorry Jude…..but we did take photos of the pizza!

We are still having morning coffee at 10 and GnTs at 11. That will cease when we get home, except for the coffee!

This past week the weather has been sensational, blue skies, no wind , full sun and low 20’s. According to the locals this is how it usually is, not the showers , grey skies and strong winds that we have been having. Our morning beach walks have been great!

We did our last National Park Trek. It was a stunning day even though we didn’t see any whales!

Our sunsets have still been spectacular and sorry, but the photos still come!Greg cannot help himself!

So that’s it from sunny Queensland. We will return in 3 weeks when we arrive in Switzerland for the beginning of our shortened Europe trip this year. We will be home just in time to wash the shorts and t shirts and re pack the bags!

Time to go and pack the car! See you all soon in cold old Melbourne.

lots of love

Greg and Rhonda

We have just spent a fun filled 9 days with our dear friends Janet and Michael. There were lots of laughs, lots of food, lots of drinks, and heaps of great times.Hope you guys are not tooooo cold back in Melbourne.

By the way before we get into the frivolities of the week, we are still having magnificent sunsets.

The first day that Janet and Michael arrived, we made them do the obligatory walk along the beach in the afternoon.

As you can probably tell, by the hair, it’s was a tad windy and unfortunately that blasted wind lasted for quite a few days!

Of course Friday night was the usual pizza night at Somedays with pre dinner drinks at our now favorite bar, the Village Bicycle Bar.

We decided to go for a Sunday arvo drive to the small village of Pomona, to have a beverage at the old pub built in 1913. The floor we thought was the original 1913 floor ( we watched it move as people walked around) and some of the locals were “interesting” , but we had a lot laughs and the beer was good!

We treated ourselves to a lunch at Bistro C on Hastings Street, and of course had to order the famous egg washed calamari. The girls had a fabulous scallop entree to start and dessert consisted of express martinis. Of course lunch was washed down with a couple bottles of wine. Yummy!

During the stay there was a “cook off” between Greg and Michael. Greg’s attempt was mixed grill on the bbq with chips and greens.

Michael’s turn was a chicken chasseur with mashed spuds and steamed broccoli.

Janet and I decided it was a draw!!!!

We ventured our for coffees numerous times and the occasional ice cream.

Of course we had to introduce Janet and Michael to a couple of local breweries. We went to Land and Sea, and Heads of Noosa and also the Doonan Pub.

Whilst we went out for a number of walks, around the local streets and along the beach, we tackled the National Park one morning. Un fortunately didn’t spot any whales.

We introduced Janet and Michael to “elevenses” , which is drinks on the balcony at 11am. They certainly got into the swing rather quickly!😁

We bid farewell to our guests with a farewell sunset drink. It was a lot of fun and we hope we didn’t tire you guys out too much.

So now it’s back to the 2 of us…….until tomorrow when Jude comes back up for a few nights.

So maybe one more post before we return home. Next Friday is departure day from sunny Sunrise Beach with 2 nights on the road before hitting cold old Wantirna. Can’t say we are looking forward to that.

Lots of love

Greg and Rhonda.

The weather has been up and down to say the least. We have had some quite grey skies and showers (although the temperature is still about 20 degrees) but the last 4 days have been what we were expecting, glorious blue skies and 24 degrees with no wind, just perfect.

We are still walking along the beach every morning, except when it’s raining! On the grey days sometimes we are the only people on the beach, you can tell because there are no footprints in the sand. But on those glorious sunny mornings it can be like Bourke Street.😂

We still have our coffee in the morning , sometimes a GnT or aperol at eleven and a sundowner on the front balcony around 5pm watching the sunsets. It’s not a bad life!

There were no house viewings last Saturday as we had already seen everyone of them that were open. All of you in Blue Hills Close will be happy about that I guess! Just need that Goldilocks house.There were also no winnings last week at the Surf Club on members night. Fingers crossed for tomorrow night.

We decided we needed a dinner out so we went to Sabrosa Dim Sum House. We had the hoisin duck bao buns followed by the Wagyu beef dumplings and the kung pao chicken and a smashed cucumber salad. We had a couple of glasses of wine to help with the digestion. It was fabulous!

Depending on how long and strenuous our morning walks are, that dictates how our afternoon walk will pan out. Could be just a paddle or could be a walk up to the surf club for a beer.🍺

The last 2 mornings we have walked the National Park because the weather has been so good. Yesterday a fellow walker pointed out some migrating whales frolicking around, even though they were a fair way out to sea. No luck this morning though.

Our sun sets are different every night, sometimes red, sometimes orange but they are very pretty and you can’t help yourself with taking heaps of photos!

That’s it, it’s been a rather quiet week but it all changes tomorrow! We welcome Janet and Michael up to the Big Brother House for some good times.

Bye for now

lots of love

Greg and Rhonda

We have just enjoyed a wonderful week with Ez and Abby and Max and Ollie. The first few days were not the weather which we had ordered but it did brighten up for the last 3 days. After a delayed flight, they arrived at the house , scoffed down a late lunch and begged to go to the beach. The radar did not look all that good for a beach walk but Poppy decided it would be okay. Well, it wasn’t and we got absolute drowned but the kids loved it anyway!

Another dreary and dull day was a ferry ride down to Tewantin for a fish and chip lunch. Poppy and the boys decided to brave it on the upper deck whilst the girls decided to stay inside and out of the weather. Before each stop the skipper asked for a volunteer to ring the bell, and Maxie decided to have a go!

Poppy became Barman and chef, as per usual for the week and Ez enjoyed the break from decision making.

Reluctantly, much to the 3 munchkins disgust, we dragged them out on a beach walk “nearly” every morning before breakfast.

Finally the weather brightened up and we had warm sunshine and blue skies so we headed down to Hastings Street to let them get well and truly wet in the water. Of course they had to have an ice cream as well.

We had dinner at the surf club one night and met up with Nadine, our Swiss daughter and all her family. It was great to see her again. Of course we made it Wednesday night and guess what, our luck was still running hot. Rhonda picked up the Members Draw Consolation prize of a $250 bar voucher! We are currently working our way through it! 😂🥂

We said goodbye to the kids, hope they had a great time, and now it’s peace and quiet. Bliss!😂

We decided to take ourselves out for a recovery dinner. We had been told about a new Japanese Restaurant called Tida that was supposed to be very good. And it was sensational, even if a little expensive. We started with karage school prawns and pork gyozas, but before that there were a couple of beers drunk! For mains we enjoyed karage chicken and beef tataki with some rice. We are definitely returning.

We had raved to Ez about our sunsets but unfortunately while she was here they were rather bland however the day she left, of course we enjoyed another lovely one.

We are now back into our routine which is coffee in the morning, gin and tonic at 11am and gold band snapper for dinner, nearly the best fish on the planet, ( a close second to spigola) 😂

We are still looking at houses on Saturday mornings but still haven’t found that Goldilocks house yet, although have come close a couple of times.

We loved having Ez and the kids here, but at the same time we are enjoying the quiet again.

Until next time

lots of love

Greg and Rhonda.

We cannot believe we are almost half way through our 2 months up here. We are continuing our walks, usually 2 a day. We try to “hike” the National Park twice a week. The National Park walk takes us about 2 hours with lots of ups and downs and in the middle about a one and a half kilometer walk along Alexander Beach.

Our afternoon walks are along the beach from Sunrise Beach to Sunshine Beach and back, about one hour.

We have had our dear friend Alan up with us for a stay. Al was smart enough to time his stay with us to enjoy our Friday night pizza night. Pizza night now consists of starting at the local Village Bicycle Bar for a few beers and some live music.

Then it’s off to Somedays Pizza for great food and a bottle of red!

We are still enjoying the most beautiful sunsets from our balcony each evening as the weather has not been too bad. Getting the odd occasional showers but nothing too heavy.

We returned to our Italian restaurant with Al and had another great Sicilian based meal at Zi Bros. Entrees this time were again the beef carpaccio and we tried a burrata and bresaola, both were delicious. Greg’s main was a pork lasagne and Rhonda’s was a fabulous orecchiette pasta with broccoli and stracciatella cheese.

As well as eating out Greg is cooking up a storm on the bbq. For Al’s farewell dinner we had eye fillet steak, lamb cutlets and English pork snags with chips and salad on the side.Delicious!! Of course we started off with a bottle of champers

We ares still going out for Sunday breakfast, having our pastry and trying to work out where the best coffee is. Brunettis still has the best pastries though.

We have recovered from our drive up so decided to do a day drive through the Hinterland. We drove through Kenilworth, Malaney and Montville. Decided to take a picnic lunch with us.

An update on the Wednesday night Members draw and raffle at the Surf Club. We haven’t won the big $2200 yet but we were so bloody close to first prize in the raffle last night. The winning ticket number was 361. Bloody hell!!🤦‍♀️

Tomorrow Ez and Abby and Max and Ollie arrive for a week. Hope the weather is warm enough for the grandkids to have a swim.

That’s it for now.

Lots of love

Greg and Rhonda

Weeks 2 and 3 have gone by very quickly up here in Sunrise Beach. We have now added “ house hunting” to our Saturday mornings, usually viewing about 4 “Open for Inspections”. So far we have not found the Goldilocks house, the one that is “just right”.
We have also added Members Night at the Surf Club. Every Wednesday we head up the road to the surf club to try to win the Members Jackpot, so far it’s up to $2500. 🤞 They also sell raffle tickets and lo and behold last week Greg was lucky enough to win 2nd prize! A voucher for a local butcher worth $75.

We. are still walking every morning and afternoon. The looooong walk through the. National Park has been great, although tiring and quite sweaty! Last week we got caught in a rain shower on the way home.

Last week we did have a few cloudy showery mornings of walks along the beach where we were only accompanied by the seagulls!

We have been out to a couple of places for dinner. There has been an Asian Fusion restaurant in Sunshine Beach for ages. We had never been there so decided to give it a go. It was great. We had duck bao buns and vegetarian spring rolls and a slow cooked lamb shoulder massaman curry. It was yum.

Of course even though we are on holidays, there are certain chores that need to be done, and one is keeping the pool clean, even though we probably won’t dive in cause it’s bloody freezing cold water. But Greg is doing a good job of being the pool boy!

We have just had Jude up from Brissy for a short stay, the first of our visitors. She finally got into the routine of a pre breakie hike along the beach one morning.

Whilst Jude was up she shouted us a great dinner at a relatively new Italian restaurant in Noosa Heads, and it was great, almost a Scopri! We are heading back again tomorrow night just to make sure it was as good as we thought. We started with a delicious focaccia and a beef carpaccio, followed by a rigatoni lamb shoulder ragu. All was fabulous. Thanks Jude!

.

Whilst Jude and Rhonda trawled Hasting Street for some bargains, Greg trawled Massimo’s to get his pistachio ice cream!

Still getting great sunset views from our front balcony whilst we are having a “sundowner aperol or beer or GnT”. And we often get a visitor on our back balcony too.

We now have Alan up here with us for a few days. Off for pizza tonight, Italian tomorrow night and who knows after that!

Update on the weather. It was a bit showery last week but this week it has improved with a lot of blue skies. Overnight temps high teens and day temps are low to mid 20’s so can’t complain at all.

Till next time!

Lots of love

Greg and Rhonda

xx

From the title you will have realized that we are not in Europe….yet. We are in Sunrise Beach on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Don’t worry, we will be in Europe late August!

As we are staying in Qld for 2 months, we decided to drive. It was our first loooooong drive in Tess, our Tesla. Our first days drive to an overnight stop in Goulburn, NSW, was a little “testy” as you put your faith in the onboard computer of the car to get you to the next charging station. When we departed Melbourne the car told us we would have 10% of our battery left when we hit Albury. As we travelled along, we stressfully watched the battery go from 10% down to 4%, however the lesson learnt was to put your trust in Elon.🤦‍♀️😬 We arrived at the Albury Commercial Club, plugged Tess in, had a coffee and 20 minutes later Tess told us she had enough charge to get to our next stop.

First night at Goulburn, headed off the next day for an overnight stop in Coffs Harbour. No hassles with Tess, still trustingElon!

The next day we arrived at our “home” for 2 months! Sunrise Beach is a 5 minute drive from Noosa but not as busy. We are a 5 minute walk from the beach. We like our house, we have settled in really well.

Already we have settled into a bit of a routine. Up for a coffee, then out for a morning beach walk together with the occasional 8 km walk through the National Park. Rhonda says 2 days a week for the 8 km trek and Greg says 3 days a week, time will tell who wins!

We also have an afternoon stroll along the beach! Not quite 8 km but well and truly enough. As you can tell the weather has been fabulous since we have arrived. The day time temperatures have been low to mid 20’s with blue cloudless skies. Perfect!

We are back into Friday night pizzas but we were so hungry last Friday we didn’t take a photo. But trust us, it was good. The house has balconies both front and back so it’s morning coffee on the back veranda and afternoon drinks (sundowners) on the front veranda watching the sunsets which have been beautiful.

One week down, 7 to go. Will update weekly!

Cheers

Greg and Rhonda

xxx

We left Trento after a great week and drove to our final destination, the town of Stresa on the Western shore of Lake Maggiore. Our apartment is in the centre of Stresa , a short flat 2 minute walk to the lake and on the 4th floor with luckily a lift and 2 balconies where we have a glimpse of the lake!

Stresa has many luxurious hotels and villas along the waterfront and since the 19th century has been renowned for “its sophisticated atmosphere and genteel visitors”! So you are asking why are we here?😂

The first night we had a number of recommendations from our host for dinner, and whilst having an aperitivi, we decided to have dinner at Trattoria Piccioni, basically because it was 100 meters from our pre dinner drinks and we couldn’t be bothered walking any further!

The meal was delicious. We started with a shared selection of lake fish, followed by by an eggplant ravioli and a tagliatelle with game ragu washed down with a bottle of Arneis white wine. Delicious all round.

Stresa is famous for the 3 Borromean Islands that lie in a wide gulf surrounded by mountains. They take their name from the Borromean family who took ownership of the land in the 16th and 17th centuries. Only the best architects and gardeners were called on by the famous family. The 2 islands of Bella and Madre were transformed into luxurious residences while the 3rd island, Pescatori was left to continue its traditional way of life of fishing. We took a boat ride to check them out. Needless to say we enjoyed Pescatori the most.

Pescatori, or Fisherman’s Island, is one of the most picturesque locations on the lake. It has been a fishing community for centuries and we loved its narrow streets and in particular our restaurant we went to for lunch recommended again by our host.

We specifically went to this restaurant to order the risotto with lake fish as we have enjoyed this dish every time we have come to the Italian Lakes. At the recommendation of our host Rhonda ordered the lemon cake and Gregory had to have the pana cotta.

After lunch we jumped back on our motor boat and visited Isola Bella with its stunning Baroque palace and gardens, even though we didn’t go in!

Being Sunday we needed our Brunettis breakfast so we headed to Il Gigi Bar for our coffee and cakes. It was a nice stroll walking round the quiet streets as the weather was rather inclement.

So the bags are packed and tomorrow we head to Geneva airport to say goodbye to Harley and make our way home.

It has been a great trip, Greg’s knees have thankfully stood up to the strain. The waistlines need some attention when we return home and tonight we are heading out for one last bowl of pasta!

For those interested Harley has clocked up over 10,000 kms with only one slight dent!

So until next year it’s ciao ciao for now and see you all on the other side.

Lots of love

Greg and Rhonda.

xxoo