Wander More Work Less

After our big walk yesterday, my right knee was extremely painful. Uphill walking does not agree with it. ☹️ Sarah had already suggested we take it easy today and not go to one of the beaches, which had originally been our plan. Secretly, she just wanted a sleep-in, and I could hardly blame her for that. So the plan was to stay at the apartment most of the day and enjoy the pool. My internal alarm clock had other ideas and woke me at 4 a.m.! I dozed until 6, got up very quietly, had breakfast, and just before 7 a.m. went out walking. Yes, my knee was bloody sore, but I’m here and had to go see Skaros Rock up close. Sarah had already said she didn’t need to do that. Any Doctor Who fan will tell you Skaro is where the Daleks come from—so this walk came with some risk involved. 😂 I’m assuming Skaro and Skaros may have a tenuous link? They do now thanks to me. 😉 I was retracing the start of yesterday’s walk to Imerovigli, which of course is uphill. I took it very gently and purposely fav...

Our alarm was set for 5:45 am so that we could get an early — and more importantly, cooler — start to our walk today. We were walking to Oia along the trail that runs from Fira to Oia. The trail is a mixture of footpaths through beautiful clifftop villages and more rugged gravel and rocky sections. A very small portion goes along the road — less than 1 percent. The first village is Imerovigli, which is also where you can access Skaros Rock. We didn’t stop there today but plan to go back tomorrow. To say that the views along the way were epic, amazing, and brilliant is an understatement. It really was like walking through picture postcards. We left the apartment at 6:30 am, and the sun didn’t rise until 7:20 am, so the temperature stayed pleasant for more than half of the walk. There was also a nice breeze blowing. We didn’t see any other walkers until about the halfway point, when four or five people caught up with us, and after that we started to see a few heading in the o...

A quick breakfast and out the door at 8am to walk along the caldera walkway towards Fira. Without the sun setting and shining straight into our faces the views were far better than last night. They were pretty nice then too, but now we could hopefully take better photos. The Norwegian forecast had predicted a high of 25°C and a starting temperature of 24°C. In reality, it felt slightly cooler to start with and ended up slightly warmer. We saw a few extra spots compared with last night: more churches, plenty of blue and white, and—unlike the classic postcard images—plenty of yellowy off-white mixed in as well. We also got a better view of where the donkeys head down the cliff trail to bring up a few travellers. At least, we assume that’s what they do. We only saw them being led down in a line behind their keeper. We could definitely smell them though, as they left a few deposits behind. 😂 A man with a bucket and shovel arrived just as we did to partially sort that out. We w...

A 10:30 am check-out and a short 500m walk to the bus stop. This was the better option to get to the airport without needing to change from tram to train. A slightly longer walk, but easier in the end. Our flight wasn’t until 2 pm, but after seeing the long lines for security when we arrived, it had been a good idea to go straight to the airport. It’s a very busy place, with flights to far-off destinations I didn’t expect. Our flight time to Santorini was just over three hours, and we braved Ryanair again. The planes are quite cramped for me, but once again the service was reliable and on time. There are some small advantages to being Sarah’s height. 😉 We arrived at Santorini Airport at 5:30 pm, having “lost” an hour with the time zone change. Now you won’t believe this bit—we (yes, Aaron!) booked an airport taxi pick-up service. The public bus only runs once an hour, and at that time of day we didn’t want to hang around waiting. The taxi, booked via Booking.com, was $36 NZD, which I ...

Today was our last full day in Krakow. It’s been a good week with plenty to see and do. The fact that the city is so walkable really helped—no chance of getting bored here. Just head out walking in a different direction and you’ll stumble across something new and worth seeing. This morning we set out to tick off a few things still outstanding on our list. The first was to see and hear the bugler play from the tallest tower of St. Mary’s Basilica in the main square. He plays on the hour, every hour, from four windows facing north, east, south and west. The bugle call is a reenactment of a historic event: "Centuries ago, a watcher in the tower played the bugle call at sunrise and sunset, signaling the opening and closing of the city gates. Played at other times, the call served as a warning signal. In 1241, a Mongol army approached the gates. The watchful guard noticed the enemy and sounded the alarm in time for the townspeople to close the gates. The city was saved, but before he f...

Our planned activity for today was a tour of the Wieliczka Salt Mine. We booked it online last night. Wieliczka is a town about 12 km from the centre of Kraków. Maybe it’s considered an outer suburb of Kraków—I’m not completely sure. The bus ride took 20–25 minutes and cost 6 złoty each. We had booked the 9:00 am tour, but in our typical fashion we arrived over an hour early, so we filled in time wandering through the main town square first. We then went to the mine entrance and exchanged our tickets for the 8:30 am tour instead. Tours run every 30 minutes with a maximum group size of 30 people, and each group is in a specific language. There can be up to eight groups (i.e., eight different languages) at once, but they leave a few minutes apart. It wasn’t very busy today—only three or four groups when we started. Our English group went in first, following our guide, Anetta. Everyone had a headset to make sure we could hear her clearly. We began by descending 380 steps, hea...

I’ve been a bit slack with posting my blog this week. It’s not that I’ve been especially busy—just doing other things and then forgetting to ask Sarah to proofread it for me. 😮 Yet another walk today (YAW?) and ABC to see along the way. We took a slightly different route from the apartment around the castle, to where we were last night to see the dragon. Hardly anyone was about this morning—maybe because it looked like rain, or maybe it was just too early. The forecast said it wouldn’t rain, so we only packed caps, not coats. It had rained last night and looked like it had carried on through the night. The dragon had been snuffed out. We waited for 10 minutes and only heard him huff, but never saw any puff (or flames). Never mind. We carried on and found a sculpture of a dog, then another very large church. We popped inside briefly for a look before continuing to a small, cute dragon sculpture beside the river bridge. We made a quick circuit into to...