Godspeed to Olympos, Tue, 26 Sep 23
Simon
at a City, Transit
in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Europe
The bunker turned out to be totally worth the wait. Already getting the ticket was an experience – as it’s still a military zone, I had to go to the nearby village to get a permission to access. Compared to …
Godspeed to Olympos, Sun, 24 Sep 23
Simon
at a City, River, Temple, Waterfall
in Bosnia and Hercegovina, Europe
I crossed to Bosnia and Hercegovina early in the morning and was pleasantly surprised to see my Montenegran SIM card work here. Great, I don’t need to buy a new one! After yesterday’s storm, it got a fair bit colder …
Godspeed to Olympos, Sat, 23 Sep 23
Simon
at a City, UNESCO site
in Croatia, Europe
The last place I visited in Montenegro is Herceg Novi – another town with a historic centre by the Kotor Bay. To be honest, by now it’s nothing special. Castle, fortress, city walls, same old, same old. Then, I braced …
Godspeed to Olympos, Fri, 22 Sep 23
Simon
at a City, Mountain, Sea, UNESCO site
in Europe, Montenegro
Well, don’t trust the weather forecast, is a moral of that story! I got up in the morning to find a fog so sick that I couldn’t see 20 metres ahead, save enjoy gorgeous views of the whole country. I …
Godspeed to Olympos, Thu, 21 Sep 23
Simon
at a Cave, City, Mountain
in Europe, Montenegro
My toe is feeling better today and I’m pumped up with some seaside energy, do time to resume the action! Last night, I drove up to Podgorica’ famed Niagara waterfall and… found it empty. The rock water bed with it’s …
Godspeed to Olympos, Wed, 20 Sep 23
Simon
at a City, Sea
in Europe, Montenegro
The toe I sprained yesterday is still hurting a lot and makes it hard to walk. And thus, today is another day of just chilling by the seaside. I’m determined to make the most of it. First, St Stefan, with …
Godspeed to Olympos, Tue, 19 Sep 23
Simon
at a Ruins/Excavation, Sea
in Albania, Europe, Montenegro
Since I parked by the Rozafa Castle already, I decided to break my No-Albania rule and see it anyway. Good choice – it’s a great spot with amazing views and quite a few tunnels and passages that are open to …
Godspeed to Olympos, Mon, 18 Sep 23
Simon
at a Lake, Temple
in Europe, North Macedonia
I have to say that the North-West of Macedonia is a sharp contrast to what I’ve seen before. Suddenly, there is rubbish everywhere. And stray dogs. I guess the dogs spread out the rubbish, too. There were piles on the …
Godspeed to Olympos, Sun, 17 Sep 23
Simon
at a City, Lake, Temple, UNESCO site
in Europe, North Macedonia
I spent two days by the Ohrid lake. On both, I spent the morning hanging out in or around the van, writing, catching up on things, and generally just taking things slow. I feel I’m running out of steam a …
Godspeed to Olympos, Fri, 15 Sep 23
Simon
at a Temple
in Europe, Greece
This trip was quite a spiritual journey for me and I felt the need to spend some time with myself, reflecting on life. For this purpose I decided to drive back up the slopes of Olympos to the Monastery of …
Godspeed to Olympos, Thu, 14 Sep 23
Simon
at a Ruins/Excavation, Sea, UNESCO site
in Europe, Greece
Today was a slow day. I got up before sunrise and spent a lot of time in the van catching up on stuff and writing. After 11, Anti and Michał joined me for a road trip. First, we visited the …
Godspeed to Olympos, Sun, 10 Sep 23
Simon
with Antigone, Edward, Michał
at a Mountain, UNESCO site
in Europe, Greece
10/09/2023 Today we started the hike. We walked up to the Spilios Agapitos refuge at 2050m, hung up the for some time, then did another small hike up to a viewing point. The hike itself wasn’t too hard so far, …
Godspeed to Olympos, Sat, 09 Sep 23
Simon
at a Ruins/Excavation, Sea
in Europe, Greece, North Macedonia
It turns out that the excavation site of the Ancient city of Stibera is just a field. There is a plate with the explanation, but no parking, and you just cross a village road, walk a bit through the field, …
Godspeed to Olympos, Fri, 08 Sep 23
Simon
at a Ruins/Excavation, Temple
in Europe, North Macedonia
Last night I parked the Baron and was turned out being the back entrance to the archaeological site of the ancient and early medieval city of stubbing today I woke up and it turned out being another only lovely and …
Godspeed to Olympos, Thu, 07 Sep 23
Simon
at a City, Lake, Museum
in Europe, North Macedonia
This morning I found out once again how awesome the Baron is. Someone was walking around and even knocking and calling, I’m not sure who or why. I didn’t give sign of life and they just left. Minutes later I …
Godspeed to Olympos, Wed, 06 Sep 23
Simon
at a Mountain
in Europe, North Macedonia, Serbia
Not much happened today. I got up in a great mood and just chilled a bit taking in a great mountain view and vaguely starting to think where am I even going today. I’m the end, I made a general …
Godspeed to Olympos, Tue, 05 Sep 23
Simon
at a Temple, UNESCO site
in Europe, Serbia
Today did not start the way I was hoping it to. I slept by the Resavska Pecina cave, planning to visit it as it opens at 9am. But it turned out that it’s closed and they won’t open until enough …
Godspeed to Olympos, Mon, 04 Sep 23
Simon
at a Temple, Waterfall
in Europe, Serbia
Miljkov MonasteryMiljkov MonasteryMiljkov MonasteryMiljkovDobreš monasteryZlatenac ZlatenacRadošinZlatenacRadošinRadošinSaint SavaTomic monasteryTomic JakovicManasija Manasija MonasteryManasija Today I discovered why you shouldn’t sleep by a monastery. They very much still ring the bells for prayers at 3am, and then at 6am, and then at 7am, and then at …
Godspeed to Olympos, Sun, 03 Sep 23
Simon
at a City
in Europe, Serbia
I set off towards Belgrade making a stop at Sremsky Karlovsky. It’s a cute little village with a lot of wineries and I quaint little centre. I stumbled upon a mass in the orthodox church and the one thing that …
Christmas 2022, Tue, 20 Dec 22
Jemma and Simon
at a Temple, UNESCO site
in Europe, France
We woke up amidst rather heavy rain wondering how the hell are we going to manage to go to Mount St Michel in that weather. But hey, we are hardcore! We were quite lucky – the rain subsided a bit …
Christmas 2022, Thu, 15 Dec 22
Jemma and Simon
at a City, Temple, UNESCO site
in Europe, Germany
First winter night in the Baron! We were scared as just before leaving the heating didn’t want to work, but then it started, so all is good. New record: -9. We started our journey to visit Jemma’s family for Christmas …
The Land of no Top Floors, Fri, 18 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
in Africa, Egypt
Diving is awesome! After completing our trial dive, we decided to go full in – we’re doing the PADI Open Water Diver certification that will allow us to dive up to 18m. Basically, we came to Dahab thinking we’ll be …
The Land of no Top Floors, Sun, 13 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
in Africa, Egypt
We thought yesterday was cold! The weather isn’t looking great for our beach time in Dahab, unfortunately, it’s barely 20 degrees, cloudy and quite windy, and it’s meant to stay like that for the better part of the week. We …
The Land of no Top Floors, Thu, 10 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
at a Graveyard, Ruins/Excavation, Temple, UNESCO site
in Africa, Egypt
Today was amazing! We started off with Maria again, doing another overpriced Ibis tour. First, Ramsess III temple at Medinet Habu. Really amazing, easily one of our favourites – it’s all about tha pharaoh’s wars and victories, there is a …
The Land of no Top Floors, Wed, 09 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
at a Ruins/Excavation, Temple, UNESCO site
in Africa, Egypt
Today was a painful reminder that Egyptian infrastructure is in dire need of modernisation. I wonder how often do they need to change suspension in cars here. The temples of Abydos and Dandera are both awesome, but to be honest, …
The Land of no Top Floors, Tue, 08 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
at a City, Museum, River
in Africa, Egypt
Our train got back to Luxor just before 10pm and our host kindly ferried us across to the West Bank. Villa Sunrise turned out to be pretty sweet and we’ve got the best room on the roof, with a direct …
The Land of no Top Floors, Sun, 06 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
at a Desert, Graveyard, Ruins/Excavation, UNESCO site
in Africa, Egypt
We slept long and well, if you don’t count the annoying throat ache I developed last evening. I think it must be the dust, because it gets much worse when I’m in the desert. But we got up very late, …
The Land of no Top Floors, Sat, 05 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
at a City, Ruins/Excavation, Temple, UNESCO site
in Africa, Egypt
We got up at 4:30 today to go to Abu Simbel and see it while the temperatures are still bearable. To be honest, I’m not sure this was necessary, but it seems that this is how things are done here. …
The Land of no Top Floors, Fri, 04 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
at a City, Museum, River, Ruins/Excavation
in Africa, Egypt
Finally! Freedom to decide what we do when and just take it a bit more easy. We checked out of the boat in the morning, left our luggage with the staff, and headed off with Christina and Marco to town. …
The Land of no Top Floors, Thu, 03 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
at a City, River, Ruins/Excavation, Temple, UNESCO site
in Africa, Egypt
Today was quite frustrating. We have a ship ‘cruise’ booked until tomorrow, but we are just docked in Aswan by a noisy street, in between ships, with no view. We have a half-day of trips and a whole afternoon to …
The Land of no Top Floors, Wed, 02 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
at a River, Ruins/Excavation, Temple, UNESCO site
in Africa, Egypt
It’s Jemma’s birthday!!! How awesome we her to celebrate it in this way! In the morning, I snuck out to tell the crew, so they can prepare a surprise cake for the evening. Tsss, don’t tell her! But despite the …
The Land of no Top Floors, Tue, 01 Mar 22
Jemma and Simon
in Africa, Egypt
Our ship leaves at 2pm, and that’s all the time we have to see the grave of Hatshepsut and the Valley of the Kings! We got up before 6am to make sure we can make it, and had our tea …
The Land of no Top Floors, Mon, 28 Feb 22
Jemma and Simon
at a Ruins/Excavation, Temple, UNESCO site
in Africa, Egypt
We got up early to get picked up by our guide Ahmed at 8:00. Initially he insisted that we go straight to Karnak, but we convinced him we want to go to the boat first. Which turned out potentially unnecessary, …
