New Zealand – Walking Up One Tree Hill
One Tree Hill is an icon in Auckland’s landscape – the largest volcano on the skyline with a tall monument at the top. It’s surrounded by a great park, Cornwall…
New Zealand – Auckland Zoo with the Cousins
When we got back to Auckland, we had a few days to spend time with our families. One of our days was spent at Auckland Zoo, which has developed quite…
New Zealand – Heading Up North
After a few days in Auckland catching up with the parents again, we decided to head north for a couple of nights. First, we went to the beautiful Rawhiti, where…
New Zealand – The Buried Village
While we were at Lake Tarawera, we thought we should do some touristy stuff. Namely, a stones-throw down the road, we wanted to see The Buried Village. The little museum at…
New Zealand – Chilling at Lake Tarawera
It drizzled through Christmas and poured through New Years. Well, it was no different at our next holiday destination. Well, we got a couple of days with sunny mornings, but…
New Zealand – Catching up with Friends
We got to catchup with almost all of our friends when we were back in NZ. (Sorry to those who we didn’t get time to see!) The highlight was certainly…
New Zealand – Xmas and Snells Beach
All done with Canada, we leapt on another plane (the All Blacks safety video on the AirNZ flight was classic) to get home for Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve at…
Vancouver – City Explorers and Totem Poles
For the past month (mid Dec to mid Jan), Rob and I have been in New Zealand. Beautiful, summery New Zealand. But the weather is another matter. It takes 24…
Making Sloe Gin
Our friend Richard introduced us to Sloe Gin – a sweet syrupy after-dinner drink that’s made from sloes and gin. Now, we didn’t know what sloes were, but we have…
Rome – Invader
During our Rome trip we happened to run into some invader street art. The one below was while we were waiting in line to get into the Vatican museums. There…
Rome – Vatican Museum
The Vatican Museums are housed in the apartments and palaces of previous Pope’s, all now museums and galleries with hundreds of works that have been accumulated by the Roman Catholic…
Rome – St Peter’s Basilica
And then comes the most famous church in Rome – St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican. We made 2 attempts to visit this fantastic church before finally getting in. The first time,…
Rome – Special Churches in Rome
Rome is a city of churches. The Lonely Planet city guide alone lists 38 ‘must-see’ churches and basilicas. We weren’t going to that many churches, not by a long shot.…
Rome – Palazzo Massimo
We heard about the Palazzo Massimo from the Revealed Rome blog and it looked pretty stunning. And then we found out that a bunch of Roman museums are open and…
Rome – The Roman Forum and Palatine Hill
The Colosseum was such an impressive site, but it’s only 1 part of a larger array of roman ruins. There are 2 additional sites which are both included in your…
Rome – The Colosseum
While we were in Rome we ‘had’ to go see the Colosseum. And it didn’t disappoint. The Colosseum was started in 70AD and finished in 80AD. To celebrate its opening…
Rome – Ancient Roman and Renaissance Wonders
Rome – what an amazing city. I had previously been to Rome in 2005 for a few days with my family and loved the sights and sounds of the city.…
Munich – Residenz and Schloss Nymphemburg
Our last day in Munich was a scorcher. Thankfully, half of it was spent indoors at the stunningly reconstructed Residenz – the Munich Residence. It was the political and cultural…
Munich – The River Isar
On the 4th day of our trip to Munich we had a bike ride down the river Isar. The Barvarians treat the river bank like the beach and it was…
Munich – Hiking in the Alps
So the third day we were in Munich we were taken for a hike around some of the Alps. View Munich Alps in a larger map We met at 10am…