Greek Island Ruins And Asian Cuisine

Let me start this almost-regular round-up of new content, travel news, and travel-related links with the sad news that Sean of Sean & Stef lost his battle against cancer this week. The travel blogging industry rallied around to raise funds and support his attempts to fight off this disease last year and succeeded at least in helping give the pair some more time together, and having gone through losing someone close after a long battle with cancer I know that it’s going to be dreadful for Stef suffering that loss now coupled with the relief that Sean’s no longer in pain. Our sincerest condolences to Stef and to both of their families at this time.

Now it’s time to see what’s changed on this site since the last update.

A few filler posts to start with, these being posts covering journeys or destinations of interest or events most likely not taken as part of a cruise or land-based vacation, and typically from quite some time ago. I like to dig back through the photo archives and get some write-ups around them just to keep the site content ticking over.

In Castle Road Vintage Fair, 2013 you can take a look at one of the roads in Portsmouth that has periodically closed access to vehicles in order to help local businesses. As you can probably tell from the title, the theme for local businesses in this instance was towards the old and quirky.

A brief look at The British Museum, London next, brief because we had ventured up to the country’s capital to watch some American Football but had a few hours to kill before kick-off and neither of us had visited the famous museum before.

From one capital city to another one, this time across the pond to America and photos from a little bit of exploring Washington, D.C. in 2012. This was during my infamous forgot-my-proper-camera trip to the US that we try not to think about.

Lastly, another two posts from the ongoing trip to Kos that we took in November of last year; these two cover a full day in Kos Town with the first part looking at the reconstructed Roman villa of Casa Romana…

… while the second post from that same day recounts our walk back through the town where we stumbled upon the ancient Greek ruins of the Altar of Dionysus, had some drinks in a bar specialising in local craft ales, then made our way back to the resort.

Now, if you’re thinking “Okay, that explains the Greek Island Ruins part of this blog’s title, but what about the Asian Cuisine?” then that’ll teach you for not clicking on the links above and actually reading those posts (or scrolling down the pictures). In both Washington, D.C. and at the hotel resort we returned to after our day on Kos we had a Chinese meal in a restaurant. So, if you’re keen to see what Americans and Greeks think Asian cooking is like and how they compare then now you have that ability.

Travel news, and following hot on the heels – or possibly bumpily in the wake – of the recent news about P&O’s new ship being named Arvia (I talked about that last time) Virgin have announced that their new ship will be called the Resilient Lady. 2021 is really shaping up to be the year of disappointingly-named cruise ships. Resilient means “able to bounce back from difficulties” so I can see why some people might stroke their beards and nod knowingly and say “Of course, of course, because we’ve all had difficult times” but I personally think you should try to distance the name of your cruise ship from even the thought of difficulties. If you’ve got a choice between cruising on a vessel whose name makes you think of tranquility and adventure or on another whose name says yes, you might have had a nasty stomach flu, but you’re getting over it and you’re pressing on, then maybe at some subliminal level you’re going to pick the first one.

That there Twitter was all a-buzz with news that cruising for UK passengers would be allowed to start from May 17th today. From. From. Not on, not that you’d know that from the gleeful posts announcing the news. That date is the absolute earliest that hotel-type accommodations will be allowed to open so it’s the absolute earliest that coastal cruises to nowhere – since they’ll be operating just like hotels; in fact, better than hotels since nobody will be allowed to spread into the community and cause wider contamination vectors – will be allowed to operate. But no cruise line will be planning to cruise then because they need warm-up time for the ship and crew, most of whom will need to be flown in and tested and quarantined ahead of time, and the last thing they’ll want is for all that to happen to then be told by Boris following the next calamitous surge that alas, yes, alas, he’s sadly, alas, going to have to sadly push back the opening date, alas, but that he, sadly, no not sadly, has high confidence that nobody will still hold him or that twat of a chancellor of his responsible because, sadly, has anyone considered talking about Meghan for a bit? Which is all to say that July, and maybe late July, seems more reasonable for UK cruises to begin again. Let’s wait and see what the soon-to-be-announced itineraries from P&O and Princess look like, shall we?

The vaccination roll-out in the UK is still going well thanks to the NHS being allowed to manage it all, and at the time of writing anyone 55 or over can now go online and book an appointment. That means there’s still some way to go before we can book ours but that minimum age seems to be dropping fairly steadily so perhaps we’re only a few weeks from taking that first step towards travelling again without risking killing ourselves or those with whom we come into contact.

Whenever I’m not saying to hell with tradition I like to be quite traditional. That’s me: a complex character who, when he’s not doing something, you can always find not not doing that thing instead. Right now I’m feeling traditional so let’s finish off this blog and take a traditional look at some travel links from around the blogosphere.

If you’ve read any of my posts before then you’ll know I like architecture and that I’ve got a special fondness for brutalism, and this post about the abandoned Hotel Monte Palace on the Azores shows off just how fabulous that design is. Getting to it if you were holidaying on the island might take some doing but it looks worth it and it’s the sort of thing my wife and I would love to do.

We hit Valparaiso, Chile back in 2016, just a few months after that linked post from Steve and Dave, but unlike them we only saw it from the window of our bus. It looked really interesting then and reading that blog just brings home how much we missed not being able to add on a day or so to our South American trip. If you like street art – and we do – then it looks to be a fabulous spot for it.

Finally, South Africa has never been on our travel radar. While I don’t want to get stereotypical about an entire country of people there’s no escaping the fact that on more than enough occasions we’ve had interactions that have painted the people from there in a not positive light. Yeah, I know, not everyone in a country can truly be that arrogant and racist but we do seem to be a magnet for the ones who are so, yes, it’s not a country high on the list. That said, this post about the Franschhoek Wine District casts a whole new and attractive light on the place. Two words for you: Wine Tram. Read it and plan your trip to South Africa now.