There and back again – December to January

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My last real blog post was just before we went away for Christmas holidays to South Africa via Namibia, and now it’s February already! I feel like I’m always behind these days. In between travelling I am overloaded with work, trying to meet all my many deadlines before the next trip. At the moment I’m away again, at a meeting in Switzerland. It should calm down a bit in February, but let’s see. Hopefully then I’ll have time to update on the places we’ve visited in December and January. Here is a sneak preview in the meanwhile. Continue reading

First snow: hiking in the Harz mountains

 

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This weekend a friend organized a spontaneous trip to the Harz mountains when a colleague mentioned to her that it was snowing there. Although the highest peak, the Brocken, is only 1141m, the area has an alpine character with lots of fir trees and receives much more snow than the surrounding areas. It was amazing as we drove from autumnal forests full of orange and gold up to a snow-covered winter wonderland. We visited earlier this year in January or February when the snow was deep for cross country skiing. This year we did some hiking in the hills instead, another way to enjoy the beauty of the snowy trees. I can hardly wait to visit again. Continue reading

Middle Europe Weekly Small Pleasures #29 – chocolate, kriek and autumn forest

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Well 2016 has certainly been a year of change worldwide. Terror attacks, Brexit, turbulent politics in South Africa and now Trump’s election. They say you always remember where you are when you hear dramatic news, and probably I will always remember that I was in Brussels at a meeting when Trump was elected. Because of my meeting, my husband and I spent the weekend in Belgium. We’ve been to Brussels several times before and have also visited Bruges, Ghent, Blankenberg, Spa, Lieges and Leuven, so this time we decided to take a day trip to Antwerp. I’ll write about our trip in a separate post, but Belgium is full of things to enjoy, and so this week my weekly small pleasures were Belgian ones. Check out the weekly small pleasures of others here at a New Life Wandering. Continue reading

Canary Islands Travel Diaries – Gran Canaria

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The last stop on our Canary islands visit was Gran Canaria, which is approximately in the middle of the archipelago.  We had travelled first to Fuerteventura, then to  Lanzarote, finding that each island had a different character, and finally arrived on Gran Canaria, which yet again had different scenery and a different atmosphere. On this island the mountains dominate, with the highest peak being 1956m. Before Europeans arrived, the island was populated from as early as 500BC by a people known as the Canarii. In their language, the island was called  Tamarán. There is a museum about this interesting civilization on the island, but unfortunately we didn’t manage to get there on our short trip. Continue reading