España

So now I'm back in my home country, touching base to take time to consider the past, the now and what's coming. My plans for the future are still shapeless misty forms that are dimly beggining to take shape, so while I make a decision I've been travelling around here.

In fact, the travels started towards the end of the interrailing. Our final week we spent travelling around Spain. We chilled out in good ol' Tres Cantos, which is my home town, just on the outskirsts of Madrid. It was good getting back home, since its been a long while since I last saw my family and friends!

Anyhow, we chilled a bit and we checked out nearby cool spots such as Toledo and El Escorial. Toledo, which is indeed pretty holy, is an awesome fortified city, which was once the administrative capital of Spain. An awesome place, which still has a middle age feeling to it.


El Escorial is a monastery towards the North of Madrid, which was the political centre of Felipe II's Empire (back in the days when we spanish were powerful... ayayay)


We checked out the local area then headed over to the north, towards Galicia, on the Spanish North west, right on top of portugal.

The landscapes are strikingly different in this part of the coutry, changing from the intense yellow of the Madrilian fields to the deep green of the Galician mountains.


In fact quite bit similar to NZ, tho the mountains are much older and hence more rounded.

So we headed over to Cangas, which is where me parent's new home is located. This is a sweet spot, located in a gulf situated between two Rias, those of Vigo and Pontevedra. The Ria de Vigo is a sweet spot, a bay shielded by the Cies Islands, which are, I swear, a little piece of heaven on earth, with ansolutely white sand that you can even swim in!!
We checked out the landscapes and some celtic ruins in some nearby mountains, tho we were not so lucky with the weather (it rains in Spain too, it seems!).

Since then I've been back to Galicia and Portugal (briefly) visiting various beaches and fortresses. It's amazing what you can discover travelling around your own country. Like discovering a gem in your own back garden, there's a feeling of reward when you go to a place has always been there. I highly recommend it!

Interrailing Adventures

Well, well, well... and here I was thinking that now that I left NZ my travels would be over! It's been an awesome couple of weeks back in the old continent and they've been pretty action packed!

The Departure and The Amsterdam Experience

We had our last days at Rowena Crescent, and sadly kissed our old house good bye and embarqued on the Eurostar and headed over to Amsterdam via Brussels! Now, Amsterdam is always a pleasure, as I'm sure most of you will know and this time was no exception! I feel that not much comments are needed, so please use your imagination here to picture what a weekend in Amsterdam would be like! Apart from the obvious, we did check out some Jazz clubs with an ol' mate from London and we checked out Boom Chicago, a local comedy show that we managed to get in for half price with a free steak dinner! ;) Some pictures for your entertainment:



Lonely P. NZ can only get you so far...

Antwerp beer extraordinaire

So the original plan had been to then head over to Luxembourg, just cos neither I nor Dru had ever been there before, but according to some amsterdammers we met, luxembourg sucks (and here I quote:) and "is full of inbred people!", so we decided we could live without that and headed over to Anterp, in Belgium which was a real nice place and the beer tasting seesion we had was even nicer!

Nice people too, we quickly made friends with the bar staff. It was here that it struck me the most just how different Europe is from NZ, just how every city has a great history and some truly magnificent buildings! Interestingly, everyone speaks dutch around here (eastern belgium) the waitress could hardly even speak french! However, and after a few beers, we had no problem comunicating :D

La Bretagne et le Granit Rose de Tregastel

We then swiftly moved on to Brittany, where we met up with Goul and Morganne!That was a truly special moment, meeting up with already old friends from the New Zealand days! And what a great time we had! We arrived in Rennes and went our for a few beers and toured the city. It's a great place with a huge student population and some awesome bars! We sampled some the highly praise french cooking (well deserved praise, that is!) and generally chilled out at all the local places like "Le Petit Vélo" and wished we were "branché" enough to go to "La Place"!



But tregastel, towards the north was more adventure packed! We headed over there and managed to nearly die both on the mountain bike and the kayaks! (Hey Goul, I still regret trashing your bike(s)!) This is as awesome place right by the coast of Brittanny with some awesome landscapes of pink granite and some cool castles overlooking the hills, which apparently you can buy! Not bad for a summer house!



This was probably the highlight of the trip for me cos it was the perfect combination of nature, city and time with good people! Goul and Morganne, I'll see you in London soon!



We then moved off to Spain for yet another week of drunk and disorderly fun! But more on that soon!