Tag: Adventure

  • First Time Hiking in France: A Short Van Trip Adventure

    First Time Hiking in France: A Short Van Trip Adventure

    We went with our MinionVan for a short but sweet trip to the border of France. It was actually a boys’ trip, but I decided to come along as well. And I’m glad I did!

    Our first lunch stop in France already had beautiful views of larches changing the color of their needles.

    But before we went to France, we had another stop in Pontida, Italy. We went for a short bike ride, where we stumbled upon a funny barbecue in front of the church.

    Anyway, the biking was a bit too cross country for me, but fun enough. The trails we did are called Uccellaia 2 and Guendalina Basso.

    Let’s return to France. It was still raining the first day. We checked out some waterfalls in the area of La Grave. We also visited my favorite French shop, E.Leclerc in Briançon.

    The second day the boys did some canyoning, I hiked up to Lac Lauvitel. Lac means lake in French. Beautiful, easy hike – 10 km, 2 hours up, less than 1.5 hours down, 750 m height difference. This was my first proper hiking in France.

    On the way to the lake:

    The views of the lake:

    The next day we were exploring a different part of Le Parc national des Écrins. I went for a nice walk to Cascade de la Pisse, along the Le Veneon river. I did this while waiting for the boys to return.

    The next day, Rick and I went to Les Deux Alpes, Venosc. Since it was a school holiday in France, we were lucky that the trails and chairlifts were open. Also the ticket was super cheap. There was snow on the top and wet further down. Still worth it!

    The views were magical!

    I was in love with this part of the trail! Photo by Rick.

    For the last day I had my morning coffee with the nicest views.

    After that I went for a stroll around La Grave. It was out of season, the town was very quite. All the locals were looking at me funny. The town is quaint though.

    This was it for our short, but magical French adventure!

  • Exploring Cappadocia: Sunrise, Sunset and Stunning Views

    Exploring Cappadocia: Sunrise, Sunset and Stunning Views

    My mother’s wish was to see Cappadocia. After 5 years or so her wish has finally come true. This was our trip. I was very happy to see it too. The formations there are out of this world. We stayed in a hotel in the center of Göreme. Our first sunrise there was magical.

    Photo by mom

    That morning I did so many photos, but still not one photo could describe the real beauty of it.

    Here is another video from when the balloons were still warming up.

    This video was made a bit later, when most of the balloons were in the air. There were probably more than 150 balloons up there.

    It was magical. We were also lucky, because the next 2 mornings the balloons were not going due to the strong wind.

    The rest of the day we took it easy around Göreme.

    Because later I had my sunset MTB tour around Rose Valley. Although the trails were not the greatest, the landscape and the views made up for it. Well, the Red Bull part of it was fun. Another magical moment! We started around four or five and it was still very hot to pedal.

    Photo by tour guide
    Photo by tour guide
    Photo by tour guide
    Photo by tour guide
    Photo by tour guide
    Photo by tour guide

    Of course I had a rental bike, I did not want to pack up my bike for only 1 ride. It was alright, but I sure missed my Switchy. The tour was nice, I’ve seen a lot and the guide stopped in some interesting historical spots as well.

    Photo by tour guide
    Photo by tour guide
    Photo by tour guide
    Photo by tour guide

    After a long day, I really wanted to try Turkish Ravioli. Where better to try them than at Turkish Ravioli Restaurant? Besides ravioli we ordered peravu and bulghurball. When ordering ravioli, be mindful that they do not serve it hot, but medium temperature. Bulghurball is made of bulghur wheat and filled with meat and walnut, great as hot appetizer.

    The next day we went on the “Green Tour”. It stops at Kaymakli Underground City, Selime Monastery, Ihlara Valley and Pigeon Valley. Unfortunately it does not avoid the crowds, but if you have only a few days there, it is practical.

    The next day we went on the “Red Tour.” We visited Zelve Open Air Museum, Pasabag (Monks Valley) and Uchisar Castle. These were the better stops. We also saw Devrent Valley (Imagination Valley), Avanos (pottery) and Love Valley.

    Besides the amazing landscape, we also enjoyed some nice Turkish food these days. Besides the kebab & Turkish ravioli the first night, I had them again at a different restaurant.

    Çokertme kebab
    Chef’s greeting
    Kofte
    Testi kebab
    Aside (dessert)
    Ambience at Topdeck Cave Restaurant
    Turkish ravioli at Kilim Cave restaurant
    Kayisi tatlisi kaymakli (apricots poached in syrup with walnuts and cream)

    Lovely experience I got to share with my mom.

  • Adventure-Filled Birthday: MTB, Diving and Canyoning

    Adventure-Filled Birthday: MTB, Diving and Canyoning

    Celebrating my birthday this year was very fun. On Sunday we went on pre-birthday MTB ride at Monte Jouf.

    We did a 2 hour ride (moving time).

    Uphill on the road.

    This was the most fun trail – Puerto escondido, which I got to do twice, thanks to shuttle bunny Rick.

    Photos by Rick

    We have also done Barbarossa, Kraken and DH Jouf II parte, with which we have started our ride. Fun trails, Barbarossa was my least favorite though.

    Photo by Rick

    The next day, my birthday, we went diving to Y40. Because my wish was to dive on my birthday, not ski as earlier years. I use my iPhone underwater with the housing Divevolk.

    Underwater photos are very blue-toned, so to have more “realistic” colors, I use Dive+ app, which restores colors. Look at some before and after photos. Photos made of me were made by Rick and I edited them.

    The utmost depth of Y40 is 40 m. Well, if you lie on the floor, it’s actually 41 m. Very cool place to practice your diving skills.

    Next day we went canyoning to Torrente Favarinis. A short 40 min walk to the entrance and more than 2 hours canyoning tour. It took us more than described, because I was downclimbing and walking slower than otherwise. I broke my record. I did a 50 m rappel by myself. It was the last out of 7 waterfalls of the canyon.

    Photo by Rick
    Photo by Rick

    When you finish you are practically by the car, which is my favorite ending a canyoning tour.

    What fun ways to celebrate my birthday!

  • Exploring Puglia: Highlights of Our Short Italian Getaway

    Exploring Puglia: Highlights of Our Short Italian Getaway

    Another short girls’ trip with my mom. I’ve been seeing all these photos of trullis on Instagram, people visiting and I fell in love with it. My mom also had it on her bucket list for a while. At first the plan was to go with the car from home and do a road trip. But then due to good connecting flights, we made it a short trip. We spent a couple of days in September when I didn’t have to work.

    The trip started rather funny. I booked a rent-a-car at Felirent. Without a rental it is impossible to get around Puglia. It was one of the rare agencies, where you didn’t need a credit card. No, I don’t have one. And I think rental agencies should really change their game. Anyway, the place was filled with Fiat Pandas and really sketchy looking. It took us probably more than one hour to get a car. Of course, they charged us something extra, just because they can. Luckily, everything was good, also upon returning the car.

    Anyway, let’s start the trip. We arrived early, so our first stop of the day was Polignano a Mare. We have prebooked a boat tour of the caves. We were more interested in seeing the place from the sea than from land. They took us to see many different caves – grotta.

    Ponte Borbonico
    Photo by our guide

    After the boat ride we continued our journey. We had a short stop in a quaint town – Locorotondo. We had a snack stop at Il Re dei Panini – the King of Sandwiches. It was so big, the two of us only ate half.

    In late afternoon we finally arrived to our home away from home – B&B Salita Delle Pere. The cutest place with the nicest lady host and delicious breakfast. You actually stay in a trulli, if you book so. For an affordable price and with a great location.

    Breakfast at B&B Salita Delle Pere with many different home-baked pastries.

    The next day was the most exciting one – we visited Alberobello. We were just wandering the whole day around, getting lost among all the trullis. My one thing to do beside visiting Alberobello, was to try orecchiette in Coppino. I would go back just to eat that again!

    Photo by stranger
    Photo by mom
    The most delicious orecchiette.

    I really enjoyed Alberobello. But since we still had some time in the day, we decided to check out Ostuni.

    Finishing off the day with a proper Italian dinner.

    Our last day we saved for Matera. It is around one hour drive from Alberobello, but a must to visit. Matera is a UNESCO World Heritage site with its rich history and interesting architecture. In modern times, it was used as a filming location. It served as a backdrop for films such as The Passion of the Christ, Wonder Woman, and many others. We joined one of the walking tours to find out more about its history. On our own it would be very difficult to actually find the Sassi cave dwellings.

    Air vent – functional and decorative

    After many steps we treated ourselves to a panini at L’Antica Credenza – La Paninoteca.

    After refueling we decided to visit Palombaro lungo – the largest public cistern in the city. It was brought to life during the construction of Piazza Vittorio Veneto in 1991. Being roughly fourteen meters deep and fifty meters long, it had a capacity of over five million liters of water.

    We finished our visit to Matera with a view point spot.

    Found some more orecchiettes and called it a day. The next day we returned the car, they took us to the airport and said ciao, bella!

  • My First Diving Experience in Picturesque Raja Ampat

    My First Diving Experience in Picturesque Raja Ampat

    I have wanted to try diving for a very long time now. Then Rick finally said ok, let’s do this. So we went straight to Raja Ampat, Indonesia, one of the top diving locations. Many people said we will be spoilt from now on.

    We stayed in a homestay for about 10 days. No wifi, no alcohol, no choice of food. We ate fish, rice and veggies every day for 3 times a day – my tummy loved it! Once in a while we had something different, like dadar gulung – pancakes made of coconut & pandan. We had this whole beach, like from a screensaver, just for ourselves. It was picture perfect.

    The island was very small, we would walk all around it in about 45 minutes. There was a school and the local men were fishing every day.

    On our arrival, we had some problems finding our homestay. The boat left us at the main jetty. We found out later that ours was broken. The locals don’t really speak English. After some time using gestures and attempting to pronounce the name of our homestay, we made it.

    We started our OWD at the resort of the dive center. After we passed it, we of course joined their other dives. They picked us up every day at the jetty. Every dive was special, since we were experiencing something new really. At the time, I was not taking photos yet underwater. However, our guides were so kind to take them for us. They sent us all the photos from all the dives we did.

    Between the 2 dives we always had a surface interval on one of the islands. On one of them we got a chance to see fruit bats.

    On another one we went to see the view of Piaynemo. It was beautiful to see it.

    We had some friends trailing us around the island all the way to our homestay.

    Our hosts were very kind. One day we had a privilege to get fresh coconut, straight from the palm. Our host climbed up so easily, cut it off and made it ready for us to eat. He even made a little spoon out of the peel. Amazing. Another day he came home on his narrow boat with the biggest swordfish ever. He was very proud of his catch. I forgot to put the case off of my phone, so I’m not really proud of these photos. Still, you get the picture.

    Local fishing at sunset

    We fell in love with diving! There will be more!