Southern Albania: Five Days of History, UNESCO Sites, and Tourism Hot Spots A full 7-10 days would have been needed to see the whole country from north to south. But because the north is all about the hiking and the
Five-day Tour of Southern Albania
Tirana, Albania
Tirana, Albania: Two Days in a Rapidly Changing Capital Our two-day stay in Tirana, Albania was a re-introduction to modern Albania after our first visit in 2015. The country has certainly undergone massive change in a short period of time.
Athens 2026
After island hopping through Mykonos, Delos, Sifnos, and Milos we finally flew back to Athens to see the Parthenon and many of the city’s excellent museums. Although we’ve been to Athens before, our last trip was in 1979 and the
Milos
The Cycladic island of Milos is famed as the place where the Venus de Milo was unearthed, but it has much, much more to offer. (And of course Venus now resides in the Louvre, no longer on Milos.) After hectic
Sifnos
Sunday, May 10, 2026 – Mykonos, Sifnos Sifnos was sure a welcome change after the throngs of tourists on Mykonos. Arriving into its harbour town of Kamares is the classic Greek island experience; beautiful blue water, a couple of fishing
Mykonos and Delos
Friday, May 8, 2026 – Nafplio, transit ATH, Mykonos We arrived on Mykonos in the late afternoon after a full day of travel by car and plane from Nafplio. As mentioned in our Nafplio post, it rained throughout our travel
The Peloponnese – Nafplio
To see some of the major archaeological sites of the Peloponnese Peninsula (Ancient Corinth, Mycenae, and Epidaurus) we based ourselves in the coastal city of Nafplio for 4 nights. It would have been possible to see them all in one
The Peloponnese – Ancient Corinth, Mycenae and Epidaurus
Saturday, May 2, 2026 – Vancouver, transit LHR, Spata (near Athens airport) We left YVR in the early evening, and upon arrival in Athens the next evening we stayed at Spata near the airport so that we could pick up
Cherry Blossoms Flashback
“Sherman, set the WABAC Machine for Kyoto, Japan in 2017!“ As the 2026 cherry blossom season winds down, we thought that it would be a great time to dig into the photo archives and show previously unposted images from our
The Greek Goddess Protapriliá
In May, we will visit the Mediterranean countries of Greece and Albania. While in Greece we hope to visit the small Greek island where the somewhat unusual statue pictured above was found. It is obvious that this is not a
UN Country #130; Paraguay
Regular followers of our photo blog may have noticed that our country counter was recently updated to 130 UN countries visited. On our recent trip “Uruguay and the Amazon“, we visited Paraguay, a country to which we’d never been before.
Rio de Janeiro
Hoc est quod ait Heraclitus: ‘in idem flumen bis descendimus et non descendimus’. This is what Heraclitus says: “We go down and do not go down into the same river twice.” Well, Rio de Janeiro was certainly not the “same
The Amazon; Rio Solimoes
Piranha fishing on the Amazon! But wait…. we’re jumping ahead too quickly. Our Amazon cruise on Iberostar’s Amazon Grand Expedition was divided into two segments: a 4-night cruise on the Rio Negro, and then a 3-night journey up the Solimoes
The Amazon; Rio Negro
From our weekend at Iguazu Falls, we flew to Manaus,capital of Brazil’s Amazonas state. Brazil is a huge country so it took us two flights and all day to cover the ~2,600 km. Incredibly uncomfortable flights too, since LATAM Airlines’
Return to Iguazu Falls
Iguazu Falls is situated just upstream of the Triple Frontier tripoint where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay meet. Only Brazil and Argentina have national parks with access to the falls and we visited them both. Our post is titled “Return to
Paraguay
When we left Montevideo for the short flight to Asunción, Paraguay, we were initially annoyed because Paranair changed us from a morning flight to a mid-afternoon departure, leaving us very little time to see Paraguay’s capital. As it turned out,
Montevideo, Uruguay
On our final day at Estancia El Ceibo, we did relatively little (well, nothing really!) except enjoy a big farm breakfast and then another meal at lunchtime. Then, it was time to get a ride into the dusty town of
Videos from Desfile de Llamadas 2026, Montevideo
As more fully described in our post about Montevideo, the main event of Carnaval in the city each year is two parades, the Desfile de Llamadas. Our YouTube videos shot at the Desfile de Llamadas on Feb. 7, 2026: For
Visit to a Uruguayan Estancia
Our trip to Uruguay and the Amazon began with a relaxing, 3-day stay at an estancia (ranch) just a couple of hours outside Uruguay’s capital of Montevideo. Instead of “relaxing” we might have said “recovery” since the journey to South
Travel Trend – UNESCO World Heritage Sites
As always, the first couple of weeks of January have featured a flood of emails and social media posts hyping “travel trends for 2026”. The predicted trends include: However the emerging trend that most spoke to us is one featured