Tua Mia’s passport has arrived, he is getting very excited and we’re not sure if he will sleep tonight! [Read more →]
very nearly off…
July 15th, 2009 by jane · Greece, Uncategorized
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Resources
July 13th, 2009 by Chris · Greece, resources, trains, travel
I’m going to note here some of the resources we’ve found useful in planning the trip.
Firstly I have to mention the remarkable Man in Seat Sixty-One website. This is run by Mark Smith, an individual rail travel enthusiast, who has collected together an enormous amount of helpful information about travelling by rail in Europe (and beyond). [Read more →]
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a few random things that you should definitely NOT take on a journey like the one we’re going on! (phew, long title)
July 13th, 2009 by callum · Greece, Uncategorized
- rabbit*
- cartie**
- non collapsible paddling pool
- sofa***
- computer****
- a tree******
*unless you’re travelling to get to a famous greek vet or pet shop
**cartie — home made go cart
***so you can have a sit down whenever you want
****we’re not taking any sort of computer***** if you do take a laptop not a old desktop computer with a huge monitor
*****don’t worry we’re going to write on the blog in internet cafes
******we’re not flying and we’ve already planted about 200 trees so we don’t have to plant any more
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Travel update
July 12th, 2009 by Chris · Greece, islands, travel
Only four days to go! Packing has started, camping stuff is being gone through, Chris is getting fractious…
Our latest itinerary is on the site — but have no doubt that this will continue to evolve as we progress. The latest plan is that we will leave Athens for Paros on Wednesday 22nd, and we’ll camp on Antiparos (smaller island neighbouring Paros). The campsite there is listed in Cool Camping Europe, so it ought to be good. At the weekend, Kerry & Athena will go to their reunion meal on Paros. Then on Sunday we’ll get the boat to Serifos (already proving a hit with the typography fans, though we’re not sure it will be as exciting a travel destination as San Seriffe). On Wednesday we plan to get the boat to Kimolos, then back to Athens via the overnight ferry on Friday, 31 July.
We’re planning to stop at as many internet cafes as we can along the way, so look out for regular updates to the blog — and don’t be afraid to leave your own comments and suggestions. (If you’ve been to any of these places, do tell us what to look out for and what to avoid!)
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Is it really greener to fly?
June 28th, 2009 by Chris · climate change, flights, trains
Until the other week, I’d assumed that it was completely clear that flying (particularly long-haul, but all flying to some extent) was a really Bad Thing in terms of its contribution to climate change. I’ve not studied the climate change science in much detail, but I constantly hear from those who have that flying is a major contributor of the emissions that are causing climate change. And of course that’s a major motivation for our decsion to go to Greece by train this summer.
So I was a bit taken aback to read an article in New Scientist a couple of weeks ago, entitled Train can be worse for climate than plane. Could we really be hopping on a budget flight to get to Athens in just a few hours while saving the planet, our bank balances and our green credentials? [Read more →]
Callum’s list of things to do on a boring lllllllllooooonnnnngggg distance train
June 26th, 2009 by callum · Greece, trains
- write a story that has the same number of chapters as stations you go through. As soon as you stop at a station you have to start a new chapter.
- eat a sandwich by taking a bite whenever you pass a hill. [Read more →]
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Getting on board
June 21st, 2009 by jane · Greece, trains
I’ve just been to see The Age of Stupid, a very hard hitting film about climate change. It’s left me wondering, yet again, how we manage to change attitudes, and fast. I want people to read our blog here and be inspired to not fly and to go for that big train ride adventure once in a while. To show people that train journeys are not only possible, but can be even more exciting than getting the plane. [Read more →]
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Train tracks calling
June 18th, 2009 by jane · Greece, trains
We don’t have a car and we haven’t flown for 8 years (except when I went to Shetland for work in November, and again in May :)) We use trains a lot. I mean a lot. But I haven’t done a grand European train voyage for years.
In the summer of 1989, having spent a week on an IVS workcamp in a small village in the mountains of rural Turkey, I caught a train from Istanbul to Prague. [Read more →]
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Sleeper trains
June 18th, 2009 by callum · Greece, haha
I’ve always wanted to sleep on a train but I don’t really like courgettes!!!!
” ←my logo on a blog!
DO I REALLY HAVE TO EAT COURGETTES?????!!!!!
WHY I WANT TO SLEEP ON A TRAIN:
- I am looking forward to waking up in Venice!
- I am looking forward to sleeping in a triple decker bunk! (it’s not often I get to sleep in a bunk bed let alone a triple decker one)
- I want to wake up in a different country!
- I want to have breakfast on a train looking at the scenery and names of stations I can’t pronounce!
The reason I’ve not said this about a boat is because I’ve already slept on a boat two years ago but I’ve never slept on the deck of a boat in a hot country!
” =) Callum
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How it started
June 17th, 2009 by Chris · Greece, Uncategorized
For the past few years we’ve had our summer holidays on the idyllic Isle of Muck in the Small Isles off the west of Scotland (map).
The sea may look like the Mediterranean but, believe me, it’s much more bracing. With our dear friends Kerry and Athena (and our other dear friends Chris, Angeni, Michele, Emma, Yoni and Daniel — but they don’t come into this story so much) we rented a lovely cottage just 20m from the white sands of Gallanach Bay and a great time was had by all with lots of swimming and walking, finding of shells and milking of cows, eating cakes in the tea shop and falling in bogs. [Read more →]
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