Our Travels

Puerto Escondido

Legend has it that a pirate named Andrés Drake kidnapped a young Mixtec woman from the village of Santa María Huatulco. While the pirates were camped out in the bay of what is now Puerto Escondido, she escaped and hid from her evil kidnappers. The pirates referred to her as “La Escondida” and every time…

Catalonia

We travelled to Catalonia in 2017, landing in Barcelona first and spending five days exploring the city, enjoying or giggling at the architecture of Gaudi, shopping, walking, eating, drinking and touring the Montserrat Monastery high up in the mountains before heading up the Costa Brava coastline to Tossa de Mar to hike a bit of…

Llafranc, Spain

During our trip to Catalonia, Spain in 2017, we decided to visit Llafranc as part of our round trip. Llafranc doesn’t seem to be somewhere that’s on the radar for a lot of tourists. However, it’s said that Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, and Ernest Hemingway all vacationed in Llafranc, and it has also attracted artists…

The Pyrenees

The Pyrenees mountain range separates the Iberian Peninsula from the rest of Europe, stretching more than 430 km between Spain and France and rising higher than 3,400m in elevation. Hiking trails traverse the entire length of the range and national parks offer shorter trails. We came to hike the glacial lake-filled Aigüestortes i Estany de…

Tossa de Mar, Spain

Tossa de Mar sits rather majestically on Catalonia’s Girona coast – basking in its beautiful Mediterranean climate. The walled old town offers stunning views of the surrounding coast, and is the perfect location to soak up some of the history of the region, as well as the sun. Marc Chagall, the French painter, loved the…

Barcelona

In 2017, we visited Barcelona in the province of Catalonia, Spain. We had been wanting to visit or several years and after quite a bit of research, decided that the province of Catalonia would give us everything we wanted. Visiting, hiking and time spent in the Mediterranean. But most importantly, we wanted to visit Barcelona……

Indian Falls

This is another of the many waterfalls along the Niagara Escarpment. It’s only a few minutes drive away from downtown Owen Sound, and has a very nice parking lot with restrooms and picnic tables. The trail is well marked and easy to find to begin the hike and the falls are about a 20 –…

Hiking Old Baldy

Old Baldy is located in Beaver Valley and is part of the Blue Mountains which is the highest section of the Niagara Escarpment. Were it not for this escarpment, there would be little in the southern part of Ontario that even resembles a hill. The Niagara escarpment runs from Niagara Falls and zigzags northwards up…

St. Thomas, USVI

St. Thomas is the gateway island of the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Caribbean but we used it as our launching point to the British Virgin Islands and to enjoy our last two days in the islands. The territorial capital is Charlotte Amalie and was founded by the Danish in the 1600s. There are lovely…

The Wreck of The Rhone

The Wreck of The Rhone lies within the Rhone National Park off the western coast of Salt Island in the British Virgin Islands. The area is teeming heavily with marine life and it’s common to see stingrays, turtles, sharks and green morays, as well as large schools of fish, as shown above. The wreck lies…