A Pinay in Europe

Our heart goes out to all the victims of the Costa Concordia cruise ship that sank yesterday, Friday the 13th, off the coast of Tuscany.  The vessel was carrying more than 4,000 people, among them 1,000 crew members of various nationalities including Filipinos. 
This disaster touched our hearts deeply as cruise holidaymakers are a regular sight to where we are in the South of France and to every port cities we went to like Corfu (Greece), Barcelona (Spain), Venice (Italy) among others.  

It’s quite interesting meeting these people of different backgrounds and while we are pleased to play the role of tourist guides when they come asking for directions, we also get to hear their life-aboard-a-ship stories, sometimes hilarious and oftentimes disastrous.  

Just last summer, while having our lunch at a restaurant in Beune,  we got chatting with an American couple who were part of a Rhone river cruise that stopped over in this wine capital of the Burgundy region and how all-ears we were in listening to their cruise experience which started in Arles, in the south of France, culminating in Paris eight days after that.  In the end, they were so appreciative of finally meeting an English-speaking couple like us who gave them a quick introduction to French life, culture and traditions. 

H and I, even if our travelling preference is via the car that also serves as our mobile home, we do dream of going on a cruise holiday when the right time comes.  And if you will ask me where - it had to be the Norwegian Fjords Cruise where we could get to witness the spectacular Northern Lights and the stunning scenery of the Norwegian fjord coast with its steep mountains and charming fishing villages. 

Before I get carried away dreaming, here are some photos about Cruising:

While waiting for the ferry that would take us to a 24-hour Adriatic crossing to Corfu, Greece, I couldn’t help but gawk at this pretty jaw-dropping sight!

This P&O M/v Aurora moored in Venice port is a mid-sized cruise ship ideal for world cruising. It can accommodate up to 1,878 passengers in 939 cabins, with a maximum crew of 936.

Like home sweet home.

A cruising boat moored in Vienne along the Rhone River. 

In September 2010, a cousin whom I have not seen for the last 35 years came to Monaco via this ship, Ruby Princess.   Monaco was one of the ports of call of their 12-day Grand Mediterranean cruise holiday.   This ship which has a capacity of 3,070 persons and 2.5 times heavier than the Titanic is so huge it could easily fit ten conventional hotels.

After a stopover of six hours, they slowly sailed away accompanied by a “harbor pilot” whose role is to guide big ships so they can safely get out of the harbour.

Cannes is one of the most popular cruise destinations in the French Riviera.  The port can accommodate up to three giant liners in a single day.

We saw “The World” moored in Venice when we were there four years ago.  It is the world’s largest private yacht—a floating residential community owned by her residents. The residents, currently from 40 different countries, live on board as the ship slowly circumnavigates the globe—staying in most ports from 2 to 5 days. Some residents live onboard full time while others visit their floating home periodically throughout the year.

The World flies a Bahamas flag and has a gross tonnage of 43,524 tons. The vessel is 644 feet long, 98 feet wide, and has a 22 foot draft, 12 decks, and a maximum speed of 18.5 knots. The crew numbers is 250.

The ship has 165 residential units (106 apartments, 19 studio apartments, and 40 studios), all owned by the ship’s residents. The ship carries between 100 and 300 residents and their guests.

This is our ferry sailing past the mountains of Albania as it slowly cruises its way to Corfu in Greece.

While sailing on New Year’s Day from Corfu to Venice,  we got treated with cake and ouzo by the cruise management, unfortunately, there were no fireworks!

A cruise ship moored in Corfu waters. 

Filipino crewmembers having fun in Corfu town while on a brief stopover from their Christmas Cruise duties.

Note: As I write this, most of the victims have been rescued save for 60 unaccounted for and three confirmed dead.

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Our theme this Monday  is very timely for the summer holiday season.

Travelling cars - H and I travel a lot by road and that’s where we see them:  different makes, different nationalities (of the owner-riders, at least), different sizes, forms and shapes.  And just by observing, I find myself concocting mental images on the type of travelling life the people inside these cars lead.

You see caravans plying on highways all times of the year but the highest traffic comes in July/August.

This is the typical scenario:  a big car towing a big caravan

But there is also the reverse: it’s the caravan towing the car. 

Other holidaymakers find caravans too big to negotiate on roads so they stick to little trailers that could carry their camping gears including bicycles

This is a camping trailer.  Just a little puttering and it will transform into a large awning complete with a kitchen and sleeping compartments.

Instead of towing a caravan, some holidaymakers prefer a campervan as it is so much easier, as this German van, where you can practically strap everything on it:  bike, kayak, surfboard, more storage boxes as well as a satellite antenna.

This is the travelling caravan belonging to the ”Compagnie des Songes”,  a group of stage actors who holds stage shows all over France and abroad.  A nice job, I think, as you get to travel for free and earn money at the same time!

This is a serious campervan…the sleeping compartment is that part above the driver’s seat.  Inside you will find a kitchen, a dining room, a sitting room with TV and sometimes fitted with a bathroom complete with a chemical toilet.

A more serious campervan - almost 1.5x longer than a bus and compartments such as the kitchen extends out when on parking mode.

Sometimes the holidaymaker prefers to stay semi-permanently in one place so he rents a space in a campsite for years (renewing it each year), build a chalet around it for added space, such as this one we saw near the French village of Evian at the border of Switzerland. 

We stayed in this “green” campsite in Germany when we did the Rhine Valley trip.  It is so pleasant and overlooks the ruins of a castle up the hill.

A campsite near the Yorkshire Moors in England where we pitched up a tent.  It looks  like a glorified parking lot, isn’t it?

This is not a caravan park nor the front yard of a 2nd-hand caravan showroom.  This space is called “Aire d’accueil aux gens de voyage”, literally means “welcome stop for gypsies”.  As there are about half a million gypsies living in France, the government enacted a law requiring each commune to reserve a land space for these travelling  people, majority of them originates from Eastern Europe.

***** 

So there you are, travelling cars not only for holidaying but also for working and mobile living.  As travelling is my passion, it’s my ardent wish to be in all three….How about you?

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Barely have I unpacked my backpack after that quick sightseeing trip of Monaco with my cousin etc.. that I had to pick it up again for few days of village hopping with our English friends - a couple who works/lives/travels (all at the same time) with their motorized caravan.  How do they do it?  Well, they took on early retirement, sold their house, bought a house-to-let, a motorized caravan, then went on travelling around Europe picking small jobs along the way to keep some money coming in.

Now, now, that is exactly the life H and I are aiming for.   We must have been nomads in our past life that our feet ache if we stop travelling.  Anyway, we do need a motorized caravan and we have been searching on eBay for ages looking for the perfect transporter that will take us all over Europe on the cheap.

 Anyway,  let me share with you the places near us where we acted again as tour guides!  That’s the catch of living in this beautiful region.  It’s always holiday time!

FONTAN, France

SAORGE, France

AIROLE, Italy

The Baroque church of Airole

OLIVETTA SAN MICHELE, Italy

Senor Giovanni telling us the story of this olive tree behind him.  It is called “The Tree of Love”;  couples making love standing inside the hollow trunk of the tree!

The Baroque church of San-Michele

DOLCEACQUA, Italy

This scene was painted by Claude Monet in 1884, calling it “A Jewel of Lightness”

Stopping for an apperitivo

PIGNA, Italy

CASTELVITTORIO, Italy

The hilltop cemetery of Castelvittorio

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Half my  joy of travelling is watching the sightseeing habits of tourists. 

Architecture interests me a lot; the landscape, the food, the local culture,  moreso, observing  the locals going about their daily fare.  But nothing tickles me most than surveying how tourists behave, how they dress, what they carry with them, who are they travelling with.  Certainly it forms part of my learning process that no book or “theories on travelling” can teach me.  Luckily, I am always surrounded by tourists and even luckier to live in the topmost tourist destination in the planet.

So what are the types of tourist cliches and which one you belong to? 

The Carefree Traveller.  She is comfortable with her clothes, she doesn’t concern herself with bags or knick knacks, not even a camera. 

The Vigilant.  He is always suspicious of the people around him so he makes sure that everything is tightly held.

The Travel Buddies.  They cannot travel alone.  For them, travelling is much more fun when shared with friends.

The Package Tourist.  Planning an itinerary, accommodation and transport is a headache so to make it simple,  join a packaged holiday.  It’s a good way to make new friends anyway.

The Gadget Freak.  Not content with one but two mobile phones, that’s travelling in the 21st century.

The Romantic

Me-and-My-Pet Traveller.  Either she cannot find a reliable dogsitter or she finds travelling  much more fun with her pooch.

The Mystic Traveller

The Artistic Traveller

The Artistic Traveller (2)

The Japanese.  Well, it’s not really a cliche but her hat is a Japanese cliche!

The Budget Traveller.  She lives on cheap snacks, stays in cheap hostels so she can see more of the world for less money.

The Souvenir Hunter.  He buys souvenirs not just to gather dust at home but something he could wear.

The Guidemap.  She sticks to the “tourist route” drawn on the map.  She doesn’t realize that the real adventure is found in the offbeaten tracks.

The Snapper.  She carries a camera that looks like the hubble telescope and cannot go anywhere else without it.

The Poser.  She doesn’t care if she falls and get broken bones, as long as she has lots of photos to take home - but usually, there won’t be  a single sign of the city she posed from as they all would be facial and body shots of her. 

The ”I’ve-been-there” Poser

As opposed to the Facial and Body shot Poser above, others would like to have proof that they were actually there!

The Window Shopper.  Whatever age, whatever interest he has, as long as he has time to look at the latest arrivals.

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Yours truly will disappear again in a couple of days, doing another trip that could be added into our “Amazing Journeys” book!

Here’s a summary of those amazing trips we have made during the last 7 years:

- Towing a caravan from Scotland to the south of France where we filled it to the brim of household stuff (that was when H sold his UK house and had to empty it of its contents)

- Towing a 5-meter boat from the south of France to Corfu, Greece. We had to have a trailer especially made for it, went to pick it up from Besançon close to the Swiss border, then towed it to the south, had a crane lift the boat onto the trailer, then towed it to Venice, took the 24-hour ferry trip to Corfu, and now it’s happily moored there.

- Doing the “mammoth journey” last February when we drove the car from Paris to the south where it was overloaded to the roof of our household stuff from both the UK and Paris. “The UK” because we emptied my pa-in-law’s house that time before he went to the Nursing Home. So the car was so packed that passing motorists would stare at us twice and police stopping us at the border threatening to weigh the car if we exceeded the allowable limit !! Luckily, they took pity on us and let us go

The mammoth journey

This time, we will tow our caravan to Corfu in Greece, a caravan whose fitness to be pulled for the six hour journey to Venice, where the ferry port is, and the 24 hour sea crossing to Corfu remains to be seen as it was parked for almost 7 years in the garden, unmoving!
We had a choice:
- to either smash it to pieces which we don’t have the heart to do and besides, it will still cost us a fortune and too much hassle
- or sell it for One Euro just to get rid of it easily but it’s complicated since it is British-registered parked in French territory.

After months of contemplation, evaluation, calculation, this is what we have decided:
We will drive it to Corfu and make it as our home for the entire six weeks of our stay.  Then we keep it there permanently so that everytime we want to go for a Greek holiday, we have a mobile home to go to. 

H bought a British car at eBay!
Now, now, don’t laugh.  He is actually driving it as I type, a 1998 Peugeot estate and it’s impeccable! For it’s price of 850GBP, he believes it was an excellent buy. The seller is a car trader in the UK and his eBay history is as impeccable as the car. The car will serve as our UK car as well because hiring one is not only expensive but impractical, especially when you have to return it to the car hire company at 4pm but your flight home is at 4am the next day. So last time we stayed and slept at the airport like in the movie, “The Terminal”..oh so much boo-boo to tell and I wouldn’t be able to finish this story if I keep going on and on.

07 June 2009

Here is the caravan which we towed from the south of France to Venice! This baby is really amazing! It ran smoothly in the autoroute, we just love it! 

Corfu, here we come!

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Meet Duncan, an executive from Taiwan who’s on a six-week backpacking trip to Europe. I met him at London-Luton airport on our way to Paris. He has been to Bern and Lugano (Switzerland), Hamburg, Amsterdam and London. He’s staying in Paris for 3 nights, then to Barcelona, onward to Nice, Venice, Rome and other parts of Italy.

“I’m 30-years old and I haven’t been to Europe!!” ….that’s what he was screaming about to himself. So one day, he finally found himself asking for a job leave from his boss, started surfing the net on backpacking tips, organised his itinerary and voila, he’s actually here..in Europe! 

He seems to have done well in his research that he shared with me a lot of do’s and dont’s of backpacking.
For example:

- the scarf you see around his neck, it has a triple purpose: (1) as an eye mask when sleeping in lit-up rooms (2) as a scarf when the weather gets too cold and (3) as head cover when it gets too windy or too sunny…
- backpackers don’t wear denim jeans because (1) they’re heavy (2) they don’t dry fast enough. He explained to me the material of his trousers and jacket: thin but water and wind repellant…’wash n wear’..easy to wash, easy to dry 
- he distributes his credit cards, bills and coins on cigarette or chewing gum packets. that way, nobody will suspect..and will not get nicked (stolen).

“I know of some Filipinos working in the factories we do business with …they’re very friendly!”… so with another friendly mariadams, that impression about Pinoys will last forever 
Their business is manufacturing parts for coffeemaking machines assembled in Germany.

We met up the next day where I showed him how to get to the Eiffel Tower via the Palais Chaillot (which is the best way to start anyway). It was his intention to see Paris by foot, which is not impossible….It’s actually the best way to see the real Paris, not just the attractions….

“Paris is like an outdoor museum…there are statues everywhere..magnificent buildings…”

As to Amsterdam, he showed me the photo he has taken of the Red Light district. Photography is not allowed in the area and security men (not in uniform) are everywhere but you just have to be quick before someone sees you.

“I haven’t talked to a human being for days…”

In the cities he went to, the people were not very friendly (except in the hostels where he stayed but even then, because of the language barrier, nobody talked a lot). And in order to attract friendly attention, he started wearing a T-shirt he bought in Amsterdam, one that has a sex-themed cartoon design, and everytime he wears it, it catches attention. “Hey where did you get that?” then a conversation would ensue…

About London, we share the same sentiments…
“the food is awful …and they eat a lot of chips… I was so fed up of it that I just went for Chinese food all the time…”
“and it was always raining and cold… and everything is expensive… and people talk in an aggressive manner…”

Hi, Duncan! if you are reading this, I wish you a safe trip back home!

note: the bride and groom on the left are having their photo shoot by the eiffel tower. duncan and i share the same passion: photography, hence, we took each other’s photos with this couple in the background

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Saw this gigantic yacht moored in Venice.

 The World is the world’s largest private yacht—a floating residential community owned by her residents. The residents, currently from 40 different countries, live on board as the ship slowly circumnavigates the globe—staying in most ports from 2 to 5 days. Some residents live onboard full time while others visit their floating home periodically throughout the year.

The World flies a Bahamas flag and has a gross tonnage of 43,524 tons. The vessel is 644 feet long, 98 feet wide, and has a 22 foot draft, 12 decks, and a maximum speed of 18.5 knots. The crew numbers is 250.

The ship has 165 residential units (106 apartments, 19 studio apartments, and 40 studios), all owned by the ship’s residents. The ship carries between 100 and 300 residents and their guests.

The World has many facilities similar to those onboard a regular cruise ship, but are unique due to the residential nature of the vessel. Her amenities include a small grocery store and delicatessen, a boutique, complete athletic facilities that include a golf simulator, putting green, full sized tennis court, jogging track and fully equipped gym.

There are five restaurants that supplement the full kitchens in all apartments and the ever changing variety of dining ashore as the ship travels. For on board entertainment there is a movie theatre, library and music performances.

In addition to shore excursions; classes have been offered onboard in dance, navigation, language, cooking, arts and crafts, music, computers, and photography. In addition, The World provides high-speed Internet access in each residence.
(Wikipedia)

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I’ve been busy surfing everything about Corfu (Greece) . Really lots of info you can get from the web. We are looking at driving there after Easter, stay for a week (or two). It’s a long journey! …. 6 hours to Venice by car, then 24 hours to Corfu by ferry. The bonus of this trip is, we would be able to see Venice, and its view from the sea (ferry)! 

You bet i am “head over heels” excited about it! We are going to install a rooftop cargo carrier in the car like this:

to put on our tent, 1-burner cooker, blankets/pillows, etc so we can keep the passenger seat (back) empty. Parking a French-registered car in other countries always attract break-ins. We had that bad experience few years ago when the husband’s UK-registered car was smashed at the back window and all our valuable stuff stolen: my precious SLR Nikon camera, laptop, etc…. just one of the risks of travelling

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