Tag Archives: The great outdoors – After walking part of the Camino de Santiago, Bruno and I are officially into long-distance hikes. Though we didn’t have time to walk all of it, we sampled the Rota Vicentina, a new network of walking trails in Portugal’s south-west Algarve Coast. Here’s the story of our experience on the trail, and a request for help from our readers.  Our five days in Croatia and Slovenia included a visit to the infamous Plitvice Lakes National Park, the UNESCO-protected Škocjan Caves, a brief jaunt to the coast of Croatia, and full-on run-ins with mass tourism at its height. Included in this article are tips for a quiet experience of Plitvice Lakes and encouragement to join the tour.  On the day I celebrated the one-month anniversary of my arrival in Turkey, Bruno and I hiked in the foothills of the Ala Dağlar Mountains. I reflected on my time here so far, and came to the conclusion that a country I can walk in is a country I like. And I’ve already walked a lot in Turkey.  Bruno has been telling me about Cappadocia ever since I met him. You’d think three years of gushing over a place would have created unachievably high expectations. It did – and yet I was still blown away. That may be the most surprising part of this incredibly surprising destination.  On the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, a pointed tip extends like the horn of a rhino. And on this tip, surrounded by the United Arab Emirates and the Strait of Hormuz and with a view of Iran on a clear day, is a tiny enclave of Oman – the Musandam Peninsula. It is here that one can experience the fjords of Arabia. We did so, from road, mountaintop, and sea. |
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