A Travel Story by Belinda and Patrick Peck
For our last few days in Thailand we visited the Bridge over the River Kwai (built by prisoners of War under the Japanese occupation), shopped, went elephant riding and bamboo rafting. While we were in Bangkok they had a water festival and Belinda bought a water pistol and had a great time squirting everyone in sight!! Next stop- Germany to visit Britta and Alexander Duelks whom we met in South America riding BMW's.
Sorry, this has taken so long, too many things to see and too little time! Palma, Mallorcas capital city, has an old city area surrounded by fotified walls with turrets on all corners. Inside is a medievil city with narrow cobblestone streets, stone buildings and modern shop facades; tapas bars and small restaurants flow their tables right onto the streets. Outside the walls and on the waterfront is the sheltered harbour mooring the most expensive boats in the world- those being owned by the Arabian oil rich Sheiks.
Pats highlight to date was Alhambra, an extravagant, Moorish castle overlooking Granada, which would rival any dwelling Queen Elizabeth would have, but was started well before Christ by the Muzlims from Morocco. We have never seen such granduer and it is yet to be fully restored. For anyone travelling Europe, this is a must which rates up there with Ankor Watt in Cambodia.
Belindas highlight was a beachfront hotel in La Marina, south coast of Spain, with beachviews from the bath. She kept singing a song about being in heaven!!!
Half an hour from the border we find a glorious 10km beach with an older Spanish style hotel with 10 million dollar views right on the beach and next to Club Med Resort. Our room with ensuite and verandah and breakfast was 35, but jumps to 80 in July- 3 weeks away!! Two nights and we were on our way top get some true Maroccan culture. It was a culture shock on this side of the Mediterranean. Things are not so clean, roads not so good, buildings old and in bad repair and capitalism is in its raw state.
The most southern point of Spain is a surf, tourist town called Tarifa. The African Rif Mountains and shoreline can be seen from most parts of town with the view from the castle being the best. This town boasts the best winds and waves in Europe. It is full of surfers, windsurfers and kitesurfers. The old town is wonderful to wonder through and the atmosphere is alive with all the young, active tourists. Beaches stretch for 100km all the way to the old city of Cadiz. We stopped and watched the kitesurfers and windurfers and there were hundreds of them all multicoloured!!
Smelly leather taneries of Fes
The kids on the road hoping we will throw them some sweets!! Some of them get very close to the bike at 100km per hour!!
Beautiful bluewash buildings in a lovely village called Chefchauen.
Meeting up again with Annette and John Green from UK.
Belinda on a rally Vespa in Lisbon.
Belinda in a Knights of Tomar castle staircase.
Our new European mobile number is +34 618 183 038, you can sms or call, but remember there is a big time difference!! We are getting lots of emails from people asking us where to go in different countries, so now we will put more details in our site, so people can look it up for themselves. We really loved Portugal, such a small country packed with so many treasures, we would reccommend it to anyone. Similar in cost to Spain, we spent max 35/day on accommodation in bed and breakfast type private homes, 25/day on food. Fuel in Spain is .90/litre, in Portugal 1.05.
Heading east along Spains northern coast we began to encounter the August hordes of marauding European tourists and every point of interest was incredibly crowded, so we kept a steady pase to the Picos De Europa- a small mountain range west of the Pyrenees mountain range. The roads were narrow and windey in the Picos and were surprisingly void of crowds. We love pointing out to each other all the roman built roads, bridges and buildings.
Belinda collecting water in full battle uniform!!
(Romeo and) Juliettes balcony in Verona, Italy.
Pat with Miss Adventure on the beautiful coast.
Belinda and the canals of Venice.
Amazing village in Cinque Terre, Italy.
Sandra, Brian, Belinda and Patick with our machines in B&B in Cinque Terre.
Italy is visually and culturally spectacular and the people are very gregarious, friendly and good fun. They drive like maniacs- they love riding right up behind you, overtake whenever and stick their noses out into the traffic so you either have to stop and let them out or hit them!!! Crazy, but they all do it and it seems to work!! It is definately the most expensive country that we have found in Meditteranean Europe.....mamamia!!! I cant believe we actually stayed for 6 weeks....mind you we are very slim now!!
Patrick was born in Edmonton, Canada and moved to Australia from Canada in 1987 in search of a warmer climate. He rediscovered motorcycling in Australia as he sold his last m/c in Canada after traveling 350km at -30°C in heavy snow.
Patrick and Belinda met in Cairns, Australia, a tropical town next to the Great Barrier Reef while working together in the Real Estate Industry and were married in 2000 and travelled locally with their 1990 Super Tenere they called their freedom machine "Miss Adventure"
