Saturday 3 to Monday 5 August, 2013 After a very long flight, we arrived in Bejing, hot and tired. We were met by an Exodus representative and taken to our hotel (A on the map) where we were left to our own devices until the evening when our group leader was to arrive. Looking at my city map, we found a park nearby (1 on the map) and decided to go exploring. When we met our group leader, Ansen, it…
It was the end of the cruise but we still had a day to explore Venice. I have been there several times before but a long time ago so it was a trip down memory lane. We took a water taxi to our hotel, got settled in and then walked up to St Mark’s Square. The queue to enter the cathedral was extremely long so we went off to find somewhere for lunch. The others went back to the hotel…
By this stage we were all rather suffering from sight-seeing fatigue but Torolf and I decided to do some exploring anyway. We found the usual selection of narrow streets, squares and old buildings. Torolf struck up a conversation with one of a group of school children who were painting.
A heavy mist shrouded the landscape as we approached the port, giving it a mysterious atmosphere. I had seen a small flock of birds land on the grass deck and went to investigate. I became very excited when I realised they were black redstarts. I tried to get a close-up photo of them but they didn’t sit still for long enough. After breakfast, Tore and Heidi decided to hire bikes and set of for the day. The rest of us…
The rest of the gang wanted to chill by the pool so I went on an excursion to the national park by myself. It was nice to get out into the natural world again. Like all the other ports we had visited, Split has an old quarter and, when I returned, there was still time to explore it.