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Baby Elephant

This interaction literally lasted about 10 seconds, too fast for the camera to focus and for us to do anything other than be frozen in amazement.  The baby elephant, which is about the size of the Land Cruiser tire, got up, charged at the car, either wanting to play, or pretending to scare us.  The mother trumpeted […]

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Simply WOW!

Every time we go out for a game drive there is something new.  This morning was the best one yet.  We sit in the Land Cruiser in total amazement and astonishment as the Savannah life simply unfolds in front of our eyes.  It seems that every 3 or 4km the landscape is totally different, from […]

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Lazy Days

Our days here at Basecamp Explorer are quite lazy.  We get up at 6 am have a quick coffee and are out for the morning game drive by 6:30am.  We are back to camp at around 9:30 am and inform the staff that we will be back in 10 or 15 minutes for breakfast, at […]

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First Game Drive

WOW!  Simply WOW, that is the best way to describe this experience.  It is simply surreal to be in a car drive around the Savannah and see all these animals.  We were promised that we will see at least 4 of the big 5.  Those being elephant, buffalo, lion, leopard and rhino.  Rhino is the […]

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Ballenberg

Ballenberg is an open museum with a 100 original, century-old buildings from all over Switzerland, original gardens and fields. It is a working museum where people are in period, bake break, make sausages, make cheese and pretend they live in the centuries past. There are also 250 domestic animals on display as well.  This is […]

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Thun

Thun is a small city of about 45,000 residents.  The area of what is now Thun was inhabited since the Neolithic age mid 300 BC. Like most Europe and Switzerland it was conquered by Rome in 58BC.  In 1819 a Military School was founded in the city, which later developed into the main military school in […]

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Lausanne Cathedral

The construction of the  Cathedral of Notre Dame of Lausanne began as early as 1170 by an original unknown master mason. Twenty years later another master mason restarted construction until 1215. Finally a third engineer, Jean Cotereel, completed the majority of the existing cathedral including a porch, and two towers, one of which is the current […]

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Lausanne

The city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, 62 kilometres northeast of Geneva. Lausanne has a population  of 146,372, making it the fourth largest city in Switzerland. Lausanne is a focus of international sport, hosting the International Olympic Committee, which recognizes the city as the “Olympic Capital”. Since 1994 the Court of Arbitration for Sport and some 55 international sport associations […]

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Fribourg Cathedral

The Gothic Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Fribourg  dominates the centre of the medieval town. The main church was started in 1283 and completed by 1430. The tower was completed in 1490. It is 76 metres tall and houses 11 bells.  Originally a parish church, in 1945 it became the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Lausanne, Geneva […]

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Fribourg

Fribourg is located on both sides of the river Saane, and is an important economic, administrative and educational centre on the cultural border between German and French Switzerland. Fribourg also has one of the most prestigious universities in Switzerland.  Its Old City, is one of the best maintained in Switzerland. There is a very old funicular […]

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Milan

Milan dates back to 400BC.  Today Milan is the 2nd largest metropolitan city in Italy. The population of the city proper is 1.3 million, while its urban area with a population estimated to be about 5.5 million  is the 5th-largest in the EU. Milan is the main industrial and financial centre of Italy, it has the 3rd-largest […]

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Ciao Roma!

The only thing on the agenda for today was to take it easy and relax and eat less. Failed on all three accounts.  We stopped at Eataly, an old train station that has been converted to a 5 story Italian Shop with 18 or so restaurants.  The store has pretty much everything you can imagine […]

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Villa Borghese

Our schedule for today is very relaxed.  A nice stroll through the Borghese gardens towards the Spanish Steps and a bit of shopping.  The Borgheses were  a wool merchant family from  Sienna.  The head of the family, Marcantonio, moved to Rome in 1541 and this Sienese family rapidly gained access to the upper echelons of Roman […]

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MAXXI

MAXXI – National Museum of the 21st Century Arts, is a national museum of contemporary art and architecture in Rome and is about 5 min walk from the gorgeous apartment we are staying in. The museum was built on the old and decommissioned military compound site.  This spectacular building was designed by Zaha Hadid who passed away this […]

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Villa Cimbrone

Imagine owning the entire mountain top of a peninsula on the Amalfi coast.  Small villa, pool and massive gardens.  Originally built in the 11th century the villa was rebuilt and reconstructed over the years passing from one family to the next.  The most extensive rebuilding and renovation was done at the start of the 20th […]

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Monaco

The Principality of Monaco is a sovereign city-state, located on the French Riviera. France borders the country on three sides while the other side borders the Mediterranean Sea. Monaco has an area of 2.02 km2  and a population of about 37,800; it is the second smallest and the most densely populated country in the world. […]

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La Tuilière en Luberon

So this was our home for the last week, a charming place in the south of France in the village of Cadenet.  The place is own by Clotilde & Didier Borgarino.  You you seriously park yourself here and forget about the world for a week.  The breakfast is great and the dinner when the hosts make […]

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Notre-Dame de la Garde

Notre-Dame de la Garde (literally Our Lady of the Guard), is a Catholic basilica in Marseille, France. The basilica was build on the foundations of an ancient fort. The fort was located at the highest natural elevation in Marseille, a 149 m (490 ft) limestone outcrop on the south side of the Old Port of Marseille. The basilica […]

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Marseille

Marseille is the oldest continuously inhabited city in France, it is a second largest city in France after Paris and the centre of the third largest metropolitan area in France after Paris and Lyon.  Humans have inhabited Marseille and its region for almost 30,000 years, it was the first Greek settlement in France.  It is […]

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Arles

The origin of this town dates back to 800 BC.  More importantly though the town was taken by Romans  in 123 BC and as Romans do they build a lot of cool buildings. The Gallo-Roman theatre, the arena or amphitheatre, necropolis, Arles Obelisk and Barbegal aqueduct and mill to name few.  Most of the old Roman buildings are being […]

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Gordes

Second stop on the way to the Abbey is the village of Gordes.  We really happened upon it simply because of its spectacular and dominating hill-top presence.  Like most villages in this region, it has strong ties to the Roman empire.  First castle here was built in 1031 and the first abbey in 1148.  The […]

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Farewell Paris

Our last night in Paris ended with a fabulous dinner at La cocotte et la marmite, and I mean fabulous, most likely the best dinner we had in Paris ever.  Absolutely loved it!  Our trip around Paris, if you believe the step counter on the phone, totalled 71.62km – I am afraid not one of us […]

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More Paris

So another busy day in Paris. A bit of shopping, a lot of walking, a lots of snacking but generally relaxing.  Today we climbed 24 floors, mostly getting up to the Pantheon and walking up the hill  by Sorbonne, and walked about 23,600 steps which is about 13.6km.  Good workout!  

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Sainte-Chapelle

The Sainte-Chapelle or “Holy Chapel”  was constructed to house Louis IX’s collection of relics of Christ, the crown of thorns, a piece of the cross and others.  At the time the king paid 135,00 livres for the relicts, which were put in an ornate silver chest that cost further 100,000 livres.  The entire chapel in 1238 […]

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Eiffel Tower

I think everyone knows Eiffel Tower.  It is the tallest building in Paris, it is a global cultural icon of France, and it is the most paid visited monument in the world.  It symbolizes freedom and beauty and everything that is French and Parisian.  Today, surrounded by a fence, and an army of security guards […]

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Saint Eustache

One of the largest buildings you can see from Centre Pompidou is the church of St. Eustache.  The building actually dates back to the 13th century.  The current church, a gothic masterpiece, was built between 1532 and 1632. St. Eustache was prominent enough in Paris to have Louis XIV take his first communion there and Mozart has […]

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Foiano della Chiana

Relatively speaking this is a large town compared to some of the smaller villages we visited.  There are about 10K people living in Foiano della Chiana today.  This is also an agricultural town which used to be surrounded by marshes on three sides, and not a hill top town like all others.  If it was […]

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Lucignano

Liciagnano is a remarkable preserved medieval walled village of about 3500 people.  It’s strategic high altitude and its location on the road between Sienna and Arezzo meant that between 1200 and 1500AD it was it was continually the subject of battles between these cities, involving also Florence and Perugia.  It is as beautiful as it is picturesque  and it […]

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Cortona

Today is day two of – what else can we eat?!, I mean what other wonders of cultural significance can we find on a morning drive across Tuscany.  First stop, Cortona.  Some say the first settlement started 273 years after the great flood.  The earliest recorded history is from the 7th century BC.  Cortona then […]

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Radicofani

Last on the list today was a town of Radicofani. About 1100 people live in this village with has been restored in the 1990.  The village is dominated by a massive fortress on the top of the hill with a 37m tower.  There are two sets of defence walls at the fortress one pentagonal and […]

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San Quirico d’Orcia

Today we started a medieval tour of Tuscany.  First stop a small town of San Quirico d’Orcia located half way between Pienza and Montalcino.  The town gain it’s notoriety in medieval times as it was on a pilgrimage route connecting  northern Europe to Rome.  Today the town is a host to a 3 day wine tasting extravaganza where 17 local […]

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Radda In Chianti

Located about 11 km from Castellini in Chianti is an even smaller village of Radda with 1700 inhabitants.  It still takes about 20 min to drive here because the roads are narrow and twisty and suicidal when wet.  The town is nice, the views simply spectacular and my shoes are still soaking wet, and I swear to […]

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