Cape Town and Franschoek (Eating Capital of South Africa)

From the heat of a New England summer, we took off for winter in South Africa. We are on the road for the first few weeks before we settle in Durban for almost four months. Although not always sure of the day of the week or the time, our first few days have been wonderful. We flew into Cape Town by way of Amsterdam, arriving in the middle of the night. We woke up the next morning to beautiful views of the hills of Cape Town, and the views have only gotten better since.

With a rented VW Polo, we spent a day in Cape Town before taking off for the wine country northwest of Cape Town. The first pictures below are in reverse order, but hopefully they capture some of the landscape of this beautiful country.


Sarah on the passenger's side of our sporty car. Learning to drive on the left side of the road has been interesting.

Views of Franschoek, a town in the wine country, from the hills overlooking the town.


In Franschoek, we stayed in a small cottage on a vineyard and fruit farm.

Our cottage and adopted dog.

Views from our cottage porch in Franschoek.

Learning to drive on the left side of the road.

The new Cape Town soccer stadium built for the World Cup.

Cape Town waterfront.

Cape Town harbor.

Sea Point area of Cape Town, where we spent our first two nights.


Boarding our flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town.

The last stop...

Florence greeted us with a scorching hot sun, throngs of tourists, and aggressive Italian drivers. Luckily, we had a little oasis of a bed and breakfast, right in the city center. A little put off at first, it didn't take long for us to relent to Florence's charms.

Brunelleschi's dome dominates the city, and having both read a book about it, we were hooked. We took pictures from every angle, got cricks in our necks from staring straight up, and joined the hordes to climb to the top on the same steps used by the masons five centuries ago.

Other than ogling at the Duomo, as it's called, we spent a surprisingly enjoyable six hours staring at religious Renaissance art at the Uffizi gallery. Vassar's Art History 101 meant we actually had a vague idea about the significance of what we were looking at. Go VC. While the Uffizi is incredible in size, we were most struck by Michelangelo's unfinished Pieta, housed in a nearly empty museum across from the Duomo. You can walk around the whole sculpture and just sit on a bench and take it in, without people pushing and shoving from all sides.

Besides the art, we ate. Gelato. Pasta. Cheese. Repeat. The last night of our trip we closed down a wine bar, much to the amusement of the waitstaff, with quartino after quartino of regional wine and goat cheese crostini dripping with honey. Not a bad way to end....

Il grasso de Bologna

Ready to say good-bye to Croatia, we arrived in Split after a five hour bus ride from Dubrovnik. But when we stepped up to check-in for our high speed ferry trip to Ancona, Italy, the smiling woman told us that bad weather had prevented our ferry from reaching Croatia but she could book us on an 11 hour overnight trip for an additional 100 Euros. Oy. Left with no other option, we said yes and soon we were boarding the Blue Line, circa 1960, ferry across the Adriatic. It was a beautiful evening, and with some Dramamine in our systems, we slept through the rocky ride and woke up staring at the Italian coast.

By the time we got to Italy, all we could think about was food and il vino de la casa, and blogging quickly slipped to the way side. In Bologna, we discovered that if we spent all morning trekking around the city's great shopping streets, we were able to consume a three course lunch. A nice nap, an espresso, and another wander set us up for three or four course dinners. We found luscious stuffed pastas, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi, ragus (even I tried some!), slivers of Parma ham, and some of the best ice cream I've ever eaten. We didn't let il grasso de Bologna (the fat of Bologna, used to describe the richness of the food) get us down, and spent our last meal there at a little osteria near the university downing crostini, more gnocchi, cheese, and limoncello.

Dubrovnik and Bosnia!!

Dubrovnik was so stunning, especially from our balcony, that we took hundreds of pictures, none of which really captured its beauty. Here are a few that hint at how lovely the place is.

What we didn't know was that our trip would take us to Bosnia! OK, OK, we only drove through, but the bus did stop and let us out at a rest stop which means we have officially been to Bosnia. In case you couldn't tell, I hadn't run that morning and was a little antsy after many hours in a bus.