Author: Dan

Tunisia 2026

Leaving the boat in Sardinia in mid July, we are planning to do a self guided tour of Tunisia, fables for its Roman ruins among other things.

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Marica's 70th at Wakatobi

How do you want to spend your birthday? “Snorkling a new area” Where? “Bernd told me about a place called Wakatobi” It’s on the other side of the world. “So!”

While we are at it lets go to Singapore, then stop in Bali on the way…..that’s the way it happens.

We started with a wonderful dinner with Howard and Sarah in San Francisco where we stayed overnight. Sarah is fully recovered and has become a skydiving instructor. Howard continues to split his time between Beijing and California….great kids.

The next day it was on to Singapore. This is a city that undertakes bold projects with refined taste. A wonderful example of ‘enlightened monarchy’ without the monarch. The best example is the marina district with it waterfront, hotel, shopping, museum and spectacular garden. One outstanding building was the Atlas, a 30 story art deco with a spectacular lobby bar and restaurant. We stayed at the Park Royal Pickering with its hanging gardens.

After a few days, it was time to move on to Bali, another new stop for both of us. Our first reaction was that the airport put those in the US to shame. We stayed at a beachfront hotel in the Seminyak area. Here was a several mile long beach with a walkway and a continuous string of vendors of surfing, cocktails and local food. Marcia walked around the city while Dan took it easy by the pool. We are sure there was lots more of the island to see, but we only had a couple of days.

Next stop was our destination, the Wakatobi Dive Resort within the Wakatobi National Park. While the resort did not have exclusive rights to be in the park, we saw no other dive boats on the multitude of reefs within the Park.

The resort itself was developed by a couple of Swiss brothers with no expense spared, yet fully committed to the using local resources and architectural style. The guest capacity was 70 and the staff numbered over 300. The result was a first class experience during our week at the resort.

Marcia was off snorkeling multiple times a day either on the ‘house’ reef right off the resort or on one of the five dive boats that the resort built on the island. Take some time and look at her pictures of the reefs, fishes, and turtles.

It was almost 24 hours of flight time to get back home, but a trip well worth traveling to the other side of the world.

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Having cut the summer cruise short by a month, we decided to take a road trip and see more of Italy, particularly in the North.

From Vibo we headed up the coast to Naples. While we had seen the city by water, it was time to explore on land. What a difference from the Naples of 25 years ago when Dan last visited. The highlight was clearly the Museum dedicated to the works from Pompii….what magnificent artistry.

Crossing Italy, we moved up the east coast starting to Torano. Next stop was San Marino, a country within a country and still thriving. On to Bologna and Parma with a few day wandering around each of the delightful places.

Brescia in the heart of gun manufacturing country was a pleasant surprise and worth the visit. Skirting north of Milan we started into the lakes region. Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore is an absolute gem. We drove up the east side of Maggiore then cut across the west side of Lake Como on route to St Moritz. St. Moritz turned out to be a disappointment in the off season with little open for business.

On to Liechtenstein, a country of only 40,000 people, we stayed in the lovely capital of Vaduz. Liechtenstein has more companies registered there than there are people. With it’s international business and free trade zone, it is quite prosperous.

We bypassed both Zurich and Bern having visited them on a prior road trip from Basel where we visited on True East in 2018. Our next stop was Grindelwald after traveling thru the Alps. Moving on to Great Saint Bernard Pass, we traced the steps of Hannibal and Napoleon on this route thru the Alps.

Out of the Alps we passed thru the Aosta valley on route to Turin. While Turin is known as a car city, we found the Egyptian Museum to be the highlight. Our final stop on this 1,500 mile trek as Milan. This city is always a pleasure to visit for its culture, food and shopping.

Once again it was back to Barcelona before heading home.

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Heel of Italy 2024

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Having put True East to bed for the winter in Corfu, we decided to explore some of the heel of the Italian boot in anticipation of next summers cruise.

We took the ferry from Greece over to Brindisi in Italy where we spent a night at the Neptune Hotel. Of course are first stop was at the port to inspect the prospective facilities for a stop next summer, Approdo delle Indie was the choice marina. We could spend a couple of days in this lovely city.

We rented a car (seventh road trip this season) in Brindisi and headed south along the coast to Casalabate, then inland to Lecce. This is one of the highlights of the Puglia region of Italy. The next day, we visited the fortified village of Acaya then on to San Foca. The marina here would be a potential stop; however, it quite far from the city. Continuing on down the coast, we stopped at Roca Vecchia with it’s interesting natural pools then on to Torre dell’ Orso and Ortranto where we spent the night.

In Otranto we found the operator of a small boat rental that also controlled a couple of slips in this crowded port, he promised us a spot on our return. Otranto is a charming city and popular tour stop. Sure enough, we encountered Alessandro, our friend from Florence leading a tour. We would meet up again in Matera where we had time to have dinner together.

Back on the road, we stopped at the Bagno Roman sea baths at Santa Cesarea…what great construction. We made many stops along the coast as we worked out way down to Leuca. Here we found a very fine marina that would definitely be a stop on our way to Sicilla in 2026. Continuing on our next stop was Gallipoli were we spent the night at Palazzo Flora and it was a true Palazzo.

We continued up the inside of the heel to Taranto for lunch with a stop to play mini golf at La Buca, pretty grim course. Frankly, we did not find this part of Puglia very interesting and decided we would bypass the Gulf of Taranto headed east.

Headed inland we stopped at the terraced city of Locorondo described as the prettiest little town in Puglia. Here we started to see the famous cone shaped stone houses known as “trulli”. They are constructed without mortar so they can be disassembled when the tax collector is coming. The next town was Alberobello that is the epicenter of the trulli construction…magical.

On to Matera, what I would call an upside down city. The dwellings were literally carved into the side of the cliffs. In 1952, the population was evacuated due to the poor living conditions. Now many of the dwellings have been renovated, new utilities installed and the city has been rejuvenated. Be prepared to do a lot of climbing.

From Matera we headed back to the coast at Bari. After a few hours of wandering the city, we decided to head south to Monopoli a city that was highly recommended to us. It was a fine walled city; however, the marine facilities were very disappointing. The next day we headed back to the airport at Bari making a stop along the way at Polignano where they had a fine marina we would use next summer.

Overall Puglia was a very underrated area we would be pleased to return again.

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Tanzania Safari 2024

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Leaving Zanzibar we flew to Msembe via Dar es Salam and were met by our guide from the Hodi Hodi Bush camp. Yes, its the same Hodi Hodi where Julia partenered with Rex to create a very special place at the edge of the Ruaha National Park. The park cover 7,809 square miles and is served by a few lodges with a total of 153 rooms.

The Hodi Hodi Lodge has 12 huts on land owned by the local Maassi village….with a 75 year lease. Every detail of the facility was built by local craftsmen using native materials and culminated a life long dream for Rex who was raised and spent his entire career in East Africa. The lodge has an concession from the local village for 75,000 acres of exclusive use.

Our experience here was clearly the highlight of the trip. First, we were the only guests as this was slightly off season. Second, from the moment we were met at the airport, the safari adventure started as we drove to the camp. The Hodi Hodi vehicles are extremely rugged 1990’s Land Rovers where only the essentials work. Our guide had encyclopedic knowledge of the wildlife and the territory. Over the next five days, Marcia kept a list of the wildlife, I think the only one we missed was a rhino.

Ruaha is a very different park than most safari parks in Africa in that the animals are not migratory. This is much more like being with families of animals in their home. It was also a great pleasure to have a personal guide in an area with very few other vehicles. This unique experience is highly recommended.

From Ruaha, we flew to Arusha via Dar es Salaam. We were met by Tanya’s partner Sululu who would be our guide for the next couple of weeks. In Arusha, Dan got a chance to see several of the projects Tanya’s NGO Terrawatu has sponsored. A visit to Arusha National Park gave us a chance to do a walking safari thru this beautiful landscape.

It was then on to the Serengeti arriving at Karibu, Tanzania. We stayed in a tent camp and spent our days guided by Sululu through various parts of the part. As this was still the dry season, we did not experience the great migrations, but got to see every kind of mammal and bird resident in Africa.

We then drove on the the Ngorongoro Crater which provided another aspect of life in wild. This crater is the result of a collapsed mountain as opposed to a caldera. In our safari vehicle, we joined the line of vehicles descending into the crater. The crater is huge, 126 square miles with a huge lake at the center. The wildlife is this crater does not leave the crater similar to what we experienced at Ruaha. We were entertained by the behavior of two mature male lions and three younger males as they played out their dominance within several feet of us.

Leaving Ngorongoro we spent a couple of day at the wonderful coffee plantation Gibbs Farm Hotel in Karatu. Wonderful accommodations surrounded by fabulous gardens. We then drove back to Arusha and stayed in the city before heading back to Zanzibar where we caught our flight back to Venice via Doha.

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