Kayak and bike trip in the Croatian archipelago

[2006-10-05]

Croatia was beautiful! Although we had a bit of bad luck with the weather. We took a ferry from Split to Vis where we met up with Shane Braddock from Lifejacket Adventures and some clients of his. Some of us went kayaking with them despite strong winds, while the rest of us drove to Komiza, a cosy little town on the other side of the island. We went for a day trek in the hills while waiting for the others who were supposed to arrive by kayak. Unfortunately strong winds forced them ashore, so we all went for a bike trek next day to Roki´s vineyard. There are worse things in life than spending a few hours tasting wines under a big mulbery tree. Then we went to Hvar island where we kayaked to the Pakleni isles to visit Palmizana, where the Meneghello family were the first to welcome tourists on these islands in 1906. This is only about one hour paddling from Hvar town. There are several little bays and a few nice and priceworthy restaurants, we had lunch at Dionos and a late dinner at Palmizana, run by Dagmar Meneghello and her daughter. For more info about kayaking in Croatia: www.lifejacketadventures.com

Biking in Provence

[2006-07-15]

Here are some pics from my biking assignment in Provence. The first part of the week we had our base camp in Isle sur la Sourge, a small city in the heart of the district of Luberon, famous for its superb wines. From there we made day trips to small villages in the mountains to take biking pictures, lunch picnics and other stuff such as a trip to world famous Château neuf du Pape, where we did some wine testing.

Midweek we moved four hours drive west to a high plateau called Les Cevennes where we stayed in the little village of Meyrueis. The area is very beautiful with deep gorges cutting through the plateau. We did some hiking but it was mostly just too hot, 36°C, to do any serious stuff, so we ended up kayaking and having picnics in Gorge du Tarn during the hottest part of the days, to hike only in the late afternoon when temperatures dropped to a more sustainable level.

The hi-light of the trip was on one of these late afternoon hikes, when we first spotted a huge predator bird which turned out to be a Bearded vulture. After a few minutes we counted to about fifty of them almost darkening the sky with their wing span of almost three meters.

Kayak and bike trip in the Croatian archipelago

[2006-05-28]

On May 28 I'm going on a trip to Croatia to check out the archipelago outside Split. We are going kayaking around the island of Vis, visit some vineyards and see the Blue Grotto on the island Bisevo. We will also try to visit the Kornati islands by kayak and finally try to do some climbing and hiking in the Paklenica National Park.

If you want to see more, check this out:
www.nationalgeographic.com