There exist in the world a great many beautiful mountains, volcanoes, cliffs, caves, valleys, lakes, geysers, glaciers, and a whole load of other natural phenomena. But there exist a great many beautiful man-made phenomena too. And that includes some really rad roads.

The most beautiful road (of course, I mean the views therefrom and therealong, not the prettiness of the asphalt:), IMHO, is in New Zealand. It’s the road to Milford Sound. There are plenty of others dotted around the globe that come near to it in terms of awesomeness: There’s the Great Ocean Road in nearby Australia. There’s the coast road of California; Route 360 on Maui, Hawaii; the road from Platja d’Aro to Lloret de Mar in Spain; the Amalfi Coast road near Naples; the roads of Crete, and many more which I’ve yet to motor along.

Just recently I checked off another entry on the list of must-drive roads of the world. Yep, I finally got round to cruising along the resplendent road to Key West, at the very bottom tip of Florida. Key West is the last in a long line of islands that stretch from the US mainland on the outskirts of Miami out towards Cuba – all connected by a road. Nice. Miami Nice. Kuril Islands governor – take note!

Read on: tropical paradise here and there…

Turns out the Ring of Fire affects Guatemala too. But then that country classic affects many, and always will :). But no, it’s the seismic-lithospheric-tectonic Ring of Fire that ensures Guatemala is fully sorted in the volcano department.

In all there are around 30 volcanoes in Guatemala – impressive for a country of its modest size. Taking a peek at trusty old Wikipedia, we see Guatemala covers approx. 100,000 square kilometers, so if we divide that by the number of volcanoes… ooh la la!: the volcanism force is strong with this one! It’s nothing on the Kurils of course (68 volcanoes in 10,500 square kilometers!), but the Kurils aren’t a whole country…

Antigua is surrounded by three volcanoes – Agua, Fuego and Acatenango – all of which were visible from our hotel:

Read on: Ahhh, so great being up a mountain!…

Howdy folks. Herewith, the next installment on my recent Guatemalan adventure. Today, a report on what we discovered while strolling around Antigua Guatemala.

Brief background: Antigua was one of the capitals of the country during the Spanish Empire era. Down the years it’s been destroyed three times by volcanic or seismic ultraviolence, poor thing: First, in 1541 – under a lahar (mudflow) from Agua Volcano; and then in 1717 and 1773 – by earthquakes. How unlucky? After the third time, the authorities wisely decided to move the capital to a safer location – where it still stands today. The ruins of Antigua were abandoned and stood mostly uninhabited for centuries. Shadows of former colonial grandeur can still be seen today in the dozen (!) or so imperial cathedral and church ruins. If the place looks impressive in ruins, I thought, imagine what it must have been like intact and with roofs on!

Read on: street ‘carpets’ made of colored sawdust, flowers and grasses…

Alrighty. Here we are in Guatemala. I’m enthusiastically ensconced in this here hotel-with-a-difference in the heart of the country – and it’s a fascinating place. I’ve been in some interesting lodgings in my time which stretch the definition of ‘hotel‘, but never stayed in one that doubles up fully as something else at the same time. In this case – several museums!! It’s called Casa Santo Domingo, situated in the former colonial capital of the country, Antigua Guatemala.

Read on: Not your usual hotel…

Never thought that one day I’d be in the Maldives.

Why? Well, my travels normally take me to places where I really need to get to for business. The Maldives? No meetings, speeches or conferences, and no business tends to be transacted there…

Of course there are times when I go to this or that exotic country as a tourist, but my preferred tourism tends to feature rucksacks, tents and volcanoes – not sun, sand, and surf. So, again… the Maldives? Eh?

But when it was suggested that ‘we have this year’s management board jolly in the Maldives’, well, I didn’t need much convincing as to the wholesomeness of the idea. Everyone surely knows the Maldives is a sun drenched set of paradisiacal islands, so why would I object? So off we headed in the direction of the Indian Ocean…

Read on: Global warming vs Maldives…

Another of my long-held dreams has finally come true – to check out Cologne Cathedral in the flesh. Crikey. It’s just monumental. Eerie. A huge stalagmite stabbing the low cloud up above. More gothic than the Sisters of Mercy ever were.

Oh my goodness

Read on: Mysteriously magnificent & imperially intricate…

Last week’s busy overseas business itinerary, this time in London, ended with the usual installment of micro-tourism.

We rented a car and drove down to the White Cliffs of Dover, the sheer façade that drops into the English Channel. I’d long dreamed of getting down to the southern coast of England, the place where d’Artagnan came ashore (seeking out the queen’s diamonds wasn’t it? Will have to re-read the book), as did William the Conqueror, and I’m sure a whole hoard of other invaders and the like did…

Read on: Cliffs, roads, jams and floods…

There are just a few days left of this year, so I’d better rush and push and go over 2014 in review, before I get on to congratulating everyone for having a super year and wishing all the best for a supreme 2015…

So what was what, where, why, how, eh, and all that…

Geographical firsts.

Three years ago I came up with a list of what I reckon are the ‘Top-100 Must-See Places in the World‘ – a list of what I consider are the most mind-blowing sights around the planet. I hadn’t been to all the listed places – many were still left to ‘do’. This keeps things interesting – at least for moi! – as I get to keep steadily adding checks against the still-to-do’s (normally while on business trips – can’t beat two birds with one stone and all :).

In 2014 – six new checks:

– Patagonia;
– Big Island, Hawaii (details here and here);
– Norwegian Fjords;
– The Kurils;
– The tunnels of Jerusalem;
– Kathmandu, Nepal.

So what else did I get to see this year that wouldn’t fit in the Top-100?

Four very impressive locations:

– The cliffs of Western Ireland (details here and here);
– The cliffs of Southern Portugal;
– Around and about Monaco;
– Mount Fuji – again.

The Irish cliffs are like totally worthy of inclusion in my Top-100; however, for them to be included some place would have to be removed. But what? No easy task…

Here are a few more curious events from the past year… mostly a lot closer to home than the exotic locations of most of the Top-100:

– Meeting Angela Merkel;
– Buying an elephant;
– Witnessing a launch of Soyuz at Baikonur;
– Experiencing weightlessness;
– Being on Japan’s main TV channel;
– Our office being named the ‘Best Office in Moscow, 2014’.

Brand EK.

I’ve been doing fairly intense KL-PR stuff for years already. This year it was as intensive as ever…

– 50+ ‘top-tier’ (PR/media jargon) live interviews;
– 40+ presentations;
– 30 press conferences;
– 3 photo sessions.

All the above figures and events give us the following auxiliary stats too:

– 95 flights, 375 hours in the air;
– 45 new cities (maybe a few more – some might have slipped through the net);
– 3 new countries: Kazakhstan, Nepal, Luxembourg.

Transferring all the above onto a world map, we get the following. Red spots – business; green – tourism:

And here’s a rundown of the trajectory of my movements around the globe, as extracted from my scribbles in my trusty travelogue-notepad:

Moscow – London – Davos – Tel Aviv – Moscow. Punta Cana – Sao Paulo – Brazil – Punta Arenas – Riyadh – Rome – Hannover – Seoul – Sanya – Moscow. Baikonur. Washington – Boston – Hawaii – San Francisco – Moscow. London again. Tokyo. London, Monaco. Munich, Bergen, Hong Kong – Kathmandu – Mumbai – Geneva – Moscow. Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – Kuril Islands – Yuzhno–Sakhalinsk – Moscow. Washington – New York – Budapest – London – Tel Aviv – Paris – Moscow. Singapore – Jerusalem. Sochi. Wiesbaden – Luxembourg. Hong Kong – Tokyo – Osaka – Monaco – Dublin – Vienna – Moscow. Bologna – Venice – Barcelona – Faro – Lisbon – Moscow. Abu Dhabi, Star City.

And on that satisfying note folks, I shall sign off on the year. Thank you for your attention and patience! I wonder what next year’s travel-summary will look like. I think I’ll have to start taking it easier maybe – less non-stop marathon world-tours. Yeah, right!

Happy Boxing Day!

Cheers!

After staying the night in a hotel recently in the town of Cascais just outside Lisbon, I just had to put fingers to laptop to tell you about it. I’ve seen quite a few hotels in my time, but this is one of the few I’ll never forget…

Please meet the Fortaleza do Guincho. It’s simple, it’s classy, it’s cozy, it’s modest. A boutique hotel with a Michelin-starred restaurant (we ate in the local greasy spoon fish fork, which deserved a Michelin star too:). In short: lovely lodgings.

But this hotel gets a whole blogpost dedicated to it not for any of the above-mentioned niceties. Instead, it comes down to the hackneyed real estate buying threesome: location, location, location. For this heavenly hotel is located right on the coast of the Atlantic – almost in it, in fact. The ocean’s literally outside your window. The sound noise of the waves crashing against the shore… it’s almost hypnotic – and can lull you into a doze-cum-meditation before you can say ’40 winks’ or ‘om’. Incredible. I want to go back already!

This is how it looks from up above:

Source

And this is what it looks like down on the ground:

Just like the palaces here… unusual, unique architecture :)

The cliff theme continues

Read on: View to the left, to the right and from my room…

Last week we had another free afternoon in Portugal. Naturally, we made the most of it.

On our way to Lisbon airport we made a quick detour off the highway to take in another two interesting Portuguese places of interest.

They’re not quite as monumental as the cliffs we saw on the southern coast of the country, but all the same they’re still worth a look. The first place, real close to Lisbon, is the town of Sintra (and its Pena Park). The other is the western-most point of Europe – Cabo da Roca – approx. 20km from Pena.

Pena Park is actually the grounds of Pena National Palace, perched high up on the top of a hill here (500 meters above sea level).There are various different touristic tidbits to check out in and around the grounds, but the main two are the palace itself plus Castelo Mouros – Castle of the Moors – another hilltop-located ancient construction (and the cooler of the two).

Pena National Palace

Read on: Summer residence of the Portuguese royal family…