Tag Archives: hotels

Guten tag folks!

I’m currently on a trans-Europe express road trip. And along the way I keep coming across such unusual sights that I feel I’m simply duty-bound to share them with the world’s more progressive readers of blogs. Ok?

Oddity No. 1

What cars do you generally see on the German autobahn between Frankfurt and Hannover? A lot of fast modern ones, that’s for sure. And what cars do you tend not to see? Easy: older models. So you can perhaps understand my shock surprise at seeing vintage (and all tuned-up) Zaporozhetses – with Moscow plates! What the flip? I was expecting pigs to fly past next… There they were – several of them – going hell for leather at full throttle, chugging and rattling and attracting the attention of the modern-car drivers – so much so that the traffic was slowed down to a very un-autobahn-like speed. Good gracious me. The Ukrainian retro invasion!

CCCP’s answer to the VW Beetle

More: Berlin & Berliner Kunst…

Yia folks!

Fate saw to it that I recently found myself on the island of Santorini for a couple of days, which just so happens to be one of the most interesting and unusual places on the planet, and as such finds itself residing comfortably on my list of the top must-see places in the world.

For anyone hearing of Santorini for the first time, it’s a Greek island in the Aegean Sea, 100 kilometers north of Crete and around 200km southeast from Athens – here!

This was my third time on the island, so by now I know quite a bit about the place – and it’s all rather fascinating… so let me give you the inside story here, so you don’t have to trawl through site after site and still not get the real deal…

So, let’s start with the basics: Santorini is a volcano-island. (Yes, that is no doubt why I’ve just had my third trip there!) Or, to put it more precisely, it’s what remains of a volcanic caldera after it erupted thousands of years ago, plus a new, smaller volcano slowly rising up from the sea which now fills the caldera in the center of the archipelago. The walls of the crater are impressively tall – around 300 meters high and made up of black, grey, white and red volcanic rock. The effect is one of unearthly beauty, like being on another planet. A unique bit of topography.

Then there’s the multicolored beaches – civilized sandy ones (which you need to take a car/quad/motorbike to get to), and wild stony ones (only by boat or foot). There’s also the exquisite Greek food (fresh fish, lots of greens, tzatziki; but if you want steak – best wait till you’re back on the mainland), and multi-starred Metaxa… In short, a Mediterranean paradise :).

More: The mystery of Atlantis…

NZ-2013. Day 15. Mistakes.

Those of you who’ve been following me around NZ with this travelogue will already know how unexpected torrential rain ruined our plans several times. Despite our heroic efforts to see everything, multiple shuffling of the route, and the extra hundreds of miles on the road – some must-sees remained inaccessible and thus unseen. They’ll just have to wait till next time…

Anyway, today I’ll be telling you a little about what we missed, just to make this travelogue exhaustive in terms of its covering all the must-sees of NZ – given good weather.

There were five must-check-outs we missed, as follows:

1. State Highway 6 – along the west coast of the South Island. We got to see only its northern section, but if the southern part is as beautiful – a leisurely drive along it is mandatory. Especially for lovers of hairpin bends :).

More: New Zealand vs Kamchatka – the final encounter…

Ladies and gentlemen!

I’ve got some very good news! Well, at least, for some – particularly KL employees…

Our decade and a half of rented-office-space hopping has officially come to an end. Yep, we’ve finally done it – we’ve gone and bought an office building – rather, three. Well, better late than never, I guess. Anyway, just recently, the last of the last of the departments which were holding out at the old office (at Oktiyabrskoye Pole ([Red] October Field)) in the north-western suburbs of Moscow) have finally left it for good, turning up for work the next day at the new office, as can be seen in this photo – of our corporate admin elite and their favorite rubber plants:

Yup, we now have our own small piece of north-west Moscow, housing more than 1500 company HQ employees who’ve voluntarily signed up for careers in the fight against global cyberevil.

More: homes sweet homes…

Hi all! We’re still darting about the U S of A… California, Arizona, Illinois, Kentucky, and on and on and on. As before, there continues to be few opps for tourism (well, apart from Arizona, already mentioned), while opps for work in various shapes and sizes are plentiful. Along the way we’ve been coming across assorted anomalisms and atypicalness, invariably snapped by D.Z. before you’ve time to say photogenic (I think he’s moonlighting as a travel photographer, you know. In fact I’m sure of it!) Here’s one such oddity. This one in the Windy City: More: The kunst continues …

Howdy all!

Been quite hectic of late on the road, and quite a while since I’ve downed tools (laptop, microphone) and chilled a bit in a nice location – even though there’ve been plenty of interesting and unusual places along the way. Let me make amends…

So here we are, at the aptly titled Enchantment Resort, Sedona, Arizona, USA.

This is a real nice hotel and with really picturesque surroundings. It has cabins scattered about the valley and amazing views of red cliffs all around. Breathtakingly beautiful! And the weather ain’t bad of course either. The resort also has a golf course, allegedly a super-duper spa (didn’t get round to trying it out), and wild deer perma-guests that occasionally appear in the clearings around and about the grounds. I really recommend this place if ever you’re in sunny Arizona.

As is often the case on the more exotic of my travels – since pictures speak louder than words, let me give you some photos; no – lots!

More: Red Rocks hotel…

Howdy all, from the village of Paratunka! Here we’re at a small hotel that has warm water springs in its grounds that flow into natural swimming pools. All ecological, none of that horrid chlorine, and great fun! Paratunka is near the end tip of Kamchatka, in the far-far-far-east of Russia. The hotel was nothing special, but that didn’t matter. The only things that did matter were the nice warm temperature and freshness of the water in the hotel’s pools.

Read on: Kamchatka-2012, Day 0.

There are many ways how to attract people to a hotel and now I know one of the best creative ideas in this field. The Brussels Sofitel’s lobby features a museum of curiosities that would definitely make you remember this place.

A broom Harry Potter will miss. GPS navi is included.

Read more > More curiosities