Tag Archives: must see

Back on Tenerife. Terrific! And since we’d scheduled in a full day to acclimatize before the business part of the trip, it was high time to get behind the wheel and off around those hairpins and up them volcanoes. Naturally!

Now, normally to get to the top of a volcano your need to trek, climb and clamber up it, sometimes for several days (Kilimanjaro, for example). There are a few exceptions, one being Mount Etna, which can be scaled via first a ski-lift then specially equipped buses. Another is Mount Teide on Tenerife. This one’s for reeeaaal lazy tourists.

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Read on: A gentle touch from altitude sickness…

Χαίρετε folks!… From sensationally sunny Santorini, Greece. A spellbinding place…

Santorini is magnificently mind-blowing in all sorts of different ways simultaneously: touristically, climatically, volcanically, archeologically… But wait… I’ve been here before and aptly raptured before too. So I won’t repeat all that here – especially since nothing has really changed since last time – in 2013. The beauty’s all still here (if looking from up above), the sun’s still as bright, the sea’s not receded, and the volcanoes haven’t wiped out their surroundings…

I’ve said it many times before – as have many others – and I’ll say it many times more… pictures are worth a thousand words, so without more of a do…

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Read on: So, what am I doing here? Working! …

Next up on my Greek travels – Athens. I had one day off between business meetings to have a quick glimpse of the city.

Though I’ve been practically all over Europe down the years, for some odd reason I’d never made it to the ancient center of Athens. What makes that especially odd is the fact that I go mad for historical ancientnesses. And as we all know, Athens has those in Hades spades…

To me there’s something infinitely fascinating about the fact that these temples, houses (rather – their ruins), stone bridges, and the huge stone ‘bricks’ that make up the constructions… all of it was created thousands of years ago by folks just like us. Ok, without the smartphones and reality TV, but very much with eternally human features like having problems and experiencing joy and sadness and birth and death. They walked here, loved here, hated here, envied here, got their thrills here, built here, destroyed here. Thousands of years ago. Here in Athens, at places like the Acropolis and the Parthenon.

Read on: Ancient gems…

Oh no! I need to turn my Top-100 List of Must-See Places in the World into the Top-101 List! Not exactly a round number is it, but what can I do? Needs must…

So what’s so special that needs adding? It’s the Meteora in Greece – a ‘formation of immense monolithic pillars and hills like huge rounded boulders that dominate the local area’. Sheer cliffs stretching 600 meters up, all in different shades of grey, with monasteries atop some of the peaks of the rocks.

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Read on: Oh my Greek! …

Copenhagen, Denmark. Hadn’t been here in quite a while; last time was in February 2011. Back then, as could be expected in this Nordic capital, it was cold (and windy). This time though – suitably summery: sunny and warm and with long light evenings. Very ‘euro-cool’ too: folks lounging languidly at street cafes and restaurants, cyclists seeming to take direct aim at unaccustomed (non-European) pedestrian-tourists, and boats leisurely carrying folks about to and fro along the rivers and canals. Euro-cool? Euro-paradise!

As per the usual MO, after having finished our business in the current locality, it was time to head out for some micro-tourism. Scratch that. Nano-tourism: just three hours’ worth! I’m sure three days would be a more suitable length of time to check out this city more appropriately, but what could I do? I had to be back on the road come evening. Accordingly, the tourism-tempo was decidedly up…

Read on: Mermaids Seize Boat!…

I hardly ever take the subway/metro/underground, no matter where I am in the world. My usual MO is~: plane – car – hotel (or home) – car – office – car – hotel (or home) – car – plane… I do use those trains that ferry folks between airport terminals quite a bit, but city metros – nope.

But just the other day in Seoul someone suggested we take a ride on the metro. The nearest station was just 200-300 meters from our hotel, so we thought why not?!

What can I say? Well, though I’ve been spoiled by having Moscow’s monumental metro on under my doorstep, I can still say that Seoul’s ‘Metropolitan Subway’ really is quite something. New and modern-looking, neat, tidy, comfortable, and massive. Though opened only in 1974 it’s more than twice the size of Moscow’s ever-expanding metro, and one-and-a-half the size of London’s Tube. Whoa. The Koreans sure can dig :).

Read on: Third busiest in the world!…

This is a first…

Early this morning I got to see a full panoramic view of Tokyo from a high up in a skyscraper-hotel!

Normally you only get to see one side of the city; however, this time my travel companion A. Sh. was on a different floor on the other side of the building. Out of my window we could see financial skyscrapers and Mount Fuji in the distance on the horizon, while out of his we saw the rest of Tokyo. Being so high up also had its benefits of course. Especially when the hotel management leave binoculars in every room on special plates :).

Read on: And if you look very carefully, you see…

Privyet droogs!

When asked where I live in the world, I always answer Moscow. However, I only live here something like four or five months a year (the rest of the time (I’m on the road on business). And in those four or five months a year I see little of the city besides the well-trodden (by me) routes between my flat, the office, and all three of MOW‘s international airports. Occasionally I’ll go downtown for this or that occasion like the dentist’s, our Christmas/New Year bash, or the clinic for my booster shot against yellow fever (needed for certain Latin American countries and Africa). But apart from that, I hardly ever see the place. Who’d have thought it? Me – practically a non-stop business traveler-cum-tourist – and I never get round to being a tourist in the city I live in?! Odd. So at the weekend I decided to change this state of affairs. Accompanied by two other Moscow-dwelling fellow ‘tourists’ who I’ve traveled a lot with far and wide, it was time to ‘do’ Moscow – at least, some of it – in a six-hour quick march…

We started out at Sparrow Hills, and finished up at Molochnyy Pereulok, or Dairy Lane:

Read on: A very special weekend…

Hi folks!

Onward we march on our Thames-side hike. The other day you got the first leg of this day’s walk (taking in a cable car ride + Greenwich and arriving at the Cutty Sark); here’s the second leg.

After the Cutty Sark we came upon the entrance to the under-Thames foot tunnel again through which A.B. and I walked the other week. Not this time…

…This time we didn’t turn right and down through the tunnel, we carried straight on – along the embankment of the river. Why not we thought: the path was nice and smooth, there was loads to look at, the sun was out… even the clouds that day were worth photographing. Yep, no tunnel today…

Read on: Hup two three four, hup two three four…

What ho, folks!

I’ve been all week in London on business: two conference speeches; interviews, business lunches – all as per the norm. Also as per the norm – a little sightseeing fitted in for good measure. Just the other day I was real lucky that all the work for the day was to be completed before lunch, leaving the rest of the day for recreation. So that morning I donned the trusty ‘smart’ jeans, put my sneakers in my bag for changing into from my office shoes, and out we headed after the obligatory Full English :).

The morning’s work I mentioned consisted of a presentation given at Cloud Expo Europe. This was held in the enormous ExCel London, here, which I soon discovered was not far from the Thames, my fave river :). So it was Thames-wards we – my travel companion A. Sh. and I – headed after the conference…

From the exhibition hall it’s just five minutes’ walk to the Emirates Air Line cable car link that crosses the Thames – the one A.B. and I saw but didn’t have time for just the other week. So glad we had time this week as a short ride on it is just awesome. Highly recommended – if the sun’s out, like it was for us.

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Read on: Back down to earth…