After our short stop in Pisa and the Italian McDonalds we took the train to Firenze. The Firenze train station was a short walk to our accomodation, Chez Aline (located on Via Ventisette Aprile)  which is a sweet and inexpensive hotel with the world's tiniest elevators. As it turns out, elevators are exceptionally small in a lot of Europe. We just managed to fit both our suitcases in then ran up the stairs to collect them two floors up.  Aline is a good location, nearby to museums and a two minute walk to a laundrette (Lavanderia Il Delfino) . There's also a pharmacy and some great To View More >>

The road to Vatnajökull National Park is strange and varied. From vast expanses of volcanic rock to some unusal moss, every few kilometers it was almost as if we were changing countries as we drove.  The moss is somewhat well-known since that the Biebs got in trouble for frolicking in it. It was cordoned off at the viewing point we stopped at and the fields extend as far as we could see. It was pretty impressive. The moss is exceptionally fragile - it's soft and very spongey. The green is vibrant and bright, especially so with a rainy grey sky behind it.  Icelandic To View More >>

Visited Iceland in November and it was stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately it rained (and POURED) most of the time we were there so I did not get as many photos as I would have liked but the experience itself was incredible.  After landing in Keflavik International Airport the lovely Odin from Ace Rental Cars collected us from the airport and took us to their office to pick up our rental car. This meant no waiting in queues at the airport and Odin was friendly and helped us start off in the right direction. Ace is a family owned business and they were lovely to deal with. To View More >>

Living in Auckland often earns you the derision of the rest of the country, but it's home and I love it. I don't doubt the beauty of the rest of the country, NZ is beautiful, but Auckland has it's little gems too. One of those places for me has always been Bomb Point. Up until recently Bomb Point has been open to the public. Thanks to urban sprawl and the current construction going on over there, it's been closed off, so I was pretty lucky one of my previous flatmates showed it to me before that happened. It's 11 hectares of land, at what used to be a munitions dump for the Royal New Zealand To View More >>