Espania‏

Hi Everyone,

We are enjoying hilltop villages & amazing food today. We have decided to rent a car and tour for the next 5 days.

Love to all.

Arti & Dimitri

Torre del Mar

Hi all At Torre del Mar near Malaga having a good time watching flamenco dancing. 

Love to all

Arti & Dimitri

Gibraltar

Hello Everyone,

We arrived in Gibraltar yesterday. Morocco was great fun but very poor, dirty and it was like Europe must have been 500 years ago. However, the food was great, the sights were amazing and we loved the little hilltop Berber village we slept in two days ago. The scenery was also lovely, with high mountains and lots of greenery. We saw lots of goats, donkeys and camels.

Gibraltar has been a bit of surprise. We went up the rock by cable car today. The scenery is amazing, there is a beautiful cave full of stalagmites and stalactites, and the rock has 300km of tunnels, from the seige in the 1700's and also from the 2nd world war. They are big enough to have housed 17,000 troops, a hospital, command centre, ammunition bunkers etc in WWII!! They were fascinating.

We leave tomorrow and will probably do about 70nm further up the coast. We will let you know where we stop, but it will probably be Puerto Caleta de Velez.

Love to all.

Arti & Dimitri

Calais

Hello Everyone,

Since leaving Lisbon, we have been slowly making our way down the Portuguese coast, stopping at anchor or in marinas on the way. We are enjoying the little medieval streets and castles in the old parts of the town, eating our fill of Portuguese food and pasteis de nata (Portuguese tarts) and generally just having a good time with Jan and Nick. We rented a car for two days and went inland to some little towns and villages. We saw some storks in one of them. They were nesting on street lamps, palm trees etc. Some had babies in their nests. We are now in Spain, the little town of Rota having been our first stop. It is in the northern part of the Bay of Calais and we spent a night there. The marina was right at the old town so we wandered around and took some lovely photos. The influence of the Moors is very strong there, with little roads with arches over them, lots of tiles as in Portugal and lovely wrought iron work. The houses all seem to have an external door and a courtyard within. It is quite a good idea in such a populated area, for quietness, privacy and as we are discovering, to get out of the cold wind. Yes, it has been quite cold and the night we spent at sea between Vilamoura in Portugal and Rota in Calais Bay was the coldest we have had at sea, including when we left Sydney in the middle of winter! We are now in Calais, a lovely city with quite a large medieval old town. Again, the old town has narrow roads, lots of little piazzas, beautiful tiles, churches, wrought iron. The maps have tourist walking routes on them so it makes it easy to see all the sights. Depending on the weather, we will go through the Straits of Gibraltar tomorrow. It is a little like the Cape of Good Hope. There is a 2-3m difference between the Atlantic and the Med., the winds can get to 40kn. and is above 30kn. 300 days of the year around Tarifa, there is a strong current so we have to time it and lots of shipping. All being well, we will leave at 6am and should be in Gibraltar by 2pm. 

That's all for now folks.
Arti and Dimitri

Sesimbra

Hello Guys, 

Just a short note to let you know we are safely anchored at a little fishing town called Sesimbra, just south of Lisbon. Nearly got locked in the local cemetry for the night as we were browsing there at closing time! Had a lovely fish meal for dinner at a restaurant overlooking the sea. Once again a lovely castle on the hillside.

Tomorrow we sail to Sines, about 40m south of here. 

Love to all

Arti and Dimitri

Lisbon

Hi Everyone,

We have had a lovely two week stay in Lisbon and are now refreshed, repaired (Artemis V that is) and we are ready to go again. We really enjoyed Lisbon and got to know the area fairly well.  We caught the train to two small towns, Sintra where the royalty had their palaces and Obidos, a small medieval walled town which is still intact. Today we leave on our next leg back down the coast. We are headed for Cascais Bay tonight where we will anchor and begin to adjust to the rolling movement. It is a lovely little seaside town, 30 miles from Lisbon proper.  We will keep you posted....

Regards to all

Dimitri and Arti