The travel log of Vic and Steve

Today was day 1 RapidMiner Wisdom or for the bulk of you - the conference I made my family come to Slovenia for.  We all slept well and enjoyed our own version of Allegro Hotel breakfast, mine fruit and yogurt and luke warm scrambled eggs with a juice. Don's a full meat, cheese, pastry platter by comparison.  Then we all walked to the Finicular to the castle where my day was spent. A short but steep ride for €4 return (the others bought one way and walked down). While I met and schmoozed Data Scientist folks Steve, Don and Sam explored the castle. Sounds like it has been extensively renovated (vs restored) and they described it as more like a museum but enjoyed themselves.  You can't fault the view. After 2 hours of castle I am told the family enjoyed lunch at the vegan restaurant below the castle, a river tour which had no commentary, followed by dinner by the river.  That's me waving from my conference. Photos courtesy of Sam.  My day was interesting. The orga...

We're here! So is Don!  After my complaint about our not seated together we got the best seats for sleeping so Lufthansa you are forgiven (United not). Frankfurt is a functional, efficient and busy airport, though not a place you want to kill time.  The flight to Ljubljana crossed beautiful countryside of mountains and lakes, small villages and beautiful forests.  Our hotel is as adorable as the photos. Outside was a medieval market today which was cute. We sat in the bar opposite and had mango lassie and juices before heading out exploring.  A few hours of wandering in the heat to orient ourselves was exhausting with extreme jet lag so we had a short nap - but as I write this we are all ready to collapse.  Vegan food has been hard to find today but Sam has a plan now. She found some corn at a street market and yummy cake in this beautiful cafe.  The city is chocker and lovely for walking. There are cafes everywhere and no shortage of stuff to buy. Very tou...

My one regret about this trip is not taking photos of the English signs here in Hong Kong. Phonetically correct yes - like thunderstorm rating hoisted - but oh so funny. Today was checkout day. We had planned two sight based locations being the walled city and the Buddha. So after another fantastic breakfast in the Holiday Inn Golden Mile club lounge we packed up, checked out and headed by MTR to the gondola and big Buddha. Sadly the weather conspired against us and it was pissing down as we emerged but (silver lining here) we did get to do one thing we were going to miss out on - outlet shopping! And eat in a massive crowded Hong Kong food court.  Footnote, the train line to the gondola is the same one as to Disney. Who knew "let it go" was the universal anthem of every small child no matter their nationality.  Rain passed so we joined the queue for the gondola. Hong Kong tip - prepurchase your gondola tickets.  The view is awesome. We scrimped and ...

7:07am in the rooftop pool for a wake up dip then a leisurely breakfast and study break for Sam in the club lounge (omelettes and fruit for us non/vegans).  Then we headed off for a day on the island. MTR followed by a tram to the Western Market a building that could be QVB or Old Bank but has been chopped up so the ceilings are only visible in the top floor restaurant. It does have an entire floor of fabric.  The trams are pretty neat. We sat up top for the open window breeze experience and fab view. Hong Kong Island is the business district so newer buildings and flasher shops, cars and markets than Tsim Sha Tsui.  After the market Samantha convinced us to trek up to the Museum of Medical Science. Another colonial building with immaculate city managed gardens and public toilets outside. There we learned about everything from H1N1 to the plague of 1894 that decimated the population of Hong Kong and resulted in demolition of large sections of the city...

Day 1 continued with maximum touristy engagement. Our NZ based Chinese travel agents not only recommended our fab hotel (Holiday Inn Golden Mile) but also advised the only things to do in Hong Kong are eat and shop. Today we walked and shopped - well looked with no buying. First up the compulsory tourist photos of Victoria harbour. There we met teams of students on their orientation scavenger hunt - the amusing thing is 3 different teams took their "photo with a tourist" with us! Will be funny when they compare results.  Then we needed to conquor the MTR, bought an Octopus card (what's with the naming of these cards? Snapper, oyster, octopus). It was crammed as we were warned but the trains are amazing, one massive long continuous train with no wasted carriage cuplings - you can see the whole way with no walls.  Then we hit the markets. First up the flower market was beautiful, smelled fantastic and in 32 degree heat orchid shops had welcome air ...

Tired and not hungry we survived the first leg on a very old Air NZ 777, didn't have USB charge ports or touch screens! Holiday Inn Golden Mile is awesome. We booked a club room and arrived at the hotel about 9am where we were whisked to the club lounge for checkin and fed lots of yummy foods and where we planned out our 3 days and rehydrated before our room came free about an hour later. Our room comes with a free phone including data and calls so we are setting off now armed with the phone and maps - yay!  Will post Hong Kong highlights later. 

A year in the planning, massive itinerary scope growth - we were planning to go everywhere - then shrinkage until it looks like this: Hong Kong Ljubljana, Slovenia Venice, Italy A villa in Tuscany Rimini, Italy for MotoGP Missano  Rome, Italy Home Our last big holiday was in 2013 when we flew for 24 hours over to the Cayman Islands before a fabulous Caribbean cruise through the West Indies. This trip won't be a beach and snorkelling one rather a catch up with Family and Friends, drinking wine and eating yummy vegan and gluten free (and normal for most) Italian foods.  Last trip I promised to blog but didn't post many, this time with my giant iPhone 6+ will use this to post photos as we go - some with commentary too. Yay! so excited. Vic xx