Tag: sahara

Into Tuscany

Mid September 2024, Storm Boris was brewing on the Adriatic Sea, making the best path south to Civitavechia and the ferry to Tunisia over the mountains via Bologna into Tuscany.

And it’s beautiful hilltop towns and cities.

One of the most spectacular of the hill top cities is San Gimignano

It’s popular to visit but not as busy as nearby  Florence that I visited back in 2022.

In the city, it’s all walking and full of activity.

Across a little valley from San Gimignano  there’s a campground in the little village of Santa Lucia

With a terrace where you can watch a balloon rise over San Gimignano.

As it was coming to the end of the season, so finding a place to camp at Principina a Mare right near the beach.

The beach at Principina has amazing beach shelters made from driftwood.

Out of Tuscany and into Lazio, there was time for a lunchtime time stop in Tarquinia.

That night it was the ferry to Tunisia.

But before then a stop in the Australian summer.

Riding the ships of the desert in the biggest sand sea in Morocco – Erg Chegaga

M’hamid el Ghizlane is at the end of the road the leads into the dessert.

It’s a strange way to start a story about going to Morocco at the end of the road into the desert at a town only 40km from the closed Algerian border.

But this is discontinuous narrative and at some stage I will get back to the start of the journey.

But getting to the desert and it’s nomadic herders was a dream for me.

At M’hamid the mighty breva was garaged while the crew at https://www.desertbivouac.com/ took control.

The Erg Chegaga is the biggest sand sea in Morocco and a perfect place get the feel of the desert.

At the one of the small oasis, or…

Or riding a ship of the desert in a sand sea.

Riding the waves of sand up to 300m high.

Waves that change colour with the setting sun.

To time this adventure with a desert full moon was extra special.

And to sit on a Berber carpet in the desert listening to the sounds of Bedouin singing and drumming beside the camp fire under its silver light

This has to be one of my most amazing travel experiences. So thanks to Desert Bivouac