Pieter11's VirtualTourist Home Page

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Me in Western Sahara

WELCOME TO MY HOMEPAGE

Welcome to my homepage on this wonderful medium called Virtual Tourist. A place where you can meet the most wonderful people, a place where you can dream about your future trips, a place where you can express your feelings about your past trips and to me it´s a very good reason to learn more about my destinations then just the random ´Oh, that looks nice`. VT keeps you dreaming, keeps you active and keeps you curious.

As probably most of the VT-members, travelling really is my passion. Although I´m only travelling for a few weeks a year, it´s an important part in my life. I love the proces of searching for information before you leave. Pick out the right hotel, reading about the destinations, thinking about the routes to follow and just dream and dream and dream... And after returning from a trip another great part of the travelling rhythm follows: developing the pictures, sticking them into an album, read even more about the places you´ve been to, and of course: update your VT-page.

But of course the very best part of travelling is the feeling of being inside the books you´ve read, the movies you´ve seen and the dreams you´ve had. And the most wonderful is: in 3D everything is just even better then you could imagine. In 3D it´s not only about seeing things, but about feeling, hearing, smelling and tasting the atmosphere.

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Beautiful ugliness

SEEING...

Of course a very important part of travelling is the seeing part. Seeing the major attractions of a city, or seeing the wide nature of a quiet piece of land. But the most wonderful thing of all is to see the different things: details of a big sculpture, a lonely Zambian boy at the streets of Livingstone, a brave flower in a concrete jungle, or the ugliness of one single seat in a beautiful football stadium. I can really enjoy that: that makes me enjoy every single destination you can think of.

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Tinkling souvenirs

HEARING...

But there is so much more then seeing a destination alone. Sounds are an important part of the atmosphere you get pulled into when you visit a place. The sound of two Italians arguing passionately, of crickets at the lakeside, the sound of souvenirs tinkling in a crowded shopping street, of soundsystems in the streets of Accra, Ghana, or the sound or hearing nothing at all on top of Acros Corinth in Greece. Sounds can give you the wonderful feeling of rather being quiet and enjoy the atmosphere silently.

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Foreign food

TASTING...

Taste is one of the most important aspects of most cultures. It is a must and a delight to get to know these aspects of the destinations you visit. Coming from the boring mashed-potatoes-eating-culture of Holland, almost every other ´cuisine` is like heaven to me. Weither it is the Hungarian Gulash, the Spanish Tapas, the Belgian beer- and the French wine-culture, weither it is the Greek Dolmadakia or the Italian icecream, trying foreign food is the best thing there is.

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Smelling spring

SMELLING...

A great thing about visiting nature is experiencing the smell. There is no better smell then the smell of real nature: flowers flourishing in spring, a fresh rain shower after a dry period at the island of Grinda in Sweden, the smell of fresh fish at an Asian market, or even the smell of exhaust gasses produced by an old tractor in a little mountain village on Crete in Greece. These are things that can make you remember that wonderful trip you´ve made years ago, with your eyes closed.

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Coloured warmth

FEELING...

Of course the feeling part is essential too when visiting a destination. It´s great to feel external feelings like a sunbeam in your face when you´re inside a beautiful church, or the wind through your hair on top of a mountain. But the best feelings are the internal feelings of kind locals. Having the feeling of being welcome in someone´s hometown, making friends with people from totally different cultures and becoming part of this culture little by little. Meeting up with the locals is the best thing you can do.

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Six sences

DREAMING...

But the best thing of travelling, the sixth sence, is the dreaming part. Inspired by all the other sences: looking at a picture, hearing a certain sound, eating a foreign meal in your homecountry, the smell of a certain flower or the feeling of friendship you´ve developed, can bring you back to your destination in a second. By only using your imagination you can travel 365 days a year. Dreaming at night and daydreaming are the reason why travelling is so worth the money and the effort you put into it. Due to the dreaming part every single trip you make stays in your life forever. Travelling in this way isn´t something for a couple of weeks a years: it´s a 24/7, 365 days a year thing. A passion of six sences.

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The picture I won my trip to Cannes with :)

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LATEST TRIPS

2005:
- April: Athens and Corinth
- May: Paris
- July: Czech Republic (Prague, Kutna Hora)
- August: Stockholm, Paris
- December: Malaysia (Sabah and Kuala Lumpur), Indonesia

2006:
- January: Philippines
- May: Jordan
- July: Zambia, Botswana, Namibia
- August: South Africa
- September: Paris
- October - December: Ghana

2007:
- January: Ireland
- April: Germany, Liechtenstein, Switzerland
- September: Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama
- December: France

2008:
- February: England (Dover, Canterbury, London)
- March/April: Morocco and Western Sahara
- April: France (Cannes)
- April/May: Italy (Florence and Pisa)

UPCOMING TRIPS

2008:
- June: Poland
- July: Argentina and Chile (???)

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WASSUP?

My travelyear 2008 started with a short three-days trip to London, and a quick visit to Dover and Canterbury. Besides the regular sight-seeing I also visited the footballmatch Fulham-Aston Villa: the highlight of my visit.

I also just came back from a two weeks trip through Morocco and Western Sahara. A great adventure through some very desolate places like the southeast of Morocco and the hammada in Western Sahara, but also some very interesting big cities like Marrakesh and Casablanca.

Two weeks later already I went to Cannes to attend the Sony World Photography Awards. I won this trip as a prize in a photo-competition, with a picture I took in Ghana, in 2006. Very nice to be part of this glitter and glamour event for once.

Later this month I'll go on a 6-days trip to Toscany where I will visit Florence and Pisa. Time to enjoy the Italian sun, culture, ice cream and definitely a beer or two.

And later this year I'm also planning to do another "big one": I'm thinking about going to Argentina and Chile, but nothing is planned yet. Who knows where I'll end up...

At this moment I'm working on the last bits of my pages about last year's travels. All my trips have been "done", until the big, adventurous backpacking trip through Central America that I made in September last year. I visited six countries and saw some fantastic things there: from the ruins of Copán in Honduras to the rainforest in Costa Rica and from the blue sea around Bocas del Toro in Panama to the old city of Antigua in Guatemala. The results so far can be found on my Central-America pages.

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