Torsten Curdt’s weblog

A beautiful place to be. And again there is proof: if you don’t expect much, it turns out great. When we left we thought we might end up in a big fire or just die because of dehydration. The big heat wave in Greece was all over the news. Still we just drove from Thessaloniki down to Volos …and then into the mountains of Pelion. Actually we even saw a fire on the way down there. But in the mountains there was just one color – green. Temperatures were absolutely comfortable. 25-32 degrees with a light breeze. Pelion seems to be one of the few best kept secrets. If you like nature and the moutains you will be happy. If you love stunning beaches with crystal clear water you will be happy. If you love the small villages and can’t stand the big ugly tourist traps – you will be happy, too. At least so were we.
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For those not following my travels via dopplr, this Monday I am flying out to Thessaloniki and then will head down to the area of Pelion. I will most probably offline for the whole time and enjoy the well needed time to relax. So if you try to reach me don’t expect a response all so soon. Will be back in two weeks! Hopefully with lots of pictures and nice stories to tell. So long…

The move has been made. (Thanks to Henry) From now on you will find the former Apache Jakarta Commons project at its new home. For those using svn to get access to the latest and greatest: a “svn switch” might safe you from downloading a full checkout again. I am sure there are still a few things that need to be fixed. Sorry, for the inconvenience. But please – just let us know.

GPRS – it’s not fast, it’s expensive …but if you cannot get to the next WiFi spot and just have to check mails or do a quick search on Google it comes in handy. Unfortunately setting this up is not as easy as you would expect under OSX. For my Sony Ericsson I installed these modem scripts. Then configured bluetooth to use “Sony Ericsson GPRS CID1″ and put down “surfo2″ as phone number(!!). Done.

Frankly speaking I don’t think this a particular great photo but “schmap.com” included it into its new city guide for Melbourne. Obviously they found my picture on flickr and asked for permission to use it.

There guides seem nice. I haven’t had the chance to have a closer look – but their integration with yahoo maps is sweet. Not so perfect is that you need some sort of software for the offline version …and the version for OSX is not available yet. (Why not just a PDF download?) Anyway – would have been great if I had come across this earlier. I will check it out next time. Unfortunately it doesn’t cover my next destination for vacation yet. (Greece) So for now wikitravel or the usual book-type guide will have to do.