Venice

Posted on October 12, 2009 by Carleen

We arrived at 9.30at night to a quiet airport. Marco Polo airport is nothing to write home about. However the air exiting the plane was warm and you could smell the sea. Lovely.
Within the first 10 minutes of leaving the terminal we had already been ripped off 5 euro when we purchased a ticket for the bus. Apparantly change is too hard to figure out?
Breakfast this morning was plentiful and good. Sleep was peaceful too.
After 30 minutes of figuring out the train we hit Venice proper. Beautiful if not still full of tourists. Thank goodness for McDonalds and free wifi.

…and his merry men

Posted on October 3, 2009 by Carleen

That’s right, Robin Hood. We took a side trip home via Sherwood Forest today. We were up in Walsall for a mates wedding. Our first English/Welsh wedding. Well actually it was the evening reception after the actual ceremony and speeches. To us kiwis (or maybe it is just me) it is a strange concept going to the reception and not the ceremony. We would normally invite all and sundry to watch the ceremony and then just close family and friends to the reception. Still haven’t figured out the traditions and quirks of this country but it was a good night and really lovely to see P & H looking fabulously happy.

The next day we were planning to head to the Snow Centre for a ski in Tamworth. However when we got there we were rather surprised at the large numbers of birthday parties and kids. No way were we going on the slopes with them! So, we decided to take a trip to Nottingham and of course Sherwood Forest.

Nottingham as it turned out was a rather large city with a very nice river running through it. The traffic on the other hand was a huge wind up so we got out of there pretty quick. Quite a number of Art Deco buildings mixed in with everything else you can think of!

By chance Sherwood Forest had a re-enactment weekend on so this was a really exciting bonus for us. The forest is incredible with really easy walkways. The forest has many amazing twisted and gnarled Oak trees. These trees are classed as ancients. We are talking 700 years old. They look amazing and this is by far and away the most interesting forest I have visited to date in the UK. I think it was most likely due to the Oaks which just look so majestic. I was quite taken by them. Forests in the UK are definitely not like NZ. They are not as dense and as lush as what we are used to yet Sherwood was closer to a forest than anything else we have seen to date.

The re-enactments were really interesting to watch if not a bit scary. Lets just put it this way…always treat a gun as if it is loaded. Don’t EVER point the business end at me even if you are sure it isn’t loaded. I sure as heck didn’t want to find out the messy way if it was!

Other than that it was an incredibly interesting day passing by the time periods marked by the costumes and village scenes set up. From the Saxons and Normans, to the Victorians, WWI, WWII and even into the 80′s it was amazing to see the progression of weaponry and clothing across these periods. No surprise visits by Robin Hood or his merry men though. What a shame. We did see the ancient Major Oak though that legend says was where he used to meet his men before they went on their raids. You can see the Major Oak behind the musketeer in one of the following photos.

The Snow Center – Hemel Hempstead

Posted on September 16, 2009 by Carleen

Opened in May of this year Steve recently found out about The Snow Centre and was keen to take a trip. I had some annual leave days up my sleeve, he had a day off and so today we took off for a day of skiing.

Our GPS, Susie, indicated it would take 2 hours but as we got nearer to London this became rather more like 3 hours. Oh well, thankfully we had the day all to ourselves.

The indoor center is lovely and new with a 30 metre width on the slope enabling more area to try some of those longer linked turns. What the heck am I talking about, I’m lucky to get to the bottom in one piece! We got a 2 hour ticket which comes at a reasonable price of 27 pound each as it is off peak. I needed about 1 hour of this to get my mojo happening.

Anyone who knows me well will know that I am rather risk adverse. Ok, so extremely risk adverse. Maybe this comes from my OHS background..this leads to that, which creates this = consequence. Manage the consequence by managing the risk. When you strap planks to your feet and point these downhill on a steep, slippery slope this would indicate a high probability of injury. Injury = pain, I dislike pain intensely…you see where I am going with this.

Maybe I continue to do it is because in my head I see a far more competent skier who can do amazing jumps, tight turns and laughs in the face of danger…then I wake up in a cold sweat and strap on the planks anyway!

So, here are some pics from today. Thankfully I made it home in one piece with thanks to my incredibly competent ski buddy who stuck with me, gave me advice and didn’t get too frustrated with me even when I finally listened to his advice at the very end and would have to agree that apparently going faster does make turning easier. Who knew! Maybe I should try this theory in the Rover.

France – Part 2

Posted on August 31, 2009 by Carleen

After Paris the rest of our holiday was spent in Lille. We stayed at the SuiteHotel for a fab price (love the internet!!!). It suited us brilliantly as it was situated directly across the road from the train station and had movies on demand plus internet all included. The room was bigger than our bedroom at home with shower AND bath, bliss. It truly was a relaxing break in Lille as we wandered the streets and at night caught up with lots of movies we missed on the big screen!

We also caught up with our mate A and met his girlfriend who took us out to a fab restaurant (complete with some Moet) and a great day trip to De Panne in Belgium.

Steve even got some fillings attended to while we were there, thanks A. It was great to see A in action as a dentist!

Here are some pics of our time in Lille and Belgium.

The French Connection – Part 1

Posted on August 22, 2009 by Carleen

We had a fabulous 8 days in France with perfect blue skies and up to 35 degrees (only a bit of rain one day when visiting De Panne in Belgium). It was our 6th wedding anniversary, which reminds me Happy Anniversary to mum & dad Sears. Happy Birthday to A-L and P.

Each time we go to Paris it is harder and harder to find a free Wifi connection besides going to McDonalds and buying a coke in order to use their service. Many people are more aware now of 1) protecting their connections and 2) businesses charging for connections instead of providing it as a free service to their customers. Get with it people, it is a necessity now! One hotel we stayed it was trying to charge 25 Euros for a 24 hour connection. I don’t think so mate! Hence I have to do the posts now, after the fact.

Anyway, last Thursday night took the bus down to London (see previous post) ready for our Eurostar journey early Friday morning. We arrived at Paris Gare du Nord around 10.30am in time for some breakfast. We decided to walk from Gare du Nord to our hotel in the Latin Quarter. A slight problem as I hadn’t thought to bring our Paris map. Generally you don’t need one as maps are often posted on bus shelters for tourists. However a back up is a good idea for one reason. If you walk in the totally wrong direction, leaving the tourist area, then you don’t get those maps as frequently! Guess what we did. Ah huh. Thankfully Steve had brought Susie (our GPS) with him. Thanks love, that got us back on track.

About 2 hours of strolling through the streets of Paris we arrived at our hotel to offload our bags and continue our journey. We stayed at the Hotel Observatoire Luxembourg as it was across the road from the gardens that I love. As our feet were rather sore we spent the rest of the afternoon visiting the gardens and watching the local businessmen playing Pentanque during their afternoon lunch break before returning to work (playing in suits and all!). That evening we visited Rue Mouffetard in the Latin Quarter to find something for dinner. Found a lovely Algerian restaurant where we had couscous and a chicken tagine. Yum. The restaurant owner was a rather keen man and gave us a free wine taster and a refreshing mint tea after dinner. I think he was trying to ensure we stayed a long time in order to pull in other diners as there were few other people in the restaurant.

On Saturday we visited the Petit Palais so I could see my favourite work of art (La Femme au singe) but it was closed! I was rather disappointed but you expect these things on occasion. Of course we then headed to our favourite restaurant near Abbesses metro (Le Relais Garcon) for our heart stopping salad. That evening we had a call from some friends that we had been trying to get in touch with. We met them at the Paris Plage for a picnic. Paris Plage (beach) happens ever August where areas along the Seine are turned into beach with sand, deck chairs, music, dancing, free games such as pentanque, fencing etc. Dancing areas operate throughout summer on the left bank and our friends N and C had a dance in the samba area. People just turn up with music and friends and specific areas are for specific styles of dance like samba, rock and roll, ballroom, country etc. It’s fabulous fun with a good vibe. About midnight we headed to N & C’s car and they took us on a tour of Paris by night. We took the Champs-Élysées but soon gave up as the traffic jams were incredible even at that hour of night. We went for a walk under the Eiffel Tower which was still heaving with tourists and even though it was midnight it remained very humid.

Sunday saw more walking and by this time I had developed some very nasty blisters on 4 of my toes. We went to dinner at N & C’s that night and had a wonderful evening catching up, talking to A-L in Australia on the phone, meeting new people and of course eating N’s wonderful cooking. Thanks so much guys for an awesome night and the lift back to our hotel!

As always Paris leaves us in awe of its beauty. Some observations this time around as our 5th stay here include locals speaking more English freely (possibly due to the height of the tourist season?), August means a number of shops are shut as the locals take their summer holidays, tourists are in astronomical abundance so don’t expect to get into any places without large queues and prices have definitely risen since we were last there in April. Next post will cover our other 4 days in Lille.

What time is it?

Posted on August 14, 2009 by Carleen

5.50am that’s what time! We got to London last night on the bus. Only 5 quid each. Underground was heaving with tourists! Got to our hotel near the Eurostar terminal at 10pm last night. Took a quick walk to get the lay of the land and then hit the sack. Leaving for the Eurostar soon. Here’s some pics from St Pancras station that we took last night . Gorgeous station.

Calais photos

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Carleen

I realised that I never actually posted some photos from Calais. From the ferry trip, to the Town Hall (Hotel DeVille), Calais beach and of course food!

Kiwi mates and outdoor events

Posted on July 12, 2009 by Carleen

Thursday night we took off to Oxford to met up with some kiwi mates that are in the UK for a holiday. It was fabulous to catch up, swap stories, talk about NZ and generally have some laughs together. The town was packed with new Uni students! Seriously this time of year is probably not the best for visiting Oxford, thankfully we did it during a week day. I think the weekend would be cranking! We did a walking tour of Oxford as I limped along with my bung leg. Ann and Peter it was great catching up with you both. Hope the rest of your time in the UK goes well.
On Friday we then drove up to Sheffield as Cliffhanger 2009 was on. Basically a weekend of outdoor events, showcasing, stalls, displays and competitions in bouldering, climbing, fell running, orienteering and the like. Sheffield really turns it on. Attempts were made to break the world dyno record (didn’t get broken), scuba diving was underway, kayaking, canoeing, fly casting lessons etc.
On Saturday we headed home and as we got closer to Bristol the weather really packed it in. Oh well, it was a great couple of days away anyway.

Cars, ferries, buses and feet

Posted on June 23, 2009 by Carleen

Finally we had a chance to get away for a weekend. We took off mid afternoon Friday and hit the road to Dover. Probably not the best idea hitting London traffic on a Friday afternoon but amazingly it only added about an extra 15 minutes to our travel time.
From Bristol to Dover is about 3 1/2 hours of mostly highway driving so very easy going however incredibly boring. With the long days of summer in full swing we got to Dover with plenty of daylight hours left to explore.
We stayed just outside of Dover in Alkham at The Marquis. I have yet to do my Trip Advisor recommendation on this hotel but in short it was a lovely stay, fabulously comfortable bed, excellent shower and they even put together a breakfast tray for us as we were leaving in the morning before the normal breakfast sitting started. All this for only 55 pounds. Not bad.
Dover on the other hand was rather less glamorous however this was to be expected as a port city. We got to see the White Cliffs of Dover and Samphire Hoe. This was rather interesting as Samphire Hoe looks like it is a natural cliff face however it has actually been man made from the materials extracted during the Euro Tunnel Channel construction. Amazing! Much less amazing were the White Cliffs. Pretty yes, interesting, not really. I am glad I have seen them but to be honest they didn’t really excite me at all.
It was then off to Folkstone for fish and chips for dinner before hitting bed ready for our ferry adventure to Calais.
Generally foot passengers are a rarity on the ferries. Some don’t even accept them onboard (e.g. Norfolk Line). Here I was being all organised and pre-booking etc and in reality the guy at the counter said there were another 280 seats still available for foot passengers. Even during peak season you can generally be guaranteed a seat.
It was great to go back into France. We spent Saturday eating cheese, bread and pastries, walking on the beach and generally walking all over the town. Then we took a bus ride out to Cite Europe to visit the hypermarkets. This place is HUGE. It has the largest Carrefour supermarket I have ever seen! It could take you hours to walk around here but we weren’t really that keen on doing any shopping. Traditionally Brits come here to stock up on tax free items such as wine, spirits etc. To be honest, unless you are a regular drinker or own a shop I don’t know that it is really that worthwhile. We didn’t even bother buying any cheese as the brands on offer were no different from what we can get in England and the prices were marginally cheaper.
Calais was holding a music festival all weekend so by 4pm the streets had been closed off to cars and we had the run of the town. Live music, food stalls, good vibes. Thankfully our hotel was tucked just off the main street as the music was very loud!
Sunday was spent eating more cheese, bread, pastries and I even had some mussels with Roquefort cheese. Delicious!
Most people I have spoken to wondered why we bothered going to Calais. Personally it was an ideal weekend destination which we found relaxing, full of good food places, a lovely long beach and very easy to walk around. It was only 15 minutes walking time to the port from the city centre so we didn’t even need to bother with the bus. It was also a great opportunity to practice my tragic french! Once I finish downloading the photos I will post some.

Calais here we come

Posted on June 20, 2009 by Carleen

On the ferry to Calais!

Carleen's Blog

Making my way through the world one country at a time

Category Archives: Travel