Day 158 - Now for Amsterdam

Bristol (United Kingdom) to Amsterdam (Netherlands) - Swissotel Amsterdam

After a month in the UK we said our goodbyes and flew to Amsterdam. The flight was short - only around an hour and we were in another country, if only it could be like that back home!

After the train from the airport, we checked into our hotel (another good deal found on the internet) which was on the main street right close to all the action. We took a walk around town, which was very busy, lots of tourists, and had our first look at the canals, cafes and red light district - more on that in a later post!

Day 157 - Last full day in England

Backwell - A&L's House

Shopping, running around on errands and finishing off the washing is the order of our last full day in the UK. A&L left at lunchtime to spend the night on their yacht so we had no excuse now - we needed to tackle the blog. It has become quite a chore in the past month as rather than spending our evenings in hotel rooms playing on the computer we have spent most nights sitting up chatting until quite late.

Perhaps A&L might read this, perhaps not (they have much better things to do than read our blog!) but we'd like to take this opportunity to thank them for all of their  hospitality and kindness over the last month - we have had a lovely time staying with them and their family.

And if anyone is after any free accommodation in the UK, feel free to call them on (oops, only joking guys!).

Day 156 - Time to get organised

Backwell - A&L's House

Today we needed to catch up on the washing and start getting organised to move out of our home for the last month. England has been a nice break in our trip to recharge our batteries, being so like home that everything is familiar and easy. It feels like we have gone home for a break but now we are itching to get going again. We had a lovely last night with A&L's family at an Italian restaurant, it was a nice get together before everyone starts going their separate ways for the summer holidays.

Day 155 - Bath time

Radstock to Backwell - A&L's House

We were a bit surprised this morning when we saw a sign saying 13 miles to Bristol, we didn't realise we were quite that close to "home"! However we found that we had made the right decision  in visiting first thing in the morning as the beautiful town was quite quiet as we headed into the Roman Baths, there were a few people in there but it wasn't too busy.

The Roman Baths were quite interesting, and the way projections and video had been included in the exhibits helped to provide an idea of what it could have been like back when they were in use. When we emerged about a hour later the town was totally different - it was swarming with tourists, the difference was amazing. Our guess is that the day trippers from London had arrived and fortunately we had arrived early enough to miss them. After the Baths we briefly visited Bath Abbey, and saw the memorial to Arthur Phillip, with a small Australian flag above it. 

Bath is a really beautiful town, the river and gardens are splendid (a good British adjective), it also helped that it was such a beautiful day. We found Bath too busy to attempt lunch so picked a place on the coast near Bristol pretty much at random, and found ourselves in Portishead for lunch (nowhere near as splendid as Bath though).

We drove back to our little cottage in the back garden at A&L's house, having decided that our time in the UK is up and it's time to move on. Our original idea was to head to Paris next, but the English summer school holidays have started and there are reports of large crowds heading into France, so after consulting the atlas and the list of destinations directly accessible from Bristol, we chose Amsterdam instead. We booked our flight and some accommodation before finishing the evening with a family game of 6 of us playing canasta (K for the first time, so we did well to come second!).

Day 154 - Were we here yesterday?

Luton to Radstock - Radstock Hotel

Having visited Cambridge yesterday today we had to go via Oxford to keep it fair. We walked around the town, and saw more grand buildings, colleges, and European teenagers .... these places are all starting to blend into each other! The obvious difference we could see between Oxford and Cambridge is that Oxford was more like a "regular" town, and much larger and more spread out, and the historical buildings seemed older and grander. As someone described it to us, Cambridge is a university with a town around it, whereas Oxford is a town with a university in it.

Our destination today was to be Bath but we had been warned not to visit on a weekend, so decided to stay overnight and see the sights the following morning. Of course being a major tourist town and it being the holiday season, the accommodation prices were over the top so we stayed in the nearby town of Radstock instead, about 14km from Bath at a nice English pub with good rooms upstairs and a very helpful publican.
.

Day 153 - Last day in London

London (Leyton) to Luton - Hilton

We decided to visit Camden Market before saying goodbye to London but we seemed to turn up too early as it was very quiet. An hour or so after we arrived so did everyone else and the street became very busy, however the market itself didn't really excite us much (though it was certainly a step up from the markets back home).

We picked up our car back in Leyton and headed off to Cambridge with the view of spending the night there. However we arrived to find the place teeming with hordes of European teenagers, they were traveling in big groups making it very difficult to walk around some of the sights, so after walking the streets to take in some of the grand old buildings, and discovering that accommodation locally was quite expensive, we decided to keep on driving and pick somewhere else to stay the night.

The mystery hotel deals have been good to us so we picked one in Luton and once again got the Hilton, this time for only £50. The room was very nice and only a short drive from town, so we were very pleased with ourselves.

Day 152 - You call that art?

London (Leyton) - All Seasons Leyton

Today was the day to take in all the free London sights that we can fit into one day. Tate Modern was first on the list as we whizzed around taking in all the modern art our brains could handle. There were some amazing works of art there - photographs, paintings, sculptures, installations ..... though of course there were also pieces that we thought we could have done ourselves .....

We then went for a change of scenery and returned to the more staid National Gallery with it's collections of  old, formal and religious paintings. Unfortunately we had a pretty hectic schedule today, so we had to leave before seeing the whole place - maybe next time?. 

Finally a dash to the Bristish Museum, fortunately as it was Friday it closed late. There we saw (amongst many other things) the Elgin Marbles, which we strongly feel should be returned to the Parthenon. We have come across this at a number of museums we have visited in different countries, and it's hard to believe that these days museums aren't prepared to return significant relics to the country of origin.

Day 151 - Not Invited

London (Leyton) - All Seasons Leyton

Today we visited Windsor Castle which is quite a long way out of London so we had a few train changes to get there, but the final stop drops you right off in the middle of Windsor. The flag was flying from the round tower so we knew the Queen was at home, but rather rudely she didn't come down to say hello, which was a bit poor when it had taken us such a long time to get there, we really had to go out of our way. We visited Queen Mary's huge doll house, the chapel and the amazing state rooms. The state rooms were very grand with lots of portraits of past royalty, and some of the rooms were being set up for functions to be held that evening - once again we were not invited.

We arrived back into the centre of London determined to use our London Pass as much as we could on it's last day, so we took a cruise on the Thames to Greenwich and back. It was raining on the way there but like fools we continued to sit on the top deck with our umbrella offering us little protection from the rain, but at least we could say we'd experienced English weather at its finest.

Day 150 - So it's not really a tower?

London (Leyton) - All Seasons Leyton

One of the good things about the London Pass is that it allows you to skip the entrance queues at some of the attractions saving quite a bit of time. We started the day with the Tower of London, and we were both surprised by the size of the place, as in our colonial naivety we had always thought it was just a "tower" but of course it is a huge castle complex. It was really interesting taking in all the history in the different sections, all the names, stories and history that you absorb over the years and here was the place where it all had happened. Although there were lots of people there the place is so big that it didn't feel crowded.

We then walked onto the Tower Bridge, visited the Tower Bridge Exhibition, then walked across the bridge and through the engine rooms before pushing on and taking the tube to Kensington Palace. This was quite disappointing (for K anyway) as it is in the throes of renovation, there was no furniture instead they had a strange exhibition of sorts set up in a few rooms that seemed more geared to little girls or fans of gloomy teenage fiction, it was very short on historical info. Then again, at least it was a change from the usual display of royal extravagance and wealth that we've seen elsewhere (well, according to M).

We wandered through Kensington Gardens to the Princess Diana memorial fountain (K's idea, not M's) and then through Hyde Park to Harrods. We found Harrods way too busy for our liking, too squashy and squeezy with tourists, so we quickly headed back to the streets to get the train to Notting Hill. Unfortunately there was drama on that line so we ended up giving up and heading back to Covent Garden to watch some street performer (from Adelaide of all places), who spent more time telling poor jokes and exhorting the crowd to give generously than actually being entertaining.

Day 149 - How to miss the crowds?

London (Leyton) - All Seasons Leyton

Westminster Abey

First stop was the London Tourist Centre to collect the London Pass we had ordered online. We bought a 3 day pass that lets you in without additional charge to 50 of the main attractions in London (not that it's possible to see 50 places in three days).

As the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace was at 11:30am, we thought we would be smart and try to see the nearby Royal Mews beforehand, expecting that it would be very crowded later. Luckily we were right and we managed to see royal cars and carriages, as well as horses all decked out pulling those fancy carriages around the courtyard.

We walked back to Buckingham Palace around 11:20am. We found that the crowds were quite a few people deep and it was very difficult to see anything. On top of that the whole thing was incredibly slow and boring, 20 minutes was about enough for us so we headed off to view the paintings and jewels in the Queen's Gallery.

From there we walked over to Westminster Abbey and were shocked to see the length of the queues, fortunately our queue moved fairly quickly. The Abbey was quite a sight, it was amazing to see the burial places of the various kings and queens, as well as memorials to other famous people.

Leicester Square

We followed this up with a visit to St Paul's Cathedral, also very impressive inside and out, before going to Leicester Square and squeezing in an hour or so at the National Gallery at the end of the day before everything closed.

Day 148 - We feel like we have landed in the middle of a Monopoly Board

Backwell to London (Leyton) - All Seasons Leyton

We extended our car rental for a few more days and headed off to drive to London. The whole driving thing would have been a nightmare without our trusty GPS - it has definitely saved us a lot of time and frustration, not to mention arguments!

Leaving our car at our hotel, we caught the tube to Picadilly Circus and after walking out of the underground looked around at all the signs and felt like we were in a game of Monopoly, all those familiar names right in front of us!

We walked off in a random direction and found ourselves at Clarence House, just a stone's throw from Buckingham Palace, St James Park, 10 Downing Street, Big Ben, the London Eye - all those famous sights and we'd only been in town for about an hour or so. We just wandered around following our nose and found so many major sights close by, the extended daylight hours helping us to make the most of the day.

Day 147 - More quaint villages ......

Backwell - A&L's House

Anne Hathaway's Cottage

Although today's forecast was still dismal we decided we couldn't sit around all weekend, so we headed off early for a drive to the Cotswolds. This actually worked in our favour, as for the first part of the day we were ahead of the tour buses which we presume were running day trips out of London.

First stop was Castle Combe, which was relatively quiet as it was still quite early. Next town was the picturesque village of Bourton on the Water, where we had to dodge the Japanese teenagers on a school trip that had taken over the footpath, on our way to a tea room for an overpriced and lukewarm "hot" chocolate.

Next destination was Stratford-on-Avon to visit Anne Hathaway's cottage and Shakespeare's birthplace, once again running into the same school group. After driving through more pretty villages we drove home via Stonehenge, but this late in the afternoon there was no way of avoiding the hordes of tour buses. However as the site covers a large area it didn't feel too busy as we wandered around while listening to our audio guide with its different theories surrounding the history of Stonehenge (though there was no mention of it having been built by aliens).

We made it back in time to collect three of A's four children (Storm, Jasper and Ingeline - Kier was at a friend's house) for a nice pub meal with their dad Nigel  - once again for K a catchup on the past 16 years.

We spent the evening trying to find accommodation in London for the week that didn't involve having to spend £250 per night and wasn't booked out. Just as we were finding it all very daunting we widened our perimeter and came across a hotel that was a 15 minute walk to the station and half an hour on the Underground for "only" £80 a night, with free parking.

Day 146 - Cancelled due to English weather

Backwell - A&L's House

We picked the right day to leave Cornwall as the weather had turned something shocking, with widespread rain across most of England forecast. We had intended to go to the Cotswolds for the day, but instead spent the day catching up on domestic chores, including cooking our first meal since we left the camper van in Namibia around four months ago.

Day 145 - All these villages are starting to look the same ....

Porthleven to Backwell - A&L's house

We were sorry to have to say goodbye to Porthleven and the lovely house on the beach especially as the weather had been so delightful, but since the house had been rented out to some paying customers we had no choice!

We returned to Backwell via the Cornish village of Padstow (home to Rick Stein, for those who know about English TV chefs), but all these places are now starting to look the same to us i.e. nice little harbour with a few fishing boats outnumbered by pleasure yachts, shops selling either sweets, Cornish pasties, fish and chips, or nautical bric-a-brac (in a nice shade of blue of course), hundreds (if not thousands) of tourists like us roaming the streets with cameras, and  locals whipping their tops off at the first sign of the sun peeking out from behind a cloud!

Day 144 - And then there were two

Porthleven, A&L's Holiday House

This morning A and L had to return to Bristol to catch their flight to Turkey for their proper honeymoon, a shame really as it was so warm and such a perfect day. As we had a decent internet connection here, we decided we'd have a lazy day, to catch up on some overdue work on the blog, answer emails, and pay bills without the distraction of someone offering a glass of champagne and nibbles!

Day 143 - Sun and more sun

Porthleven, A&L's Holiday House

The Lizard

Today we went a little further afield visiting the very busy seaside town of St Ives and enjoying fish and chips on the beach while trying to protect our food from the massive, bold English seagulls. One pecked a hole in K's take a way food container when she looked away for a second, another swooped in and stole a sandwich from a young child just near us, who now probably suffers from laridaphobia as a result.

A further drive to The Lizard, the southernmost point of England, where we strolled around and watched the seals swimming nearby. Back in Porthleven we walked along the beach as afar as we could go before the tide came in, and finished our "exhausting" day with dinner and champagne on the veranda (again).

Day 142 - No pirates here

Porthleven, A&L's Holiday House

We woke to the crashing ocean and bright blue sky with eggs and bacon sizzling on the stove - talk about spoilt!

After breakfast we went to St. Michael's Mount, a castle on an island that can be walked to at low tide. We cut it fairly fine on our return as the incoming (and freezing) tide reached above our knees, yet even as we were reaching the shore people were still starting across - including young children - even though there are boats to ferry people back and forth when the tide is too high.

After that we alll headed off separately for the afternoon to give the newly married couple some time on their own. We drove through Penzance but didn't see any pirates, so settled on the cute village of Mousehole for lunch, before continuing on to Land's End, the westernmost tip of mainland England. After taking in a cheesy "4D" movie (there is a very touristy group of attractions and shops there) we strolled along the coastline around Lands End, before heading back for a lovely dinner on the holiday house's veranda overlooking the ocean. Another fun, late night was had by all as we said goodbye to the rest of the "Aussie" contingent who had to leave in the morning.

Day 141 - Attending someone else's honeymoon

Bristol to Porthleven - A&L's Holiday House

Of course the planned early morning start didn't eventuate, as no-one had packed the night before, and all of A's children slept in and were late for school. After returning M's hired suit to Bristol, we commenced our journey to Cornwall. We stopped at Lydford Gorge for lunch, then proceeded to walk it off with a nice walk through the gorge.

On route to our destination we saw some signs to a place called Launceston, so of course we had to stop off there on the way (we don't think we'll ever see a place called "Geelong" here though). We arrived mid-afternoon at A&L's lovely beachside holiday home in the fishing village of Porthleven (though the fishermen seem to be outnumbered by tourists these days). We walked to the local pub for dinner with A, L, and L's children who had flown in from Perth (WA, not Scotland) for the wedding. We found it a little strange to be on someone else's honeymoon, but with so many people it does make it a lot of fun.

Day 138 to Day 140 - Wedding Bells

Backwell - A's House

Day 138 - All throughout the day we heard bursts of song from A&L - "I'm getting married in the morning ....". They are so well prepared that it is all very relaxed and everything seems to be under control. K headed off for her first hair appointment since leaving home while M picked up his rented suit, and in the afternoon we all headed out for dinner at a nice pub near the Clifton Suspension Bridge, along with a number of other wedding guests who had arrived from all over England, as well as A's friends and relatives from Denmark.

Day 139 (The Wedding Day) - We awoke to bucketing rain - a real surprise as the weather until now had been so beautiful! The house was full and bustling with activity, there were make-up and hairdressing ladies along with the rest of the troop that gathers on these sorts of days.

Miraculously the rain stopped as we were all ready to leave for the gorgeous old village stone church. After a lovely traditional service (with some not-so-traditional, but very entertaining readings) the vintage car was sent for to take the couple to the reception, however it wouldn't start. There was an attempt to push start the car, but to no avail. Eventually they headed off in a friend's Bentley convertible, we followed soon after in our Ford Fiesta.

It was a very long, but very enjoyable day. We had a delightful time, it was a beautiful afternoon and people were so friendly that we gathered many offers of accommodation for our travels, including from as far afield as Denmark. Around midnight we gathered up some of A's children and headed back home, while the die-hards partied on for a little longer.

Day 140 - Another busy day as the bride and groom (who had stayed at Redwood Lodge) arrived home, followed by numerous guests arriving for cupcakes and coffee throughout the day. As it was another nice day we headed to the nearby seaside resort of Weston-Super-Mare, had fish and chips by the sea, took a walk along the pier (with its amusement arcade), then a walk along the beach, where we were amused to see people sunbaking and swimming in temperatures where we were considering whether we needed a jacket.We finished the day with a lovely dinner with A, L and the children, with plans for an early start to tomorrow to travel to Cornwall.

Day 134 to Day 137 - Heading north (and back again)

Day 134 : Backwell to Glasgow - The Hilton

As the wedding isn't until Saturday, we decided to spend a few days exploring England and Scotland. People we spoke to were surprised that we'd consider driving straight to Scotland, but we drive further on our holidays back home. We headed off early and travelled via the Lakes District, stopping at a place called Keswick for lunch, which was quite touristy, however the area around it was very beautiful with the lakes (of course) and the villages.

We had been told by K's Scottish friend Nicola that we should honk the horn three times and yell "freeeddduuuum" in true William Wallace style as we crossed the border into Scotland - but we didn't (nor did anyone else that crossed with us).

We stopped at Motherwell to see Nicola and walked around Strathclyde Loch nearby. Nicola told us we were lucky enough to enjoy the nicest day that they expected to have all summer, it must have been all of about 24 degrees!

We arrived at Glasgow in the evening, checked into our "mystery hotel" that we'd booked through lastminute.com, which ended up being the Hilton.


Day 135: Glasgow to Edinburgh, Smart@IQ 

We walked from our hotel into the streets of Glasgow, not a sunny as yesterday but still not cold. The old Glasgow Cathedral with it's amazing history was interesting, as one of the US tourists said "Some of these plaques are older than our country!". From there we headed to the People's Palace with the Doulton Fountain, the largest terracotta fountain in the world, with figures depicting the Commonwealth at the time it was built in 1888 - Australia, Canada, India and South Africa.

The People's Palace was very interesting, with its museum covering life over the years for the local Glaswegians. It also has a beautiful indoor glass house garden which we expect would be popular on Scottish winter days.

In the afternoon we drove the hour or so to Edinburgh expecting to have the same good luck with lastminute.com that we had the night before. However we discovered that Edinburgh is much more popular with the tourists, and therefore much more expensive, so we settled on a £60 place, only to turn up and find that it was student accommodation. Although we were taken aback at first, as it turned out it was quite nice - newly refurbished, and it appeared that noone had ever stayed in our room. It was a nice little studio apartment for (we presume) students from quite wealthy families!


Day 136: Edinburgh to Corbridge, Norgate B&B

It was a nice stroll to the top of Edinburgh Castle where we were met by a swarm of tourists for the changing of the guard. However we have no idea what they were guarding as it's only a tourist attraction. We found the number of people quite overwhelming and we are wondering whether Europe will be like this as well.

We then walked the Royal Mile to Hollyrood Castle, Queen Elizabeth's Scottish Residence (dropping in to Edinburgh Cathedral along the way) only to find the palace closed as the Queen was in town, but wasn't expecting us. Instead we did the next best thing and visited the Royal Yacht Britannia. The yacht has been left with all its original furniture including the very 60's plastic woven on metal legs that were all the rage when we were babies. It was interesting that the only double bed on board was the one Charles had put in for his honeymoon, even the Queen's was just a single bed. We debated taking afternoon tea on the top deck but decided it was probably hideously expensive so decided to save our money, so continued our journey, driving back to England and spending a night at a B&B in Corbridge, with a meal at a typical English pub.


Day 137: Corbridge to Backwell, A's House

A lovely driving day today taking in some of the eastern side of England. First stop was Hadrians Wall, built by the Romans in the 2nd century AD. We checked out a section of the wall in a field near Chollerton, then visited Chesters Roman Fort. Walking Hadrian's Wall is very popular, as we could tell by the number of people we saw, including our fellow guests at the B&B we stayed at.

After the fort we drove to Durham and visited the impressive cathedral there, then on to York where we took a trip through a reconstructed Viking village before visiting yet another cathedral. We made it back to Backwell just after 10pm, just as the sun was going down. It is lovely being able to enjoy the incredibly long days, so far we have been doing really well at seeing countries at their best and the UK has certainly turned on charming weather for us.

Day 129 to Day 133 - How lucky to have friends with a yacht!

Backwell - A&L's House

Yes, it's been a while since our last post. Since arriving in England we've been pretty busy, too busy to update the blog! But as we have a little time up our sleeves now, we'll see if we can bring it up to date.

Day 129 - We have settled in to our lovely summer house in Anita and Laurence's (we'll call them A&L from now on) back garden, just outside the nice village of Backwell near Bristol. We spent the day catching up on 4 and a half months of washing, finally we have access to hot water and a washing machine! During the morning M went with a walk around Backwell with L - the English system of public footpaths means anyone can walk through a farmer's fields, as long as they stick to the path. Later in the afternoon we headed off to Cardiff, Wales to have a lovely sail on A&L's yacht. We went through the barrages on the mouth of Cardiff Bay and out to the ocean, before heading back to the harbour and parking our yacht using the same "pay and display" ticket system that you use to park your car. A pretty late night (early morning) for K and A as they attempt to catch up on the last 16 years.

Day 130 - Today we hired a small car for the next few weeks (only around $27 per day). We enjoyed a walk over the Clifton Suspension Bridge over the Avon Gorge, one of Bristol's key landmarks, before collecting our hosts from their tennis lesson and then having a nice dinner at our first English Pub.

Day 131 - Enjoying our new found freedom of having our own car after nearly four months of public transport, we headed into Bristol to take in the SS Great Britain (once the largest ship in the world) and the Harbourside area before visiting the stately mansion of Tyntesfield. Unfortunately the mansion was closed but we were able to tour the extensive gardens and associated buildings.

Day 132 - First stop today was a suit hire place so M could arrange a suit for A&L's wedding. Then we headed to Cabot Circus to do some shopping, where  we were very pleased to have some nice Thai food for lunch after four months of African and Turkish food (in fact we enjoyed it so much we went to another Thai restaurant for dinner). We dropped into Tyntesfield again on our way home, but all tickets to enter the house had been sold for the day. 

Day 133 - We are getting rather lazy but enjoying the break from constantly packing, climbing onto buses for long trips and trying to work out where to go next. It feels like we have gone home for a break as everything is so easy and familiar and apart from the occasional person who struggles with our Aussie twang everyone understand us!  Today we started with a trip back to Cabot Circus to by an iPad for K (M is still not convinced that it's a good idea ....), some wedding present shopping at another Mall outside town, then back to A&L's house, we had a lovely afternoon and evening in the sun enjoying a BBQ in the garden with L's extended family.