Weve been pretty well occupied throughout July and August since our June trip to France. The garden has been looking absolutely splendid, helped by a lot of glorious weather and no battering of heavy wind and rain. The almost drought conditions of August have left it a bit dry in places but we have had no hosepipe ban and in fact have had some rain where lots of England has not. Gentle soft rain, Read on...
Our transatlantic Royal Caribbean ship docked in Cadiz at 8AM giving us plenty of time for breakfast. Once again, to be on the safe side, we signed up for the ship tour, this time our last exploration of Spain: Cadiz and Jerez de la Frontera. Booking the ships tour gave us assurity that the ship would not sail without us! The ship was scheduled to depart at 6PM which gave us ample time to explore Read on...
Is this what Birdsville really like? Thats we made in unison as we entered the main street last evening. Two vehicles parked beside the pub, occupants probably seated at the bar, lone attendants at the 2 fuel services, no one wandering about and only 3 vehicles with their vans in the (12.2ha) caravan park with their owners seated around a fire conversing. Not even a dog in sight. As the night wor Read on...
We woke early (5:30am), as we had an early start. We were leaving for Vientiane at 8am, and it was our last destination in Laos. We headed down to Phetchaleun Hotels large dining area at 7am, where I helped myself to a fresh baguette, omelette, tea, coffee and the ubiquitous orange cordial that our Laotian hosts always offered in the morning.
With we loaded our packs into a minibus and made our w Read on...
South side of the Douro so we are in Vila Nova de Gaia not Porto. Technical difference but important to locals! No one wants to be called a ‘tripe eater when theyre not!
Talking food the ship served a ‘francesinha on board today. Poor substitute for the real thing and significantly smaller but it probably meant considerably fewer heart attacks than serving good ones.
After breakfast we walke Read on...
Day 2 - following silly sat nag . We put in Dundrennan . She should have found it . She got one on her and we ended up down a narrow lane with no sign of an abbey of any kind . We switched her off and got out the map. She was not far wrong . Probably if we had continued along the narrow road we would out in the village of Dundrennan and found the abbey. Instead we turned round in an old abandoned Read on...
We were going to get the hop on hop off bus but we got sidetracked and ended up doing a bit of shopping. We looked in Hard Rock Cafe, Old Navy and some souvenir shops. Luckily, we had put our coats in our backpacks coz it started to rain. We decided that we were too late to start on the bus and besides we would have gotten wet coz its opened aired at the top.
We went to Top of the Rock at Rockefe Read on...
So what is your favourite garden then ? I asked . The reply from the driver about the best garden he had ever seen was exactly the same as the one that was going round my head . Ninfa Glenn said. Yes I agree Our memory of our day in the Italian garden of Ninfa remained long in the memory. The sun had been shining and we had wandered around the beautiful garden . There was none like it . We had ne Read on...
How many of you have stayed at a hotel, AirBnB, rental condo, or hostel that has a free book library? By free book, I mean leaving a book of yours, and taking a different one. Other names for these are library, free lending library, and take one, leave one. I have seen them in other places as well, on cute little Cul de sacs in my neighborhood, the YMCA, and Friends of the Library. Trading books h Read on...
Another fine, sunny and calm day. Wow! We know it can blow like mad here as weve been in Tekapo a couple of times before in strong winds, so its not always faultless.
As always, we stopped at the bottom of Lake Pukaki to admire the view up the lake to the Alps beyond. They clear apart from a few clouds sitting on the back of the Alps on the West Coast side. The view was yet again, absolutely stun Read on...