Sunshine and two icecreams a day

So I think that tonight will be our last night in Croatia. We are in a resorty town called Makarska, somewhere between Split and Dubrovnik. We were going to spend another night in Dubrovnik and maybe go out on a boat excursion but due to some miscalculation of the current date, we managed to book our ferry a day too early. Oh well, it just means that we'll be getting to Greece a day earlier.



We camped out again last night on the island of Murter. It was scorching hot and Gem even managed to get me to go out for a swim (that's no easy task). However we could see some dark clouds chasing us from the north and could hear the thunder rolling in as well. This was a pretty flash camping ground so we decided that we would have dinner in their restaurant rather than try to cook up a storm in the rain. We decided to have dinner inside rather than pick a table on the terrace. We made the right decision as everyone outside got rained upon and rushed inside not long after we sat down. Fortunately the clouds quickly moved on and the good weather returned. This is more like it! For dinner we ordered a fish platter (since we are right by the sea) which came out with two fat fish, giant prawns, mussels and squid. I still find seafood lots of work to eat but it was definitely tasty.

Today we drove on to Split in the scorching heat. It was really just too hot to do much touristing and we had a look around the old town and had some icecream before moving on. We're staying in a proper room tonight since we thought it would be a good idea to get a proper nights sleep before we catch the night ferry tomorrow. We've just got deck seats on the ferry so I'm not sure how well we'll sleep. If it turns out to be terrible we'll make sure we get a cabin on the ferry to Greece.

So bye for now, we're just going down to the beachside to have dinner. This is the life :)


PS: We watched the sunset by the beach as we ate our pizzas. It was absolutely beautiful. Had a nice walk around the tourist shops and restaurants along the waterside. Simply a lovely evening. Definitely the life :)

More Rain, yes really!!!

So we haven't had a day without rain since Austria, and it seems like ages ago. I'm not talking about a shower here and there, I'm talking about full on thunder and lightening and Monsoon type rain. I was expecting it to be sunny, but seems no, that's not our lot in life. We are camping again today anyway along the coast of Croatia, it it really beautiful and it was actually scorching hot when we arrived. Luckily we are smart to the weather now so set up everything properly first and shut the door before walking across the grass to the beach. We felt like we were going to melt completely until we got our feet in the water which seemed freezing. oo so refreshing. :) the tiny bay we are in is so cute, just a campsite with a few tents and caravans and a few boats tied up. the water is amazingly clear. As we finished up we heard the ominous sound of thunder rolling around. Really? Really? Again? Oh yes, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the tent whilst massive thunder and lightening crashed all around.



I couldn't resist the water even tho it was raining so i went for a swim, (Jez thinks I'm weird but that's nothing new), it seemed warmer than when the sun was out and it made the rain seem warm!!! It was so beautiful, if i stood really still i could see the fish swimming around my feet!!

The rain cleared long enough to eat our dinner and watch a fisherman set his nets and now its back but not with so much force!!! luckily our tent seems to be coping with everything we (and the sky) are throwing at it!!

Croatia

Well we woke up to the scorching sun again which quickly dried off the tent. We packed up the tent just in time before another light shower (what's up with this weather?) and hit the road again. We were a bit worried because the car seemed to be a smoking a bit when we put the accelerator down hard but I think it seems to be better now. We drove down through Slovenia and crossed the border into Croatia. This is the first time we've been out of the EU in a year! As we drove down to Pula it seems that the torrential rain from last night has returned again for a second round. The rain was so hard that we decided to pull into a motorway cafe to wait it out as visibility was pretty bad. We got drenched just going from the car to the cafe (about 5 meters)! Not sure where this barbeque summer people have been talking about is, its certainly not here.

The weather has actually fined up quite a bit now that we're in Pula. There was a light shower at dinner time and despite the wet it has always been really warm (t-shirt and shorts weather). We walked around the town and took heaps of photos of the Roman Amphitheatre which features a complete outer wall. The town also has lots of other old roman buildings and ruins with random arches dotted around the inner town. I think the plan for the next few days is to slowly work our way down the coast so hopefully the weather will be good for us to make use of the many campgrounds along the way :)

Lake Bled

So yesterday we left Innsbruck behind and traveled to Lake Bled in Slovenia. But the fastest way to do this was actually to head up the motorway into Germany, then back into Austria and finally through a tunnel into Slovenia. If it wasn't for Tom, which is the name we've given the TomTom (original, I know!), then we probably would've just taken the smaller roads, not knowing that we'd save an hour by staying on the motorway even though its in the wrong direction! For those that asked, TomTom is a brand of SatNav, so Tom just shows us where to go. Generally he's the most useful when we're travelling in a town where the big country map doesn't show more than a shaded blob.



Now Lake Bled is absolutely amazing. Lonely planet says it "seems too good to be true" and I can see why they think that. The lake is glacial so its a dazzling emerald green and the water is perfectly clear. To top that off, in the middle of the lake is a tiny islet with a medieval church rising out of the trees. The weather was scorching when we arrived and we quickly set up camp at Camping Bled which is right at the top of the lake, opposite Bled town. We went for a quick walk around a bit of the lake before deciding to hire a row boat and row across the lake. Being complete tourists we picked a boat that is decorated like a swan. We rowed all the way around the island, snapping photos as we went and then anchored up to explore it. As we walked around the edge we could see huge schools of fish shading themselves under the trees.



When we got back to the campground we noticed that there was a "zoo" on the mapboard and upon further investigation we found three lambs in pen. And there was a lady there throwing bits of bread to the lambs, who were clearly not interested in eating it. Very weird. We cooked up some dinner just before a brief shower (we had some yummy kebabs). Next we thought we'd head down to the camp cafe for some dessert. This turned out to be a bad idea. While down there the sky opened up and there was a torrential downpour, complete with thunder and lightning. We got absolutely drenched on the way back to save the tent (we stupidly left the door up) and there was sheets of water running down the paths. Next time I think we'll just skip dessert, either that or remember to close up the tent nomatter what the weather looks like.

Lots of new posts

Hi all!!!!

Its been a while since we've actually been able to upload all the things we've been doing but thanks to the power of technology we have been writing almost everyday on the laptop, so here goes today we have finally found an internet cafe where we can upload all our posts. So happy reading... :)

The first one in todays group is Luxembourg (click here to go there :))
Click on the "Newer Post" button at the end of each post to go to the next one.

Love Gem and Jez

PS please make comments on the blogs, we love reading them cos then we know that you're looking and what you think.
PPS to the Merediths, we never know which one you are but we just guess and it makes it just as fun :)

Innsbruck

We are having a chill out for a few days here in Innsbruck in Austria. We have a few boring type things to get done such as Laundry and updating Tomtom maps to get done so we decided we deserved a break. Plus today in Slovenia, our next destination, is National Day, a public holiday where everything will either be shut or really busy!!!!



Yesterday we saw a bit of the Bodensee (Lake Constance) as we drove past, sadly the clouds are still around so we didnt see much, I think there were some mountains surrounding it but not that we could tell. Once we managed to locate the Austrian border (having gone through Switzerland to ge there (Europe is cool!!!)) and get our Vingette to allow us to go on the motorway we actually started to relaise how high up we are now and that we are actaually in the Alps, as the mountains started poking out.



The motorway from Bodensee to Innsbruck is the most scenic we have been on so far and it was amazing!!! the really steep mountains just go up and up really dramaticlly right by the road, covered in forest and with little villages clinging on. And when the mountains are too much the Austrains just make a tunnel. There were loads of tunnels everywhere, the longest we went through was about 13 kms i think, it just kept on going!!!!!

Innsburck is a pretty big town with a cute medieval old town right in the middle, we are staying in a Gausthof right in the center, from the window we can see the river and all the cool old buildings. Its soo interesting as we travel around seeing how the houses change as we move from country to country. Austrians must actually wear traditional dress sometimes as there seem to be loads of shops selling leiderhosen and dresses and hats. or maybe its just to con the toruists into paying 300 euros for a costume!!!



After getting most of our chores done last night, today we have reverted to tourist mode and climbed up the city tower. The cloud has lifted a bit so we got a great view of some of the mountains surrounding the town. so beautiful. We also have visited the Hofkirche where the Hapsberg Emporer Maximillion has his tomb (not that he's actually in it tho!!!) there are heaps of bigger than life size statues around it of all his family, ancestors and people he wished were his ancestors like King Arthur of England!!!!!!

Water, water, everywhere

Well lots of water on the cards today, but first we had to pack up the tent. While packing up the flysheet we had taken out all of the tent pegs. While folding up the flysheet the rest of the tent leaped up in the wind and we had to chase it down the path as it hopped and skipped just a fraction ahead of us. Fortunately we caught it and finished packing up. We continued on the tourist route through the Black Forest and found our way to a town called Triberg which is where all the cuckoo clocks originate from. There are thousands of cuckoo clocks all hand-craved from wood. The ticking in the shop was deafening! They were a bit out of our price range though as one clock that an american couple was looking at was 800 Euros! Also while in Triberg we had a slice of Black Forest cake which was very yummy.



Gem: mmmmm cake, the first reason we went to the black forest, and it was totally worth it :)

We then drove on into Switzerland, but just for a few hours to visit the Rheinfall. It was a bit odd crossing the border as there was a big toll station just before the border which didn't seem to have any purpose and the guard was just nodding people through. Two kms down the road was the actual border where the Swiss border patrol people gave us a great map which showed us how to get to Rheinfall without having to go on the toll motorways (we must not be the only ones :)). The Rheinfall is the biggest waterfall in Europe and the sheer amount of water passing infront of you is amazing. The signboard says that on about 250-600 cubic metres of water flow over it every second! Its not the tallest of waterfalls being only 23m high but since its the Rhine river its just really really fat.



Gem: Geeking it up aside, its just massive and really cool. There was loads of mist everywhere.

Thats pretty much it for today, apart from the total downpour of rain which gives this post its title. We're now just on the edge of Lake Constance in its namesake town Konstanz. Normally we'd go wandering around the town about now, but its still pouring with rain and we're pretty tired. I hope the weather improves soon because its a shame to be missing out on some of the scenery when its just mist.

The ground is hard

We were just talking about how comfortable our camping setup is. What with a tent large enough to sit and lounge in, iPod with speakers playing music, camp stove to cook with, and even a laptop to blog from. Oh and not to forget a nice comfy airbed to sleep on. The height of luxury, or so we thought. Unfortunately it was not to last. Last night, just as it was getting dark we discovered that the airbed had developed a leak. In fact it had two leaks. We hadn't thought this far ahead and had not obtained a repair kit for it so we had to make do with some sticky plasters. After taping it all up it was still not perfect and we ended up on the floor several times in the night and had to pump the bed up again. Not the recipe for a good nights sleep!



Anyway, back to our travels, we were last staying at the hostel/castle Burg Stahleck. After a continental breakfast we drove on for about half an hour before saying goodbye to the Rhine. We jumped onto the Autobahn and sped along to Baden-Baden. I think that German number plates are area coded since we've been seeing ones that start with TR (Trier) and COC (Cochem). Amusingly the ones in this area start with BAD (Baden-Baden).

Now we're in the Black Forest. Gem tells me its not because the trees are black (because they aren't) but because its so thick and dark. The scenery is amazing and completely different from that of the last few days. I didn't realize that we'd be so high up in the hills. Looking out from the top of a hill over the forest is breathtaking. One thing we've noticed about houses around this area is that they're really big and mostly roof. I guess it must snow lots here in winter. We've also seen huge stacks of firewood by the country houses which also points to a cold winter. It was raining on and off all day and we had to put the tent up in the rain. But we are camping in a town called Shiltach right beside the river Kinzig. Shiltach is a cute wee town with lots of historic looking buildings. Its been quite an important town back in the day as it used the river to raft logs and goods down to the Rhine and then from there as far as places like Holland!

more to come

Hey just a quick note to say that we are in the black forest at the mo. we will blog more once we have some more internet time.

We stayed in a castle last night on the rhine valley which was realy cool.

love us

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair

So our tent survived a small amount of rain and was a bit damp in the morning. But we dried it off and were on our way. We headed up the last part of the Mosel to Koblenz for lunch. Koblenz didn't really impress us much as it was mostly shut up for Sunday and it was raining on and off on us. We took some snapshots where the Mosel joins the Rhine and then we got back into the car and headed on up a new river. Along the way we saw some very pretty castle ruins dotted up and down the Rhine and one round tower sitting alone by the side of the road looked just how I imagined Rapunzel's tower looking.

Its been raining quite a lot today and I'm quite glad that we didn't decide to go on a boat trip out on the Rhine as it would not have been pleasant. Quite happy sitting in the nice dry car and admiring the scenery through the rain. We did get out of the car and had a quick look around St Goar but the wetness persuaded us not to wander too far away. Our final destination was Bacharach, so all in all a short day of travelling.



The best thing today, without a doubt, is that we are staying in a youth hostel that is situated in the remains of a castle called Burg Stahleck! There is a round tower six stories high which houses the dorms and we're staying in a little two bunk room just behind it. The hallways are a bit claustraphobic and the windows are a bit oddly placed but it is really just an awesome place for accomodation. I don't think there has ever been a place where we've taken so many photos of the hostel we're staying in. I would definitely put this at the top of the list if you're ever travelling in this area.



You should be able to see our room in the picture, its the one with the slanted windows in the middle of the photo.
Gem's comment is: "YAY!!!! We're staying in a castle!!!! This is AWESOME!!!"

Mosel Valley

Todays blog is brought to you by the words Pretty, Amazing, Beautiful (and the letter P). That pretty much sums up the Mosel Valley. It is amazingly beautiful, as we have driven along the road by the river we have just been admiring the scenery, the sides of the valley are all planted with grapes, there must be milions of vines along the place. Just the area around the village of Zell had 6 million vines.



We are staying in Cochem this evening, we had Schnitzel out for dinner which was really yummy and drank a bottle of Mosel Reisling which was lovely, a very sweet wine but very drinkable :)

All the towns are so pretty too, they have loads of old buildings with elabourate timber decorations and ruined castles on the hill tops everywhere. Plus the backdrop of forest and vineyards and the very still and large Mosel River flowing throught it. Each cute slate roofed town on the river side had a tall steep stepled church pointing up in the middle. Really, beautiful doesnt quite describe it, it is great and we are loving it.

Luxembourg and Germany

So I think we could've planned yesterday a bit better. I think we should have realised that we were going to be tired from getting up early and from the ferry crossing and booked some accomodation closer at hand. We got into Namur (Namen) and we decided to go try the campground that was in the lonely planet. We got lost a bit and Gem found the traffic and driving on the right a bit stressful and then we found that the campground we were looking for wasn't even there! I think that it must have closed down and the lonely planet is just out of date. Not to mention the TomTom also thought it was there but there was still nothing :(. We ended up going to a youth hostel which ended up being great since we got a whole room to ourselves. Namur is pretty town with a scenic river running through it but all we did was walk around and take some pictures.

Since then we've crossed another two borders into Luxembourg and into Germany. We visited the Chateau de Bourscheid which had fairy-tale-like round pointed towers.



Of course we climbed up the tower and had a good view of the surrounding valley. Driving through Luxembourg we took a lot of smaller roads to get to the Chateau and we found that its a really pretty country. Following our friend Lazlo's advice we made sure we fuelled up in Luxembourg which was wicked because diesel was almost 20c cheaper than elsewhere. Yay.

We're now camped just on the edge of Trier and at the start of the Mosel Valley. The river runs right through Trier and its really pretty. They really know how to do rivers here in Europe. The Mosel and Rhine valleys will make up the first really scenic part of our trip so we're very excited to start travelling along the river tomorrow :).

Blog Maken

Ok, so we're sitting in a motorway services somewhere in Belgium. We're not sure where since I pushed the wrong button on the Tomtom and it demanded a new activation code. But its working now with a new code from the internet and we're back in business. We had a really early start out of Fareham this morning (5:30AM!) and made really good time over to Dover. Ferry crossing was uneventful (this is a good thing from my perspective :)) and we've driven a couple of hundred miles into Europe. I think we're just past Brussells and so far no incidents related to driving on the wrong side of the road.

We'll quickly recap the last couple of days since we didn't go into any detail last night. We went to Beaulieu Palace House the morning after camping. Its a lovely wee stately home with a ruined abbey and a monorail! The house was cool because there were family portraits with commentaries by the current Earl underneath them. They were written in a light hearted style and included family stories and scandals.

We stopped off for a picnic lunch in Titchfield Abbey before heading on. We arrived in Fareham to be greeted by Jean (Christine's cousin) and she showed us around some of the places where Gem's Grandparents and great grandparents lived. She also showed us some old old photos of Gem's Great-grandad which was cool to see some family history. We also visited the Crematorium where Gem's Granny and Grandad ashes are scattered in a beautiful garden park area (it was a little emotional but really nice to visit there). We aslo went to Porchester castle which is somewhere Gem and Bex went with their Granny when there visited England. That was cool since most of the Roman walls are still standing on all four sides of the fort. We climbed up to the top of the tower (of course!) and it has complete rooms and walls inside (from Norman times I think).



Yesterday we spent the day in Portsmouth with Jean and Dave and went up the Spinnacker Tower and marvelled at the views all around. We visited the historic docks where they keep the HSM Victory and the Mary Rose. Again another day of education as I've heard of the Battle of Trafalgar but didn't really know what went on.



So I think we might try to camp out tonight in Namen (Belgium), we'll see how good Tom is at getting us there :)

Quick Update

Hi, just a quick update before we go to bed.

Since the tent expedition (which was a sucess!) we have been in Fareham and have looked around Porchester castle, Portsmouth and seen lots of the place where Gemma's Grandparents have lived over the years.

In the morning we're catching the ferry over to France and the grand European adventure will begin! Wrong side of the road, here we come!

Tents aren't walls

Hello children, today's blog comes to you directly from the inside of our tent. We are tenting in a farmer's paddock in the New Forest. There are cows mooing just outside the door. We had a super picnic tea on our new burner and with all the new camping stuff we got from sainsbury's :) (including but not limited to a hammer, tea towel, and cooking pot). Wee story about the burner. My parents gave us a wee campinggaz burner a couple of Christmas's ago and we were super sure we brought it to the UK with us. So sure infact, that we went and bought four gas canisters for it (at the same time we got our tent). Turns out that we didn't bring it with us and must be sitting in a box in my grandads garage. So we made another trip to the camping store and bought another burner and now we have one in each hemisphere.



We had a pretty quiet day today but we did drive to Christchurch! Christchurch is a small town next to Bournemouth and even has a Avon river running by it! We visited the church there (a priory to be exact) and we saw there was a stone in the wall which is from the Christchurch Cathedral in NZ! I'm just noticing that I'm using lots of !, I guess I must find it exciting to visit a town with the same name as my birthplace. Later on we visited with Mark and Katie and their baby twins. Last time we saw them was almost a year ago and they have grown heaps! (The babies, not Mark and Katie). Ellie was walking around and had a very mischevious, but very very cute smile. Tia seemed very curious about everything but didn't seem to be as much as a menace as her sister.

Afterwards we headed to the New Forest and since its such a nice day we decided to camp out for the night and test out all of our camping stuff. Better to find out what stuff we're missing while we're still in an english speaking country :). Its been so nice just sitting out in the open and cooking our dinner, enjoying the sunshine and living the dream. "O yeah" says Gem.

Stonehenge

Great start today as we had a buffet breakfast at the YHA in Salisbury. We took a walk up into town and went to a service at the Salisbury Cathedral where we saw two babies being baptised. After the service we switched over from parishoner to tourist mode and looked around the cathedral. We then headed up to Old Sarum before driving on to Stonehenge. Gem had been playing down my expectations of it since she remembers not being that impressed with it when she went there last (when she was 10) as you can't walk up to the stones like in Avebury. But when we got there it was much closer than she remembers and she said she was much more impressed this time around. I thought it was amazing and it was awesome to walk around it to see it from all angles. I found a pop up book in a tourist shop which explained all the stone positionings and what it used to look like before it was ruins (pop up books are awesome!)



Along the way to Avebury we came across a couple of funny road signs. The first was a triangular give way sign with a picture of a tank in it ("Tanks crossing", not joking). The second was an exclamation mark with the words below "Road liable to subduction" which we found really funny but on the way back we found it actually said subsidence not subduction so the story really isn't that funny anymore. (The end, by Jeremy)

The stone circle in Avebury is cool because it is way bigger than Stonehenge and goes right through the village. It even has sheep grazing around them and I saw one scratching itself on one of the stones. Unlike Stonehenge you can go right up to them so we got a couple of photos leaning up against the huge stones.



Now its time for dinner and Gem is getting impatient so better go, Bye!

PS: As I'm the geek I am I couldn't help myself thinking "Congratulations on building a wonder of the world Stonehenge, you get a free obelisk in every city, becomes obsolete with the discovery of Calendar". Thats a Civilization game reference :).

Gem: maybe thats why there are so many oblisks in Europe, they really love them here, every place we go has them all over the place.

Bath Time

Today we had a look around the city of Bath. It is very lovely with all of the buildings in the light coloured sandstone.

We got a bargin breakfast and lunch from the Tesco on our way into town. I think this will be our way to stay in budget for the trip!!! Yum croussaints :)

We decided that a coffee hit was needed so sat in the square in front of the Bath Abby and watched the buskers. The best one was a dude playing this amazing metal drum thing. I'm sure jeremy could tell you how it worked (something about dimples? He's gone to bed so i can't ask) but to me it just looked like he was playing a upside down metal basin, with beautiful sounds coming out of it. Impressive

We looked around the beautiful Abby and took the tour up the tower. Of course we couldn't resist climbing up it!! We got to see not just the view from the top but to see the bells (and i got to ding one, it was loud) and the ringing room (I so want to try bellringing) and to go inside the clock!!!



From the top of the tower we had spotted a pretty park with deck chairs in it. we didnt manage to get a deck chair (half of bath seemed to be out enjoying the sunshine on a Saturday afternoon!!) but we got a nice shady spot on the grass to people watch and chill. Kids are so funny, we watched one wee girl chase the pidgons for the whole time we were there without stopping, man they have a lot of energy!!!

After lunch it was time for the Roman Baths. These look just like th pictures and are pretty cool with heaps of information and a free audio guide. Unfortunatly but this time we were both pretty over it and so i just listened to all the kids commentry (shorter and more interesting) and we sped through the end of it. We decided that we couldn't really miss the Circus and Royal Crescent so wandered through the pretty streets up to have a look and then back down through the park to the car.



On the road again, we are finding that we are getting used to the strange driving here. The road rules are a bit different (you don't give way to cars turning right if you're turning left at an intersection) and there are heaps of Massive roundabouts which are a bit scary!!! We bought a better map now tho so we can tell where we are meant to be going which helps!!!!

On the way to Sailsbury where we are now we visited the Branton Camp and White Horse, there is a horse shape cut into the chalk in the hillside, its pretty cool and there is also the remains of a longbarrow and Iron age hill fort.



I think that we must still look very young. We almost always get asked if we are students and although it is very tempting to say yes and then get the discount, obviously we don't have any ID!!! I guess that wearing our scruffy backpackers clothes we must just look like scruffy students. Although Jez must look very young, this morning he came down to the reception to wait for me, probably still half alseep from last night's experience and sat down on the chair in the lobby. The receptionist came up to him and asked if he was alright, Jez said he was just waiting, the dude replied "Oh waiting for your parents then" !!!!!!!

The joys of hostelling

Well its been a while since we've been properly backpacking around the country. Between last summer and now I've managed to lose my earplugs and as of yet haven't gotten around to aquiring a new set. So that is why I'm up at 2 in the morning telling all of you lovely people this story :). Tonight we're staying at the Bath YHA, which is an excellent hostel btw. Really nice dining room (which has restaurant food) as well as a huge lounge, and nice beds too. I'm staying in a four bed male dorm (all YHA's are seperate sex rooms) which is pretty good since I think we booked eight bed rooms (smaller rooms are better). Unfortunately both the guy below me and the guy opposite are very loud snorers. The guy opposite has a snore much like when you're trying to get the very last bit of tomato sauce out of the bottle and its mostly spraying drops over your plate. The man below for some reason just conjures up an image of a snoring walrus and I can't shake that connection.

Usually when there is a snorer in my room I just stick it out until I'm so tired that I fall asleep anyway. But the two of them seem to be competing with each other and gettting louder, or sometimes they seem to be in a snoring orchestra making sounds in rhythm together. I may just be losing the plot a bit here and I think I'd have gone mad trying to stay in that room any longer. So the plan is to chill out downstairs for a bit until I get more tired (tireder? is that a word?) and then try to crash for a few hours before getting up for the day. I think I might be a bit zombieish tomorrow as we look around Bath.

Goodnight!!
Jez

Shub!

So you might think we're strange (and you might be right) but we drove through Box today on the way to Bath and thought there should be a town called Shub! And we wouldn't be terribly surprised given some of the place names around here.

One of my favourite things about tripping around like this is that we can just take unexpected detours and they somtimes turn out to be the best things that we visit. Today we turned off the main road following a tiny wee signpost that said "Roman Villa". We kinda were expecting some ruined walls in the middle of a field or something but it turned out to be one of the largest Romano-British ruins. And we got to drive down the cute little laneways admiring the scenery. The ruins were discovered by Victorians who built little rooves over the roman walls and mosaics to protect them. They also built a hunting lodge on the site aswell!



Now we are in Bath and we just came back from doing a walking tour around the town centre. No history involved though as this was a comedy walk. It was really funny including a escapologist stuffed rabbit called Stuart (or Stew for short) and combined a nights entertainment with a scenic walk around beautiful Bath.

Harewood House

Hello again!
Today we went back to Kirkstall Abbey while it was open (we dropped by after hours on Monday evening) and had a look through it. Its ruins of a Cistercian monastery founded in eleven something (ie: a long time ago). It is right in the middle of Leeds and makes for dramatic viewing as a lot of the church walls still go up to the ceiling. At one point the main road to Leeds ran throught the middle of the nave (when it was ruined, not while there were monks roaming about).



After that we spent most of the day out at Harewood House which is a large stately home. Its claim to fame is as the residence of Princess Mary (QEII's Aunt) and the current Earl is the queen's cousin. I think we were told that they still live in the upstairs bit and we had a look through the downstairs areas. One interesting exhibit they had was on the "Below Stairs" people which was all about the lives of the servants, butlers and maids. And the kitchen was displaying real food and it looked real tasty. Gem wanted to have it for morning tea but there were "Do not eat" signs all over. I wonder if the staff eat it later on and make more for the next day?



The Harewood House grounds are huge and have heaps of exciting things all over. There was a bird garden with loads of aviaries including flamingos and even penguins (a long way from home) and owls (which looked very wise). Gem loved the formal knot garden at the back of the house. There was also a Himalayan Garden with loads of pretty plants and stepping stones over the stream. The childrens playground looked awesome but we restrained ourselves from playing on it. Instead we went to the planetarium which was really cool cos we found out all about the northern hemisphere stars. So next time we are out at night we can find the plow and the north star!

Love Gem and JEZ!



PS: Hey comment on our blog so we can see if anyone is actually reading what we write, and let us know if its interesting or if you want to hear more stuff that we didn't mention.

Whitby

Hey peoples,
Today we went on a day trip out to Whitby, the birthplace of Captain Cook. Its a cute seaside village with a really pretty abbey on the cliffs above it. The abbey ruins were spectacular and although we had to share them with bunches of school children it was still a really atmospheric spot (and not just cos it was raining!). The sky was really bright in our photos and looking at them now it just looks like someone has used an eraser to remove bits of the building!



Technically Whitby isn't actually the birthplace of Captain Cook but he did arrive there when he was just 18 and did most of his learning voyages out of Whitby. Every little village in the area has a Captain Cook museum or memorial. Not that we visited them all and in fact we didn't even visit the Cptn Cook museum in Whitby because it shut by the time we got there (too busy having afternoon tea!) That reminds me, we stopped in a ye olde worlde tea shoppe (from a time when there were more e's in the world[e]) and I had a hot chocolate which came out with cream and so many mini marshmallows in it that it was overflowing the cup!



On the way we also stopped at Kirkham Priory which continued our habit at turning up at places that are closed. We looked through the gate and it was really pretty. We stopped at Pickering Castle for a look around and had lunch in the ruined tower in the rain. We had umbrellas so only our feet got wet!



Love Us

Ps - click on any of the photos to be taken to the album to see more :)

On the Road Again

It has begun again, we're off traveling again, much to our delight.

We definitely enjoyed out time in Warwick and will miss everyone there but we are very excited to be free again to go where we want when we want.

The trip began yesterday morning, after saying goodbye to the Warwick Arms Hotel we set off in our new car to Leeds. This took somewhat longer that expected (should be a 2.5 hr drive, took us about 5 and a bit hrs!!) due in part to some really crap navigating on my (gem's) part, a sort of planned detour and a lot of confusing road signs in Leeds!!!!

The first detour was because the motorway was suggesting the there were going to be delays, so being at that stage confident in my map and navigation skills we decided to risk heading a different way off the trusty M1 and off towards Derby. Having missed the first signposted turn we decided to follow signs to a Caulke Abbey a National Trust property which we thought would just be some wee ruins that we could pop into then carry on. Turned out to be a massive stately home that is in the process of being restored with massive grounds. We went in quickly and had a tour around the conservation works which was really interesting, we could have stayed all day but since we were already well behind time we had to carry on.



There was a bit more getting lost (our map is very large scale, must get a better one) before we got to Leeds then a whole lot more getting lost in Leeds (very confusing town and the AA directions i had were hopeless!!) before we finally made it to Pam and Andrews place.

Since we're on holiday now there is no stopping us so we all went out to the theatre last night. We saw a play called Bedroom Farce which was very funny. I felt very grown up to be going to a proper play!!


Today's adventure was York!!

It definitely feels like we're back in tourist mode as once again we were climbing things. We climbed up 275 steps to the top of York Minster, the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe.



There is so much to do there so we just took in some of the best. York Minster was amazing, I wasn't really expecting it to be so tall, its massive and when you go in, it feels like the roof is miles away. So beautiful inside with loads of carving and amazing stained glass windows. One thing that struck me was some modern sculptures of figures holding semaphore letters which spelled out "Christ is here".



York is a pretty historical town, there is a Viking exhibition Jorvik which was very interesting and also the Barley Hall which is a reconstructed Medieval Alderman's House and has all the inside bits that you can touch and play with which was cool!!

We walked around a wee bit of the city walls and looked at the ruins of St Mary's Abbey and the Holy Trinity Church. So much to see it was great, and lots of tea in quaint tea shops and several fudge shops too. I liked York!!!