Tag Archives: England

England, London – a lovely few days to end a great trip

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A cup of tea while we wait for the taxi.

After a little over 6 weeks away we are on our last day. An awesome trip that has saw us start in Tel Aviv, take a raucous Saturday afternoon flight to Rome, spend a week in Assisi, take the bus and train to Lecce, then head back to Rome for a delightful weekend before we discovered the delights of Portugal and then to London.

London is a convenient exit point for Adelaide and after a few days here that included a visit to The Emirates to see Arsenal’s first home game of the season, it’s time to head home.

We stayed in Farringdon. It’s more business and locals than tourists, meaning most sites are a tube ride away. But with an Oyster Card purchased from the local Off Licence (I love that term), getting to where we want to go is pretty straight forward.

After 6 weeks of travel we had low key plans for our time here, Continue reading →

The Diary of a Slow Traveller- Quaint or Odd, The Howtown Hotel, Lake District

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Howtown Hotel

Odd or Quaint? We weren’t sure as we somewhat hesitantly booked our accommodation in the Lake District. I’d been intrigued by an article I’d found online in the The telegraph that had made reference to staying at the Howtown Hotel. How odd or quaint, I thought. Reservations are made in writing and by that they meant by post, a real letter with a stamp.

The hotel is pretty much all there is in Howtown. Once through Pooley Bridge, it’s a sharp right hand turn onto a narrow windy road for what seems an eternity, about 4 miles. Our drive is not made any easier by the torrential rain, making viability poor and the road in many places covered with water. We’d been told to expect rain in the Lake District and the day we arrived there was about 4 inches!

As we drive taking the track to the hotel we note that unlike Scotland there don’t appear to be designated passing places on the roads, necessitating our having to back up more than once on our drive to the hotel. We also note that the drivers in England seem much less gracious than their Scottish neighbors when it comes to allowing on coming traffic pass.

After a drive along a narrow windy and often flooded road we arrive.

Our greeting at the hotel is pretty low key. The proprietor greets us with a quizzical “Good Afternoon” and brief welcome. She arranges for one of the staff to show us our room and that’s it, we’re registered. No id required, no credit card imprint, nothing more than our brief introduction and confirmation of name.  Our room has as well as no wifi ( we knew this before we booked), no TV, no coffee or tea making facilities, no toiletries other than a bar of Imperial Leather soap and no room key! What it does have is great views to  Ullsawater. Continue reading →

Time to take it slowly, Edinburgh to York

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    Durham Cathedral

After a few days walking the streets of Edinburgh it was into the hire car and off to York.

We’ re just over halfway into our trip and I was feeling like I had sensory overload.

I’d packed so much into our time in Scotland. There was so much I wanted to see, that I’d broken with the vow of Slow Travel. Our arrival in Edinburgh and our decision to rent an Airbnb apartment rather than stay in a hotel or B&B meant we could go at our own pace. Continue reading →

Diary of a Slow Traveller – Planning UK 2017

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Island of Ortigia, Sicily

 

While I know that many people don’t like planning for travel, that isn’t me. I love trip planning!

When I think back over our 3 months in Italy, so much of the fun was the planning. Where to base ourselves? Initially it was going to be Amalfi and then we settled on Siracusa, Sicily. How would we get there? Why not have a few days in Sri Lanka on the way?

Sri Lanka wasn’t even on our agenda until our favourite travel agent STA Travel suggested it. Once the seed was planted then it was what will we do on our stop-over?  Where will we stay. What about accommodation etc etc?

Then what about the time on Italy? We decided to fly into Milan but what from there? While I’m upto my armpits in the planning, my favourite person likes it all laid out before her so she can comment and amend.

My favourite person  tends to be happy so long as there is plenty of old buildings, nice food (not expensive) and good accommodation – she does like the occasional splurge (so do I for that matter).  She found a delightful city styled B&B in Rome and an awesome accommodation deal in Singapore at The Fullerton during Chinese New Year (so much for my planning – I had no idea it would be Chinese New Year!!!).

A basic itinerary is where I start – lock in where we will fly into and out of and then plot in some ideas for places to visit or regions. I certainly agree with my favourite person that accommodation is important. So often people will talk of low lights and invariably its something to do with the accommodation, whether its budget or 5-star!

When I think of a truly memorable day I had in Paris in 2007 at the end of a work trip as much as I enjoyed my day the hotel was a disaster!  I still have the sounds of Joni Mitchell’s Free Man in Paris ringing in my ears as I think about wandering the Champs Elyees on a glorious summer’s day but all of this was dampened by the middle of the night flood in my room accompanied by the completely disinterested night-porter – definitely a low point. Continue reading →

The Royal Birth

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It was so pleasing that the Prince and Duchess waited until we arrived in London for the Royal Birth. Normal big news like the fact that it may also be the warmest night on record seemed pretty minor on our arrival given the news of the birth.

That said it was hot even by Australian standards.

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With the papers and TV full of coverage of the new Prince’s birth we thought we should visit Buckingham Palace. We were not the only people who had that thought! As well as the thousands of people there was a real media scrum!

The Post Office Tower proclaimed the birth quite simply with – “It’s a boy”.

Continue reading →