Long weekend in London

Putting aside thoughts of more exotic travel for the time being, we are heading to London over the long April weekend.

London is big. And confusing. Like this map that looks like coloured string in a washing machine spin cycle.

Being simple country folks based in scenic Derbyshire we do enjoy a trip to the big smoke at least once or twice a year.

Two or three days in the manic hustle and bustle of our capital city is enough to remind us of why we don’t actually ever want to live or work there – being stuffed into someone else’s armpit on the underground for any length of time is reminder enough!

Not that there’s anything wrong with the city, indeed we love it, otherwise we wouldn’t keep on going back. But this year I am not sure what or where we will see. We’ve been so many times . .. .

Last year we did some touristy things including HMS Belfast, walking over the upper gantries of Tower Bridge, visiting Kew Gardens, being terrifed by the mime artists on the banks of the Thames.

See this? We’ve over walked this.

So what this time? We’ve visited the boho, student chic of Camden, rooted through the retailer supplier shops on Font Hill Road, rummaged through antiques in the huge Portobello Road market. Spent time and money in Spital Fields and played spot the Monopoly streets.

We spent the hottest day of last year in St James’ Park and admired the royal wedding preparations outside Buckingham Palace.

Over the years we’ve taken in the Gherkin, Selfridges, Oxford Street, the Shard, St Pauls, the Tate, the London Eye and everything in between.

St James’ Park – quite sweaty last April

We’ve lounged around the V and A, gaped in awe in the Natural History Museum, hopped on and off the tube countless times and unashamedly laughed at Cockfosters and Tooting Bec.

Plus thanks to various hen parties I’ve mixed cocktails in a swanky club, had numerous kareoke sessions, posed on red London buses, with police men and Johnny Depp lookalikes.

So what now – any suggestions? I need London inspiration on a tight budget, no West End shows or Cocktail bars for me. Give me cheap, give me easy – GIVE ME LONDON!!!!

Places to see before you die

Trawling Facebook as I do on occasion, I came across an app titled The Travel List Challenge that invited you to rate how you compared against other people’s travelling history.

All keen and excited I decided to take part and see how many sights I had clapped eyes on, confident that I would score pretty highly . .

Alas and alack, I only got a paulty 15 out of 100! Shameful, although my excuse is that it seemed rather biased in favour of the USA, a place I have not yet had the pleasure of visiting, with a whopping 32 out of the 100 being American!

So, after feeling rather slighted by this list, I have decided to compile my own top ten sights (as 100 would take a while) from my own experience.

1) Angkor Wat – Cambodia. An incredible temple complex, rich with carvings, lush with greenery and lakes.

2) Taj Mahal – Agra, India. A monument to love, every bit as incredible as people say it is – Ornate and majestic even in the hectic whirl of hundreds of visitors.

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3) Florence’s Cathedral, tower and duomo. A gorgeous decorative feast for the eyes that offers a panoramic view of the sprawling city.

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4) The canals of Venice – roaming them in the mists, discovering hidden alleyways that open into ornate,  squares overlooked by the decaying grandeur of palaces

5) Grand Palace – Bangkok, Thailand. An incredible, glittering, blinding spectacle, with golden towers, demons and detailing.

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6) Aythuyya – Thailand. One of the old capital cities, a deserted, crumbling relic of former glory, complete with immense buddhas that watch serenely as the world around them falls apart.

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7) Ho Chi Minh City, South Vietnam. My first ever experience of Asia, and one that sticks the most vividly – the noise, the crowds, the utter feeling of alienation. Brilliant!

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8) Parc Guell and Casa Batllo – Barcelona. Just two of Antoni Gaudi’s incredible creations, vivid, dreamlike, bizarre and incredible!

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9) Nambung National Park (Pinnacles), Western Australia – Thousands of limestone pillars strewn across an incredible, moon like, lunar desert.

10) Watching the light show over Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong – A cheesy, yet amazing experience!

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That, in my humble, and limited experience covers some of the most amazing things I have had the fortune to see so far . . ..

Envy envy envy

As much as I am looking forward to my next travel adventure, and am aware of how much I have already seen, I can never hear of other people’s travel plans without at least a tremour of envy.

So this post should be entitled “Places I really really want to go! NOW”

You can blame my sister and mother for this post, as they are preparing to head off to Euro Disney and Paris. Now Euro Disney and the scary 6ft trademark rat  I can take or leave, but, and this is a big but, I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO PARIS!

Yeap, I’ve said it – I’ve been across the globe, seen some of the most exotic sights imaginable, but I have never ever stepped foot in our continential neighbours capital city!

And this set me off thinking, where else do I want to visit before I shuffle off this mortal coil? So here, in no particular order, are some of my top travel desires . . .

1) PARIS

Yes. Eiffel Tower, frogs legs, snails, stripy jumpers and berets, plus any other sterotypical French images you can shake a stick at. Must get on the train and do Paris in Springtime -or any other time for that matter!

2) PERU

Machu Picchu, yes I know it involves walking . . . . ..  . . but I am pretty sure it’s worth it.

3) NEW ENGLAND

Ever since I was little I have had a yen for the white clapboard houses, autumn leaves and seductive names of New England – Cape Cod, Mystic, Vermount, Martha’s Vineyard, pumpkin harvests and a simpler way of life. I even used to cut up travel brochures and fill up a scrap book of pictures .  .. ..

4) CUBA

Havana, big old cars, rum, cigars and Salsa. makes me want to get up and shake some booty in a smoke filled club on some seedy backstreet  . . .

That’s it for now, I’ve a list as long as my arm but in order to keep posts a little less sprawling I will take up the list later . . . .

Another slide show for your delight!

In celebration of going back to Italy this year I’ve just added another Tripwow slide show covering the three Italian trips I’ve taken over the past five years.

There’s Rome, Venice and last year’s multi city extravaganza!

TripWow is pretty cool, it’s really easy to use, you just select photos off your Facebook albums, add your own music if you like, name the places you’ve visited and chose a theme – it does the rest.

The only difficulty I have is when it comes to embedding it on my site, the sizing seems to have altered since last time I did it, hence it is a bit squished looking . . . .

You can take a look at it here

Back to Rome, who’d a thought it!

Well, what a turn up for the books, after swearing blind to the other half for the past five years that I “never go anywhere twice as there is some much more I want to see . .” what are we doing? Yeap heading back to Rome, my all time favourite city to date.

What you may ask has caused such a U turn on my part? . .  Well, you can blame a close friend for opting to go all continental on me and get married in the Eternal City in June.

Well I couldn’t possibly pass up the chance to:

1) See my lovely friend get hitched in the most romantic city in the world and

2) Make a holiday out of it!!

So three days in Rome, mopping up the sights we missed the first time and then onwards to the glamourous island of Capri for a few days before popping to Sorrento for some trips to the Amalfi coast, Pompei and some other Italian delights.

Already got the hotels booked and working up an itinerary, Capri is new to me, so far I’ve only got the Grotto Azure on the list, any ideas? . . . .

Watch this space for more updates on travels old and new, and plenty more pictures! 🙂

Vatican museum and the Gallery of Maps

Determined to get Neil into something cultural we head for the Vatican Museums. Well, we go round the corner from St Peters and slap bang into an EPIC queue!

We stand in a queue that stretches forever, in total we probably wait about two hours to get into the Vatican museums, but I am determined that we will see some art!!!

Here’s a piccy from Wikipedi that gives you the gist of the queue we were in!!! What a nightmare!

Obviously one of the main sights we wanted to see was the Sistine Chapel, but that’s just a tiny part of what the museums have to offer.

One of my favourite bits was the Gallery of Maps, topographical maps of the whole of Italy, painted on the walls by friar Ignazio Danti of Perugia, commissioned by Pope Gregory XIII (1572–1585). It remains the world’s largest pictorial geographical study.

Here is the ceiling, an amazing, colourful mural of exquisite paintings.

The other highlights were The four Stanze di Raffaello (“Raphael’s rooms”) that form a suite of reception rooms, the public part of the papal apartments.

They are famous for their frescos, painted by Raphael and his workshop. The four rooms are Room of the Segnatura Room of Heliodorus: Room of the Fire in the Borgo and the Room of Constantine.

Here is the ceiling in the Room of Heliodorus.

And here is another elaborate room.

One of the primary functions of the Sistine Chapel is as a venue for the election of each successive pope in a conclave of the College of Cardinals.

On the occasion of a conclave, a chimney is installed in the roof of the chapel, from which smoke comes out as a signal. If white smoke appears, created by burning the ballots of the election, a new Pope has been elected.

If a candidate receives less than a two-thirds majority, the cardinals send up black smoke—created by burning the ballots along with wet straw and chemical additives—it means that no successful election has yet occurred.

Here’s the famous ceiling The Creation of Adam by Michangelo.

After marvelling at the Sistine Chapel we headed onwards to another tourist highlight, the Trevi Fountain

Here I am looking goofy in front of it. Apparently around 3,000 Euros are thrown in the fountain EVERY day!

That’s about it from Rome for now. I am sure I will add a few more photos when I have time.

Vatican city, steps and icecream

Off to Vatican City on my non stop tourism quest. Vatican City is the smallest independent state in the world by area, and also the world’s least populated. (Cheers Wikipedia, as always)

First up St Peter’s Square and Basilica. St Peter’s is a late Renaissance church with the largest interior of any Christian church in the world.

Here’s the square. The giant TV screens, as we later discovered, were for broadcasting the Pope to the crowds as he made an appearance! As a result I have been accidentally blessed by the Pope. Cool.

The dome of St. Peter’s rises to a total height of 136.57 metres (448.1 ft) from the floor of the basilica to the top of the external cross. It is the tallest dome in the world and by god did I feel it after climbing to the top.

Here’s the iconic view from the top looking out over the square.

After nearly going blind climbing the hundreds of steps to the top I deserved ice cream, and the Italians do it rather well with Gelatto, a creamy creamy dollop of loveliness, here we are being typically restrained . . .

And here is Mr Caffine Addict himself with one of the million coffees of the holiday.

Vatican Museum, Gallery of Maps and the Sistine Chapel next up folks!!!

Rome November 2007

Our first ever trip to Italy was way back in 2007 when we headed to the Eternal City – Rome.

Catching the bus to the city from the airport I did wonder what we were going to, so much graffiti covering shop blinds and walls, it seemed more like a ghetto than a historic, beautiful city.

It was a theme that would reoccur every time we visited Italy, spraypainted scrawl across shops, businesses, railway sidings and disused factories.

Strange that so much wanton vandalism sits cheek by jowl with such wonderful ancient architecture and history.

We stayed at the Antica Locanda, a cute little B and B just around the corner from the Colosseum. Our room had a gorgeous tiled and vaulted ceiling and antique furniture.

Check it out here: http://www.antica-locanda.com/

First stop, obviously the Colosseum, originally the Flavian Amphitheatre – it’s the largest ever built in the Roman Empire.

Close by is the Roman Forum – a rectangular plaza surrounded by the ruins of important ancient government buildings at the centre of the city.

It was the centre of Roman public life: the site of triumphal processions and elections, venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiator matches, and nucleus of commercial affairs.

Here it is in all its glory as the sun starts to set over the ruins of the stately buildings.

That’s enough history for now. Next up the Vatican Museum and the beautiful Sistine Chapel.