Photography
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Into The Mountains: From Thessaloniki To Delphi
There is something very special about moving on when travelling. One of our travel maxims has always been: move on while you still love a place. For us, that mix of emotions of being sad to leave somewhere clashing with the excitement of heading to a new place, somehow encapsulates the very essence of travel. It’s an exhilarating feeling. But before we leave, Friday July 23rd marks our last full day in Thessaloniki and just like the previous four days the afternoon temperatures hit 37/38 degrees, but the ever present sea breeze just takes off the edge and keeps even the hottest time of day pleasant. For our last day…
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Cafes And Culture: Five Days In Thessaloniki
How typically Greek it is of our host to thoughtfully provide stocks of decent coffee and proper filters for an apartment where the coffee machine is broken and doesn’t work. You have to love the Greeks! Our other quirk here is a shower which, when placed in its holder, slowly drops down so as to shower the back wall instead of your body. Thus, to get my head in the water, it’s necessary to hold the shower head in its holder with one hand whilst approaching the water face up. I can’t help but think that I must be the spitting image of a naked Liam Gallagher coming to the…
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And So To Greece…..Minus One Backpack
Blue sea beneath the aeroplane changes to tarmac and painted lines as the end of the runway arrives and our excitement grows, we are almost there. But within what seems a few inches of hitting the ground, and just as we anticipate the bump of landing, the engines roar, the plane accelerates and we climb steeply back into the skies from being so close to landing. Something has obviously gone wrong and the passengers fall strangely silent. We are soon advised that the landing was aborted at the last second due to a tailwind stronger than the permitted maximum (17 knots as opposed to 10) and we are off for…
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Framlingham Castle
If someone asks you to name ten English castles, our guess is that unless you live in Suffolk, you won’t have Framlingham on your list. Certainly we didn’t know much about it and only stumbled on it this week whilst fitting in a last minute visit to Michaela’s Mum before we head off to Greece, yet it turned out to be an interesting destination. Like many of England’s castles, Framlingham was granted to and confiscated from the gentry in equal measure depending on whether the monarch required the support of the local barons. As it happens, this was the sum total of any conflict seen at Framlingham: its walls were otherwise…
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St Albans: Romans, Saints & Boudicca
With no opportunity to leave these shores just yet, we continued our exploration of our own country this week with a brief visit to Hertfordshire, centred on time in St Albans, an ancient city steeped in fascinating history. After a motorway closure made our journey somewhat tortuous we rolled into St Albans around lunchtime and set about exploring a city with some of England’s most dramatic history. St Alban the man was a religious martyr executed on the spot which today houses the cathedral, itself originally an abbey which was ransacked and all but destroyed by Henry VIII’s men during the Reformation. From a distance, the wide central tower of…
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Travel Stories: Under Pressure In Turkey
As I switched on the ignition, dashboard warning lights, instead of fading out after a couple of seconds, stayed shining and winking like an aeroplane cockpit. The first of these said flat tyre. “Not problem, not problem”, said the car hire guy, waving his hands dismissively and pointing me towards the vehicle exit. Even as I walked around studying the four tyres, each with no obvious sign of defect, he continued to bark the same phrase. “Not problem, not problem”. Hire car boss man came over to intervene, helpfully grabbing Google translate on his mobile and pointing to the word “tyre”. I held my palms upwards to show the international…
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Nostalgia Trip #8: Peak District Weekend
The long drive from Aberaeron to our next destination at Ashford-in-the-Water in the Peak District takes us over the Welsh mountains and around Shrewsbury and Stoke and turns into a fairly tortuous journey with precious few major roads. It’s only 180 miles but it takes five hours. It’s fitting that this prettiest of Derbyshire villages should be our base for the weekend, and even more fitting that our planned walks include a hike through Monsal Dale. Growing up in Mickleover, on the edge of the city of Derby but within easy reach of the Peak, it was a common feature of my childhood to take off for weekend family walks…
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Nostalgia Trip #6: Llanon Memories
It’s about 50 years since my childhood trips to Mid Wales began, 50 years since my Nan and Grandad first bought a static caravan at Llanon on the Welsh coast. Perched on the cliff, overlooking the Atlantic sea, Cliff Edge Caravan Park holds wonderful memories for me, family holidays, fun and adventure. But more than this, the place for me and my Nan to form a special bond during our times alone there together. This rocky shore was my playground, rocks circling a pool created by monks way back when in order to catch sprats and other delights of the Atlantic. Prawning and picking shellfish off the rocks, cooking and…
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Nostalgia Trip #5: Ceredigion Coast, Wales And Dolphins
Waking on our first morning in Aberaeron is just idyllic. Our window at the Harbourmaster Hotel looks past the boats snuggled in the harbour to the cottages opposite, their multiple pastel shades reminiscent of Ireland and resplendent in the morning sunlight. The sound of mast ropes clinking in the light breeze is the only thing that breaks the silence as Aberaeron wakes slowly from its slumbers. Our first wander around town includes a short amble upstream along the banks of the Aeron which brings its own rewards. As well as the many woodland birds we spot a dipper feeding from the boulders and a vole scuttling across our path. There’s…
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Nostalgia Trip #4: Elan Valley And On To Aberaeron
To complete our time in Rhayader we take a pleasant pre-breakfast stroll along the banks of the Wye where wildlife is in abundance and the morning sunlight dapples through the trees. Colourful damsel flies flit amongst the foliage and birdsong is everywhere. Wherever you stand in Rhayader you are overlooked by the mighty Cambrian Hills, green and rolling and giving the town a feeling of independence, maybe even isolation, despite the traffic rolling through and negotiating the clock tower awkwardly placed slightly off centre in the main crossroads. We are again struck by what a terrific base for a walking holiday this would be, and again find ourselves discussing a…
