Friday 11th Aug: London ⇒ Paris ⇒ Lille Our night at the Sofitel, Terminal 5 went smoothly but we were very surprised to see the place so busy; the hotel was choc-a-bloc full of travelers. We had an early dinner booking for 6 pm and the restaurant was full of other folk eating at this… More

Wednesday 9th August Our visits to Bath was not initially scheduled on this RTW trip. Our revised plan involved us leaving Bristol one day earlier than originally scheduled so that we could have an overnight in Bath. Hindsight is very clear and I should never have allocated as much time, maybe not any time, to… More

Monday 7th August: Tewkesbury and The Cotswolds It was a gloriously sunny morning so Mark got out for a ride and I did some yoga before we set off for our day trip to Tewkesbury  and the Cotswolds. The plan was to head to Tewkesbury and take a Voice Map self guided walk and then… More

Friday 4th August The drive from Cardiff to Bristol was only about 1 hour but we were glad it wasn’t raining. Our accommodation for the next 6 nights was in the suburb of Redlands which is just outside (a 30’ walk) of Bristol. I wasn’t able to find any suitable apartments in the city and… More

Wednesday 2nd August  That burst of sunshine from yesterday didn’t last very long and the rain was back with us today as we readied to leave Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire. Our destination for the next two nights was Cardiff but we were stopping off at Tenby for a few hours on our way there. Tenby was… More

Sunday 30th July  The weather forecasters would have described the morning as partly cloudy but I would prefer the phrasing partly sunny as we were latching on to any notions of good weather that we could. Messages from home about the warm temperatures and and crowds on Bondi Beach were not helpful for us here… More

Thursday 27th July It was raining for our last morning in Liverpool so there was no early morning walk. Instead, we got on the road a bit earlier than planned for our tip down to Beaumaris, Wales. We made one stop on the way and this was at the 13th Century Conwy Castle. You would… More

Monday 24th July It was somewhat bitter-sweet to wake to sunshine this morning. ‘Bitter’ in that our two days here had been wet but ‘sweet’ in that we could pack the car and visit Castlerigg Stone Circles on our way out of Keswick without getting wet. The Castlerigg Stone Circles are Keswick’s version of Stonehenge… More

Saturday 22nd July It was another drizzly morning but I still ventured out for a walk. Mark was feeling a bit under the weather so he stayed behind but maybe the Swans vs Fremantle game that was due to broadcast shortly was the real reason? We are just past the half-way mark of our 5… More

Thursday 20th July Our drive from York to Keswick was only a couple of hours so we made a stop at Harrogate on the way as Lorraine and Geoff had suggested this as worth a visit. We’d wanted to visit the very popular Betty’s Tea Rooms in York but the queue was always too long… More