20 Monday Apr 2020
Posted in days out, photography, remembering / musing
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This time last year I was in the UK to catch up with family. I organised a mini break in the Yorkshire Dales, in the spring time.
My Mum, daughter and I stayed in a country hotel with views like these.
We visited Aysgarth Falls.
Also the 600 year old Bolton Castle.
We travelled past Ribblehead Viaduct.
And climbed Malham Cove to the limestone pavement.
Happy memories. Fun times.
As there are a lot of lines in these photos I’m linking this to Jude’s 2020 Photo Challenge.
04 Saturday Apr 2015
Posted in all about me, making changes, remembering / musing
This time next week, we will be landing in Hobart. It’s exciting and a little bit scary, it’s happy and sad.
I’ve been to Australia many times, but this time it’s different.
I first set foot in that amazing country, thirty years ago, single, in my twenties, on a working holiday visa valid for one year. It was the best year of my life to that point and I vowed to return one day. It was more holiday than working, it was fun, relaxed, it was a few short term jobs and a lot of exploring the country.
My next visit was back to Sydney, married, with an eighteen month old daughter. Aussie Mate had come to the UK on a working holiday and never gone back, so this was his return trip and my first introduction to many of my in-laws. Looking back, how did we manage the twenty four hour flight with a toddler who didn’t have her own seat?
Aussie Mate’s parents were divorced when he was young. His Mum and family lived in a large house with a swimming pool in the garden, a few minutes walk from Middle Harbour. His father and family lived one street back from one of the Northern Beaches. I had this big dream that if I moved to Sydney, I wanted the harbour view or the ocean view, not a back street home in one of the inland suburbs. Dream on!
We returned again with our daughters aged seven and four. I can still picture a curious C~M on the flight, wandering off for a walk and returning with several other kids in tow, like the “pied piper”, introducing each of the to us. “This is X, she is going to visit her Grandma in Sydney” and “this is X, he’s been to London on holiday”. We went to Taronga Zoo and “Skippy Park”, the Blue Mountains and the beaches, showing the girls the Aussie side of their heritage.
Our next trip was “the big one” when our girls were aged eleven and eight. A holiday for us as well as catching up with family. My Mum joined us for a trip were I showed Aussie Mate parts of his country that he’d never been to before – Alice Springs, Uluru, Brampton Island on the Great Barrier Reef – as well as the familiar Sydney and Canberra. This was a fantastic trip, long drives in “the Red Centre”, a memorable puncture in the middle of now-where, a helicopter tour over Kings Canyon, cave paintings as we walked around Uluru, playing and buying a didgeridoo, to snorkelling the reef, wallabies on the path between our cabin and the breakfast restaurant, parrots landing on our table to share the breakfast.
As the girls got older, we stopped in Hong Long on route, and S~E stayed longer to travel back on her own. She had another holiday on her own before taking a one way flight when she was nineteen.
Our last trip was to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary. S~E was settled in Sydney by then and our visit coincided with her engagement. C~M joined us for part of the time and travelled back to the UK for her own commitments. We had a wonderful time catching up with family, meeting new nieces and nephews, sampling wines of The Hunter Valley and getting Aussie Mate to visit Melbourne.
He and I spent the final week of our trip in Tasmania, a part of the country that neither of us had been to before. We loved it, the contrasts of Hobart, Port Arthur, the countryside and coastal towns, the emptiness of the centre of the island state, miles of unmade road.
Each of these trips have been holidays for me, as I travelled on a tourist visa.
Now I am returning to Australia on a permanent visa. I can stay and live and work there for as long as I like. I have the excitement of going on holiday but I need to change my view and acknowledge that this is trying a normal working life. We’ll have to get jobs, earn a living, pay bills, budget our finances, settle into the community as we plan to stay for a year or more.
This is a fantastic opportunity for me to experience life in Australia, to live near the sea, but I need to get my current “I’m going on a long holiday” attitude out of my head. This is real life.
06 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in days out, one with nature, photography
Gibraltar is odd, fascinating, stunning but just odd. As a British Overseas Territory, there are the familiar red phone boxes, red post boxes, familiar shops and banks in the main street, there are British Bobbies (policeman on the beat), but the sound is Spanish, the sky is too blue to be Britain and the prices are in pounds and euros, even £1.80 bus fare, and they drive on the European side of the road.
We drove a couple of hours from Seville, initially through flat plains, then hilly regions, but the Rock of Gibraltar stands out on the horizon from way back.
Gibraltar is a tiny piece of land, only 2.3 square miles, surrounded on three sides by sea. It is obvious why the British don’t want to give the territory back to Spain, who ceded it “in perpetuity” back in 1713. At the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea and with views across to North Africa, with The Rock rising vertically on the north face to 1,398 feet, it has obvious strategic advantage and oversight of all shipping entering the Mediterranean ports.
We parked on the Spanish side and walked across the border, to avoid the queue of cars crossing the frontier. The only road going into the territory and city centre traverses the airport runway. We had to wait while a plane took off, aircraft having priority over traffic and pedestrians.
The city, ports and marinas nestle on the west coast. A cable car takes tourists up this sloping face of The Rock, to the nature reserve that covers forty per cent of the territory. The views from the accessible summit of The Rock are wonderful, while some areas remain out of bounds military regions.
The Rock is home to several hundred Barbary macaque monkeys. They are curious, used to the tourists but are still wild animals and warning signs are clearly on display. The monkeys happily pose for photos but are opportunists if visitors have obvious food with them.
We walked back down through the nature reserve, via the Apes Den, the Queens Gate, The Moorish Castle, via cannons and entrances to the thirty miles of tunnels used as defences throughout history. Other paths went via the Mediterranean steps, St Michael’s Cave and Trafalgar cemetery. It was a long walk, which killed our middle aged knees at times, but a lovely way to appreciate the flora, fauna and views of this fascinating place.
I hope to visit Africa one day, but if I don’t, at least I have seen the tip of the continent from this tip of Europe.
Africa in the distance, below the clouds
06 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in days out, photography
Cadiz on the Atlantic coast, is almost entirely surrounded by water. It is one of the oldest European cities, again with Moorish influence but with more of a Spanish feel. There are several castles and defences as well as the typical churches, cathedral and city walls. It is interesting hearing another view of familiar British history, during Elizabeth I reign, Sir Frances Drake raided Cadiz and the ships of the Spanish Armada sailed from here. A pleasant day browsing the narrow streets, squares and along the sea front.
Cadiz Cathedral
06 Tuesday Jan 2015
Posted in days out, photography
One of the joys of budget airlines is the time of their flights. The flip side of travelling to the airport in sub zero temperatures and waiting for the car park shuttle bus in the cold and ice before dawn, is that we were in Seville before midday local time and in 19 degrees C, sunshine and clear blue skies.
What a beautiful place. What a surprise. A city of contrasts, small enough to explore on foot once we got our bearings from the hop on / hop off tour bus.
I expected to see some orange trees, but not so many, lining every street in the city, fully laden with fruit. The are wide avenues, with trees either side, a cycle lane, then footpath, giving a feeling of such spaciousness. As well as the orange trees, there are tall palms, cypress and others. There are expansive parks and formal gardens.
Much of the architecture of Seville has influence from the Moors, the muslim Moroccan conquers who occupied much of modern day Spain, Portugal, southern France, Sicily and Malta for several centuries.
Torre del Oro
There are city walls in La Macarena area dating back to the 12th century. There are old narrow streets, and patios in the Santa Cruz area. There are churches, cathedrals and towers. There are plazas with ornate tiles and mosaics. There are colourful buildings along the river, modern and old bridges.
Murallas – La Macarena
Plaza de Espana
Plaza de Espana
Plaza de Espana
Plaza de Espana
The Metropol Parasol is a modern structure that has sky walkways and amazing views across the city rooftops. When this structure was being excavated in 1973, Roman ruins were discovered, which are on display next to the entrance to the sky walk. This sums up the history and contrast of the city. The entrance fee for the sky walkways is the best Euro 3 that I’ve every spent.
Metropol Parasol
Metropol Parasol
Metropol Parasol skywalk
We enjoyed several days wandering around Seville, enjoying the sunshine, the culture, occasional coffees, but also tapas, sangria, paella, local seafood and wine.
Seville is just so much more than we anticipated, just right for a winter visit. It’s jumped straight into my top five European cities.
Seville Cathedral
03 Wednesday Dec 2014
Posted in days out, remembering / musing
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After our days as tourists in Amsterdam, we headed south. It was a novelty for us UK folk to travel on a double decker train, with great views from the upstairs carriage.
We have been visiting Maastricht for many years as an Aussie relative married and settled there. So as well as the usual family catch up, chatting over leisurely meals, coffees and wine, we did get out and about. We enjoyed delicious meals in small restaurants and savoured new wines in an original wine bar where price was the same per glass or per bottle, no matter what wine you chose.
Maastricht is a beautiful old city, in the Netherlands but in a hilly region close to the borders of Belgium and Germany. The Euro currency was a blessing in this community, compared to keeping Dutch guilders, Belgian Francs and Deutshe Marks in various purses or wallets. People visit the area for the scenery, hiking and mountain biking.
We walked around the cobbled city, by the river, through the squares, the shopping streets. Although there are some big department stores and chain shops there are also small independent shops so it’s always nice to buy some unique clothes. Some of the shop assistants said they are visiting London in the next few weeks to shop. I guess we all just like a change and something different from what everyone else is wearing.
The main square, the Vrijthof was preparing for it’s Christmas market and fair. Side streets had decorations up. I don’t usually get into the Christmas mood in November, but I couldn’t help it in this environment. We bought a few small decorations to add to our tree back home.
There are typical Dutch houses with their distinctive roofs. New houses fit in amongst the older houses. Aussie Uncle commented about timeframes in Europe compared to Australia, visits back to Sydney and the historic houses there, such as Cadman’s Cottage. His mother-in-law’s home here in Maastricht is older than Cadman’s.
There are several impressive churches, two overlooking the Vrijthof. Some churches have been given a new lease of life. I walked into a bookshop which is in a 13th century church. The building has new purpose but is still perfect for quiet reflective moments. All the bookstore fittings are free standing and work so well within the original structure. There is a small cafe in the chancel. You only get the true shape of the coffee tables from the upper levels of the bookstore. Another church is now a hotel with the reception area, bar and restaurant all within the old church building, bedrooms off the old cloisters. Both are original designs to mix the old with the new.
All year round the cafés have seating outside, overlooking the squares and market places. It’s a great place to stop, relax, enjoy a coffee or beer or glass of wine and just watch the world go by.
The city walls date back many centuries. The real D”Artagnan (fictionalised in “The Three Musketeers” by Alexandre Dumas) was killed here during a Franco-Dutch war and the Seige of Maastricht in 1673.
And of course there are lots of bikes in Maastricht.
02 Tuesday Dec 2014
Posted in days out, remembering / musing
In Amsterdam, we visited the Anne Frank House. We’d booked tickets on line so avoided the queues.
Our visit began with a thirty minute introduction which gave background to the Frank family, their move from Frankfurt to Amsterdam, the family business and life in occupied Netherlands. There was summary of life within the house once they were in hiding and the importance of Anne’s diary. This family information was shared alongside timelines of Hitler, rise of Nazism and their anti-Jewish measures.
We then visited the actual house, the front part being the office, warehouse and storerooms where Otto Frank’s business was located. The upper floors of the “back house” was where Anne and seven others hid in this annexe for two years.
We walked through the rooms where they lived, we read excerpts of Anne’s diary, there was information about the Frank family, the other occupants and their helpers. There were short videos which added detail. Although the rooms were empty of furniture to allow visitor access, there were photos of how the rooms were furnished at the time.
Back in the modern museum buildings there was information about the concentration camps, video interviews with people who knew Anne and family, how the diaries and family photo albums were saved. The actual diary notebooks are on display, and background of how Otto Frank published the diary in 1947 in the Netherlands and its global impact.
It is a moving place and experience. C~M and I are both now reading Anne’s diary. It is incredible to read about daily life in those cramped conditions, without going outside, with windows blacked out, being quiet during the workday so they were not heard by warehouse staff.
The Netherlands was occupied by Germany in May 1940. Maastricht was the first Dutch city to be liberated in September 1944. During the years of occupation, there were food shortages and rationing, the same for fuel and clothes. This is mentioned in Anne Frank’s diary but I also heard a bit about this from Dutch relatives. It was not only Jews who were taken from their homes, young Dutch men were forcibly sent to Germany to work on farms to support the war effort. Some escaped and made their way back home but then had to go into hiding themselves without any ID papers or ration books.
In Maastricht we noticed small brass cobblestone sized plaques on the pavements, memorials to victims of the Holocaust. These are called “stolpersteine” in German and “struikelstenen” in Dutch. As of August this year, over 48,000 such plaques have been laid in 18 countries in Europe, being the world’s largest memorial project. The plaques state … Here Lived … Born … Murdered …
Margraten, a few miles from Maastricht, is the site of the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial. It is close to the Cologne – Boulogne Roman road, a route the German’s used for their occupation and again for their withdrawal. A US infantry division liberated this area and the cemetery was soon established here. 8,301 graves are laid out in long curves, each marked with a cross or star of David. The Court of Honour lists the names of a further 1,722 with unknown graves. It is a vast site, beautifully maintained, similar to the British and Commonwealth cemeteries across Europe, just with different headstones. Some graves have no names, marked simply as “Known unto God”.
01 Monday Dec 2014
Posted in days out, remembering / musing
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We are just back from a mini break in The Netherlands, partly to meet up with relatives there and meet the new baby in the family.
Amsterdam is a beautiful city, one of my favourites. It is canals, wide streets, tall and often wonky buildings, museums, bridges, trams and bicycles. At this time of year, it is also Christmas decorations and festive lights.
It is an easy place to explore on foot, so we did a lot of walking and sightseeing from street level. A canal tour gave a different, lower level view and provided the history of the city and some of it’s inhabitants. Trams run along the centre of main streets, also an efficient way to get around.
The sheer number of cyclists and parked bicycles is always a surprise. Even though I know in my head that in Europe they drive on the opposite side of the road to the UK, I had to be extra careful when crossing the road. It felt as though bikes were coming from all directions. There seem to be very few accidents though, with traffic giving way to cyclists at junctions and roundabouts, and separate cycle traffic lights, alongside pedestrian lights. And no-one wears a cycle helmet.
The architecture is enchanting. Tall narrow houses are packed together, but each one different. They all have gables with big hooks on them, with some specific designs, such as a stepped gable, or a bell gable. The houses lean out over the street but this is on purpose so that furniture lifted into the houses using the gable hooks, do not hit the walls of the lower floors. The windows do not line up from one house to it’s neighbour. The rows of houses seem to be askew, crooked but this is the norm in Amsterdam.
Dutch “coffee shops” were noticeable by the queues outside, by the aroma. It is accepted in NL to sell cannabis for personal use and to smoke it inside, even though it is illegal to smoke tobacco indoors. However, there were very subtle bouncers checking ID of tourists, to ensure legal age. It is a controlled business. We could not miss the “red light” area either with girls sitting in windows, literally framed by red lights. The drinking age is more lenient in NL compared to UK, beer glasses are smaller, with more foam than here but this seems to result in moderation and drink awareness.
The Rijksmuseum is a grand building with a road running through it. The exhibitions are organised by date, with a mix of paintings, sculpture and art for each period. The interior is modern compared to the age of the building, to emphasise the art rather than the rooms themselves. There are paintings by Rembrandt, Vermeer, Van Gogh, to name a few.
There are numerous museums, churches, monuments, attractions, shopping streets, a wide variety of restaurants and bars. There are tourist shops, cheese shops and the flower market runs along Singel canal, with a multi-coloured array of tulips and bulbs for sale.
I love travelling and experiencing other countries, other cultures, other cuisine. I don’t speak any other languages, just a few words of school French, so I am always very grateful when locals speak English, as they do in The Netherlands. But there is one thing I need to start my day, wherever I am…..
“Tea please”….. oh
“English tea please”….. oh
“English tea with milk please”….. oh
“English tea with cold milk please”….. ok, almost there.
Do it yourself English tea!
Amsterdam is a fascinating city in daylight and at night.
17 Monday Nov 2014
Posted in all about me, days out
Falkirk Wheel is a fascinating piece of engineering and ingenuity. Rather than creating the usual series of locks to link two canals that are at different levels, this wheel has been built as a rotating, counterweighted boat lift. The glass roofed visitor centre explains the process and has a café where you can watch the wheel in action. As one gondola, containing boats and water, descends from the higher canal aqueduct, the opposite gondola rises from the basin and lower canal. All performed with minimal energy due to the Archimedes principle. Clever stuff. Usually there are tourist boat trips on the wheel but due to annual maintenance last week, we could only see the wheel and not experience it in motion.
Falkirk has another tourist attraction, The Kelpies. Two beautiful horse sculptures, thirty metres tall, made from stainless steel, which stand in the Helix parkland, beside the canals. We walked through the park to view the sculptures from a distance and up close. We also joined a tour, which told about the mythology of the water horses, the local history of the canals and heavy horses who worked the area, also the millennium vision that created the kelpies. The bonus of taking the tour was going inside one of the horses, seeing the internal design and engineering of the structure.
We stopped later in the day, at dusk, as the horses were floodlit from inside and the light reflected in the canal.
Stirling is another Scottish town full of history. It is the site of battles against the English, such as Bannockburn. The Wallace Monument sits on one hill, the castle sits on another hill. The castle was both a fortress and a royal residence for several hundred years. The tour guide refreshed my Tudor and Stuart history, Mary Queen of Scots, crowned as a baby, her son, James VI of Scotland who became James I of England. The castle staterooms are displayed with minimal furnishings, as example, a simple four poster bed frame to indicate the nature of the room, while paintwork and ornate ceilings were emphasized. The kitchens have displays and soundtracks to indicate the hustle to feed a full castle. A workshop was in use where replica tapestries are being woven by hand. Our afternoon was an interesting snapshot of history.
Back in 2011, we drove across the Forth bridge, up around Perth and on to Pitlochry where we stopped for coffee and a walk around. We took the kids for a walk to the river, over a suspension bridge and up past the fish ladders where the salmon swim up and through the dam, into the loch above. The scenery was stunning with the autumn colours. There was some cloud and even mist on the hills as we drove up, but we had some sunny spells. Aussie Mate and Aussie “soon to be” son-in law were on a search for some snow but it had not been cold enough that October, so there was no snow even on the Cairngorm Mountains. We drove back along the banks of Loch Tay via the Falls of Dochart.
I’ve enjoyed all three trips to Edinburgh. First class train travel was an added benefit, travelling via York, Durham, Newcastle Upon Tyne, Berwick on Tweed. The section around the English and Scottish border is lovely as the train tracks hug the coast and passengers get glimpses of the sea, cliffs, coves and beaches.
17 Monday Nov 2014
Posted in all about me, days out
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We are just back from a few days in Edinburgh. This was my third trip in three years. One was an autumn family trip as part celebration of 18th and 21st birthdays, with C~M, S~E and Aussie “soon to be” son-in law. One was a mini break in spring with my mother, ladies who lunched and enjoyed some civilised sightseeing. This has been a couple’s break. So I’ll write about this trip to the city, Falkirk and Stirling but with additions from the previous visits when we ventured to Pitlochry and Roslin Chapel, toured the Royal Yacht Britannia.
Edinburgh is a beautiful rugged city, built on several volcanic hills. It has lots of history, grand buildings, alleyways, steep stairways and open spaces. It is a busy cosmopolitan city with various foreign accents mixing with the lilting local Scottish accent.
It is exciting to go to a new place but it also nice to return, to know the landmarks and your way around. We still browsed and found new routes to new points of interest but we did not need to get out the tourist map as we walked along.
The castle looked striking in the dusk and evening floodlights. We went back in daylight to get the views of the city, estuary, surrounding countryside. We didn’t go inside the castle this time, but have good memories of wandering around the grounds, the apartments, seeing the Scottish crown jewels, the memorial, the prisoner exhibition and cells. The Great Hall exhibits old weapons, swords, guns, spears. St Margaret’s Chapel is a tiny little chapel but pretty with colourful stained glass windows. We had joined the crowds outside, to see the one o’clock cannon that is fired each day.
Heading north, roads and stepped alley ways lead from the castle via gardens or The Mound to galleries and museums, to Princes Street, the shopping area, the tram network and further towards the Georgian area of the city.
The Royal Mile leads east from the castle down hill to the Palace of Holyrood House and the Scottish Parliament. The view opens out to the surrounding hills and crags. The Royal Mile is one of the oldest streets in the Old Town, now populated with tourist shops, tartans and whiskey, amongst the historic houses and churches.
Edinburgh is famous for it’s Fringe Arts Festival that takes place every August. There are comedy clubs open all year and a variety of art, music and theatre worth enjoying, along with the varied pubs and restaurants.
The Royal Yacht Britannia is moored at Leith, north of the city, on the Firth of Forth. The tour around he royal yacht is fascinating, with lots to see, history, photos. We had sight of the royal bedrooms but actually walked through the royal decks, sun room as well as crew quarters, the state dining room and lounge, reception room. There is a Tea Room so we stopped and had refreshments. My Mum and I had a pot of tea and a scone on the royal yacht.
Musselburgh is also on the Forth estuary, a town a few miles east of the city, with a pretty little harbour and a lot of fishing history. Roslyn Chapel, the Knight’s Templar chapel mentioned in “the Da Vinci Code” is to the south of the city. It is a little place, tucked away in a village but only a few miles from the Edinburgh ring road. It is a very ornate chapel with unique individual carvings and stories.
