pepper+ninja

The trek home

We didn't get off to a good start on our trek home. On leaving our apartment in Dublin, the cabbie claimed a bad back meant he couldn’t help with the bags, religious music blasted full volume all the way to the airport, and despite the only hot weather of our time in Ireland some of the cab’s windows didn’t work??!!??

Everything was OK on the flight to London. However, about half way through checking in for the flight to Sydney through Hong Kong, the computer deleted all the seat allocations and they couldn’t be retrieved. Delays and confusion followed. Eventually everything had to be done manually, with a number of mistakes and re-tries, and the aircraft eventually left about 2 hours late with Cate and Phil booked into seats in different rows (got that sorted out after boarding)!

Our luck changed in Hong Kong, beginning with an upgrade to Upper Class!!! Thank you Shahana!!! What luxury!! The delights of a la carte service, sleeping pj’s, and our own cubicles with full length beds!!! And Arthur enjoyed the photo opportunities in Upper Class!

Our last remaining concern was, having been told at Heathrow and Hong Kong that we were unable to take any liquid into Australia, we were unsure whether Sydney airport’s duty free shops would have the specially aged whiskies Phil had set his heart on. Luckily Phil made some compromises, our bags emerged quickly, and the Customs staff were helpful in sorting out our queries and we were delighted to see Alysha’s smiling face as we emerged into the public area of the airport.

After a wonderful brunch with Alysha in Sydney, and an uneventful drive to Canberra, we were glad to walk through the front door of our lovely home.

Ireland at last

Less than a week to see what we can of Ireland .........

Our introduction was driving to Donegal in the rain and through all the
roundabouts. We found the massive Abbey hotel easily as (there are only 3
streets in the main town. It was such a long walk from the carpark to the
hotel that Phil needed an afternoon nap (although this could have been
foresight of the fire alarm that night). Cate went exploring buying a CD
of Irish songs just as bad as the Scottish CD.

We visited Donegal castle which we really liked, more on a human scale
with a re-built tower house with a loo, and the ruins of a manor house and
a tour operator who wanted to give Phil a seniors concession! But the
highlight of Donegal was the boat trip of Donegal harbor, with a singing
leprechaun. Never will Old Mcdonald or Burning ring of fire sound the
same! Although the stories of the famine and the coffin ships leaving from
here were sobering. We went to a traditional Irish pub for dinner where
Phil had Guinness and irish stew, not much traditional about Cate's
lobster!

Next day was 400 kms of driving to Killarney which started well. However
visiting Galway for lunch, during race week, was a big mistake -90 minutes
of bumper to bumper traffic in and out of Galway, which may be a pretty
city but we didn't get to see much of it. Unfortunately the traffic jam
lasted on and off for the rest of the trip with the only break a maze of
toll road expressways that appeared from nowhere just outside limerick and
stopped just after!

We finally made it to Killarney to discover they were having their annual
summer festival and the place was packed - the streets were alive with
bands, street theatre, clowns, lots of street decorations and thousands of
people. Even with a very friendly receptionist at the arbutus hotel Phil
needed a Guinness at a quiet pub. This was followed by dinner at a great
up-market Italian restaurant run by an Australian family from Jindabyne.

Killarney is as pretty a town as you could find anywhere, so we went
exploring with Arthur and the credit card the next morning, buying so much
in the wool shops we had to get it sent home separately. Phil tried to
make Sam a fortune with a bet on the Irish races - but unfortunately
another useless thing! We drove through the Killarney national park
(landscape more like Scotland) and visited Kenmare for a bit more shopping
then off to Cork.

The best thing about Cork is the Garnish bed&breakfast. While we walked into town
and looked around, the hotel spoiled us for everything else. Warm scones,
fruit cake and chocolate cake on arrival, the friendliest staff, and the
most amazing breakfast we have ever seen.

To complete Phil's whisky tour he needed appropriately serious glasses
from which to take his dram back in Australia This required a side trip to
Waterford to visit their lead crystal factory/showroom, which also required
an extra purchase to secure their free luxury trip to Australia.

Kilkenny was next on the route, with a walk around the town, a visit to
the castle (including another extraordinary waitressing experience at the
castle kitchen cafe); and a major hunt to find the Kilkenny Brewery
particularly for Arthur's photo opportunities.

Our apartment in Dublin was easier to find than we had expected - we
followed a tour bus, and discovered we are right in the heart of the city.
The manager was lovely, if uncontactable, and the apartment great despite
a few quirks. The apartment was located close to the historic and famous pedestrian Ha'penny bridge.

We had the best tour of the holiday at the Killmainham jail, which
presents the jail as one of the key elements in Irish political and social
history. The guide drew on personal stories and incident to tell the story
of poverty and rebellion, and bring history alive. The tour group cheered
him at the end of the tour.

We next visited the Museum of modern art for lunch and a great multi-media
exhibition aimed at increasing access to visual arts for people with
disability, especially the blind.. After all this culture a visit to
the Guinness storehouse, with it's seven story glass tower,-and view across
Dublin was a must, followed by a bit more shopping. Walked down O’Connell Street and around the north of the city including the shopping district and the historic post office.

On our last day we splurged in the shops in Grafton street, wandered around the historic Powerscourt shopping centre with designer shops, had lunch at Temple Bar. Later, while Phil took care of administration matters behind the red door (where he had access to the WiFi connection provided by the apartment owners), Cate walked Trinity College, St Stephens Green, Leinster House and Merrion Square.

We feel as though we’ve only scratched the surface and hope we can get a chance to come back to Dublin.

Northern Ireland changing times

Our apartment building in Belfast is part of the major redevelopment of the Belfast docklands
which built the Titanic. The scale of the Titanic, the massive old
cranes, graving docks and pump house are impressive, and we got lots of
photos (Arthur hogging the limelight again!), although someone needs to
explain to the bus drivers that they should pick up passengers!

Our cabbie for the black taxi tour had grown up during the worst of the conflict, and is quite pessimistic that Ireland will ever be united. The conflict is still part of people's daily lives with huge gates closing every night to block off protestant and catholic sections. We saw the murals off the shank hill road (the one with the gun that follows you around -like the Mona Lisa was amazing!!!), signed our names on the peace wall, went to one
of the local catholic community memorials with the barbed wire cages around
the houses, and drove past the Sinn Fein headquarters with its fortifications.

We also visited an exhibition in the Belfast library of posters developed during the conflict, found “Arthur Square” (another photo opportunity), and the new shopping plaza in the city
centre, finishing up with fajitas for dinner in a Mexican restaurant with amazing
chandeliers made out of beer bottles - another photo opportunity!

Next morning, after getting lost several times we drove north to
Ballycastle, and our first experience of Irish roads (built around hundreds
of roundabouts - some with traffic lights). We walked the Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge, a
20 metre bridge between two islands at the northern tip of Ireland -
Arthur got a certificate to prove his exploits. We also walked miles in
the rain to clamber over the giants causeway - amazing rock formation!
Following these exploits a small dram of whiskey at the Bushmills
distillery, was needed to calm the nerves, and further enhance Phil's
knowledge of scotch and Irish whisky. This may have led to the singing of
Danny Boy as we passed its author's birthplace at Limavardy, and getting
lost as we tried to find the hotel in Derry.

We are staying in the Tower hotel, the only hotel in the inner walled city
- the maiden city as the Lonely Planet insists on calling it, because the
walls have never been breached. The walls are impressive, and the inner
town is very steep, full of tiny cobbled streets and very old buildings,
and we found a really cool brassiere for dinner. Unfortunately inner Derry
becomes hoonsville at midnight - so much for sleep!!!

From the city walls you get a good view of the Bogside - the site of
the Bloody Sunday massacre. We found the peoples corner, the commemoration
to the hunger strikers, and the 12 murals at the end of houses on Roseville
street. The guide at the People's museum showed us a photo of his brother
dying in the Bloody Sunday massacre, yet spoke with optimism about the
recent findings of the Bloody Sunday Commission of Inquiry. At the
people’s gallery we had an opportunity to chat with one of the three artists
who painted the murals while he signed our book and told us another of the
other three artists was now living in Mildura in Australia.

We left Derry at midday, getting lost driving out of the city towards Donegal. The only way we knew we had crossed the border was the travel signs on the side of the road changed from miles to kilometers.

Islay to Ireland

What did we like about islay? The gorgeous hotel with complimentary Scottish breakfasts in the dining room overlooking the sea, the friendliness of the iliachs,  the wild and beautiful scenery, or was it the focus of the island on whiskey and the interesting ways they approached it, or Phil's plot of islay laphroig land?Whatever it was made it hard for us to leave, and wanting to come back at some stage!

The ferry ride back to kennacraig on the mainland was splendid, all the wind and rain and mist around the boat, although the coffee was strange!  The drive in convoy back up the  kintyre peninsula was slow and picturesque.  We stopped in inverrary for lunch and treated Arthur to a scottish kilt - what a cracker!! Spent most of our time searching for cardboard boxes  for the whiskey to travel in, decided going inside the Inverary jail could be a step too far, but did walk up to see the gorgeous Inverary castle, and watched a traditional Scottish pipe band of young kids, practice.

The landscape from here to Loch Lomond was dramatic - huge mountains and deep valleys - part of the Trossachs National Park.  However all the glaswegians were returning from their weekends away so it was also 30 miles at a crawl.  I guess this is the "high road"? 

We stayed overnight in Balloch House right on Loch Lomond - a large traditional Scottish pub filled with families eating their Sunday lunch, afternoon tea and dinner when we arrived. The landlord was a real card - unfortunately the bed was not quite as amusing!

The drive to Glasgow next day was testing as we searched for a post office, drove through the city centre, handed back the car, and thanks to a helpful cabbie, found the post office & paid our annual salary to send our excess baggage home, and got the tickets to Stranraer.  In a reaction to all the stress, and the first sunny day we had seen in Scotland, Cate hit the shops re-creating the baggage problem at which Phil slid even further into quiet despair.  However the train trip through Ayr to Stranraer went well (it rained as an appropriate farewell to Scotland). 

More spectacular was the fast ferry to Belfast, which by mistake we had booked stena plus -what a hoot!  Sitting in leather lunges on the elevated Stena Plus deck at the front of the ship we were waited on hand and foot with free grog, nibbles, Wiifi, and yummy dinner!  The boat takes hundreds of people at a time, plus their vehicles and has movies, games arcades, shops, Barista, nail place, casino machines, etc!!! We dIdn't want to get off!!!  Luckily a friendly cabbie in Belfast took pity on us and drove us to our brand new apartment on the river in Belfast,and we finished an exciting day with a stroll along the Lagan River and a load of washing at midnight!

 Islay - peat whisky heaven 

Up at 5am and off north to Inverness, amazed once again by the meaness of the Scottish highways and the lack of signs, (phil is convinced that the dept of finance in Scotland must be doing a fantastic job - pity there is no time for him to learn their tricks). But it also means it is incredibly slow to get anywhere often just 20 miles an hour!

South from Inverness along loch ness we looked for the loch ness monster, and found the absolutely worst coffee in Scotland!! Went to the Loch Ness centre at Dromnadritch renowned for its displays to get you to decode whether the monster is real.  It was very useful for Arthur as a camera tart, but even public servants could work out a monster wasn't a goer once given there is almost no fish life in the Loch - nothing for even a small monster to live on.
  
From there the picturesque scenery of the west coast of Scotland took over - little towns and stone cottages (and huge mansions ) around Loch Ness, Loch Linnhe and Loch Fyne.  What a great place for a weekender from Glasgow!! However we had no time to dawdle, so  phil, determined to prove he could have had a career as a racing car driver cut corners, and got us to Tarbert well ahead of time.  Enough time to take some more photos of Arthur in the quaint fishing village (much nicer than those on the east coast we had visited earlier in the week).

The Ferry to Islay was great, and very neat the way they got 100 cars on it in almost no time!!!  Two hours across the ocean with the western islands emerging from the mists - not Skye but a very romantic feeling. We stood out on the deck for the last part of the voyage and watched the docking at Port Askaig - very impressive. We then drove in convoy across the island to Bowmore (the only time there are more than two cars traveling together on the island is when the ferry comes in) and the Lovely (and luxurious) Harbour Inn.

Surprise! Surprise! We spent most of our time on Islay visiting distilleries.  However we managed to squeeze in a visit to an old woolen mill (built in 1500s but now with machines from the 1800s) which was amazing, took a short drive to the south of the island, met some locals in a great little coffee shop, and Cate walked around the shops in Bowmore.

The first distillery we visited on Islay was Bruichladdich.  This distillery is known for its innovative and creative approach to whisky making.  They try new and different approaches to making and maturing its whiskies.  Its also much less peaty in taste in its standard whisky forms, although it does make a extra peat flavoured single malt whisky. Phil, Cate and Arthur tasted a few different whiskies, and Phil got to fill his own whisky bottle from a barrel of special  Bruichlaidich whisky which was then sealed and labelled so it could be brought back to Australia for consumption at a later date.
 
Laphroigh distillery was next.  We went on a tour??!! What a surprise!!  But this time Phil had to be stopped from answering the questions and giving the tour!!!  Phil was very upset that he couldn't claim his plot of Laphroig land as he hasn't become a "friend of Laphroaig" yet -hadn'tcompleted the paperwork. They had the flags for each country to put on your plot, and umbrellas,raincoats and wellingtons so you can tramp over the land to find your plot. Someone was silly enough to mention tnat you can get buried on your plot, so phil is thinking seriously about this, and also coming back next year with Sam to claim his plot properly.  He also drank two drams - 16yo, and the cask strength whiskey.  
 
We then tried to get into Ardbeg (the whiskey phil got for his birthday)who obviously had heard about us in advance and closed up shop for the day before we arrived.  So we went to Lagavulin, which had the best tasting room - like an old fashioned smoking room with the fire etc - and Phil knocked back 2x16yo & 18 yo.

Obviously the only thing to do after all this tasting is dinner with a couple of nice whiskies.  So back to the hotel for a gorgeous dinner and a dram of 1968 Bunnahabhain Auld Acquaintance malt whisky which cost a staggering amount of money!

Off on the early ferry from port Ellen to Kennacriag.  Still raining and gorgeous view of arriving back on the mainland.

Speyside - whiskey at last!

The cottage in tomintoul is lovely, and the town is tiny, just one main street filled with stone cottages.  And they sent two scottish pipe bands to meet us.  ActuLly it was show day when we arrived but it was a great welcoming.  Worth noting that rod Stewart followed us and is doing concerts in Inverness.

Tomintoul Is the highest village in the scottish highlands and the villagers are very friendly.  Went to the shops to get some supplies, while cate was looking at food Phil is off with the whiskey man sampling the local brews.  It has a great clockhouse restaurant Phil hoed into lobster and Chrissy pudding with custard and plans to return.  

Took Arthur to Dufftown to find the simp sons - instead found a number of old stone milestones, watched the hairy cows, stopped for a herd of sheep who have right of way, met a lovely woman in the tourism office who is planning a trip to aus, and another in the local food co-op who wanted to sign us up!

Took our first tour of a whiskey distillery with a sampling at the end and then kept on going until we had done 7 of them.  Worth mentioning that Cate is the designated driver so Phil gets to do all the sampling at the distilleries (twice what anyone else gets!!)

The glenfiddich distillery is huge, and they gave us tastings of the 12 yo, 15yo and 18yo.  Phil has decided he needs to give much more attention to 18 year old glenfiddich malt whiskey now that he knows how it is made.  Cate was much more attracted to the 18 year old guide in his kilt!!!!    

Speyside cooperage showed how they make whiskey barrels, and we got to try out putting together a mini version.  Having watched the men put a barrel together in 7 minutes, we have decided this is not really a sea change opportunity for us.  Also sampled the local wine - made from oak leaves not grapes, not bad!

Dallus Dhu is the oldest whiskey distillery in Scotland - no longer working, but a good tour with the audio guide and footsteps painted on the ground in yellow and white (which we kept mixing up).Located near Forres, where we had a great lunch at the Time Out cafe in the old market town, they gave us a dram of the Roderick Dhu blend and we bought a CDof Scottish songs - so bad we are using it as a source of self flagellation! 

Benromach in Forres was a tiny distillery, which was re-opened about 12 years ago and now is producing its first whiskey.  By this stage we were finally getting to understand the process and look knowledgeable on the tour!  They were very taken with Arthur and gave us a pin for him to wear. Phil Sampled the 12yo with a lot of talk about nosing!!

Gordon and McPhail, in Elgin was hard to find (although easier thAn the cathedral and the palace in Elgin which we never found.  They reckon they have over 800 different whiskies and by the look of the shelves it looked like it. Unfortunately they didn't provide free samples, but Phil collected the pamphlets so he can join their special society of whiskey buyers when we get home.

The Glenlivet is one of the big operations - a very knowledgeable tour guide and we got to show off by our intelligent questioning of the details.  Phil managed to stack away two drams of the 18yo, unfortunately for Cate the tour guide wasn't 18 - closer to 81).  Tried to replace the CD but too scared we could get something worse!l   

Cardhu is near Knockando and is the only distillery established by a female!!!! Although they didn't bother telling us this until the end of the tour!   The best part of the tour was they gave us 3drams each (6 for Phil)....... Who smiled all the way home, and Arthur gat another badge to make up for not being allowed to take any pictures in the distillery.

The royal Lochnagar is next to Balmoral Castle -a very small distillery which has a special reserve every year in September to celebrAte the anniversary of Queen Victoria and prince albert's first visit.  Phil managed to down a couple of drams of their 12yo.

We managed to do a few other things in Speyside besides visit distilleries -although not many!!!!  We went to blmoral castle where Arthur seemed quite interested in the castle and the ground but most interested in hoeing into a scone with jam and cream.  He collected another badge and we tried to find a replacement CD of scottish songs - no luck again!!!  

We also visited the Scottish fishing villages of Banff, Macduff and Paneen (tiny. Strip of houses hanging onto the cliff with a road down that was almost vertical ) where we had considered staying instead of tomintoul.  Very happy we made the right choice.  Once again surprised by the size of the seagulls -they are huge, just like in Edinburgh.

We have also done a fair amount of driving and decided the Scottish countryside is beautiful even in the pouring rain.  And there are certainly lots of historic castles and stone buildings and bridges -very quaint.  the Scottish highways, however often only a single lane and with a random selection of useless signs, are an experience!!!  Even worse that the roads are the midges.  Phil attracts them in the hundreds when he gets out of the car to take photos.  Although apparently we are very lucky as it's a mild midge season.

Edinburgh - wet! Wet! Wet!
Now we know why we brought the jumpers and wet weather gear!  It's cold and drizzly all the time!  And we keep on forgetting to take the brolly, so end up drenched....

The flat is great -just off the Royal Mile in the old Town and with a great view over the new town and princes street. Unfortunately this is because it's up two flights (48 steps) so we get a work-out every time we go outside.  Even worse there are about 80 steps outside for us to get down to the new town, with the delightful name of Fleshpot Close!

Katy, the renting agent, is lovely. She brought us flowers, extra bedding and gave us great tips on coffee shops etc.  She tried to connect the wireless router - which she insisted on calling the rooter!!! Anyway Phil and Katy spent a few hours fiddle-farting and we are now on air.  Meanwhile Cate did 7 loads of washing and turned the flat into a Chinese laundry for the nxt 3 days!!

Edinburgh is dressed in it's finest because the queen is in town, hosting a garden party (our invites were lost in the mail) and rod Stewart is doing concerts in the grounds of the castle.  Scalpers are selling tickets in the pouring rain, goodness knows how anyone could even stay dry enough to hear him sing!!

We walked the Royal Mile, palace to castle, so many Scottish heritage tartan and whiskey shops!!! We started out the walk in the sunshine, but were drenched by the end of it.  We took a couple of the hop-on/hop-off tourist buses madly chasing them down in the pouring rain as we couldn't work out where they stopped??? We visited the castle, being set up for the Rod Stewart concert (putting out chairs in the rain), and saw the sights but Arthur was badly behaved - tried go steal the crown jewels! 

Visited the newt town searching for coffee and iPad bits.  Good luck with the coffee - no luck with the connection for the iPad to download pictures.  Perused the high end shops marks &spencer, sainsbury, etc.  Myers has a lot to learn!,

On Friday we cCaught the train for a day in Glasgow. The countryside is sooo green, with quaint little villages of stone cottages, and small plots divided by dry stone walls.  Not the cate saw much of them - preoccupied with solitaire!!! 

Once again we tried the apple shop in the middle of Glasgow with no luck, have finally given up getting any photos on the blog - will have to wait until we are home??? Glasgow was cold and wet - we tried the tourist walk along the river, looked for the Taggart police station, but basically were blown around by gale force winds. Arthur in an attempt to look heroic in the midst of the drenching almost jumped overboard from the Bridge. We followed the Charles rennie mackintosh trail of heritage buildings (glasgow's most famous architect)and were impressed with the Glasgow school of arts once we finally found it. We got some good photos of Arthur trying to enroll - we tried to tell him it was holidays! Spent the rest of the day in the shops -not bad, and tried to catch the wrong train back to Edinburgh.

Saturday it was time to pick up the hire car and leave - except we couldn't find the flat once we picked up the car and then we couldn't get out of Edinburgh.  We ended up going around in circles (certainly saw some places 3 &4 times, but finally got onto forth bridge and we're off to speyside!  

The trip up was uneventful except for the worst coffee so far on our trip from a little pub in Perth, and we continued to choose the wrong roads and go round in circles.  However the scenery is so picturesque we're quite happy getting almost nowhere...............

Day 7 to day 11: 11 July to 15 July - Edinburgh  

Off to Brussels........once again we're off on the train,although we hadn't expected to get from strassbourg to lille through Paris!! Off at Lille we had an hour to record the town for our lil......pity we still can.t find the part to load up the photos. We were so engrossed and mike was so famished, we nearly missed the connection to Brussels, and mike's brand new bag broke!!!

Just time to book into the tiny apartment at the cItadines in place st Catherine, which is in the process of gentrification and becoming the design centre of Brussels as well as it's seafood centre. We walked around, viewing the restaurants (with tents set up in the park) and settled down to order -when there was the largest hailstorm and rain coming into the tent! We were drenched! The waiter was drenched! Only Michael the head waiter was unpeturbed!!!! But lots of laughs as we watched Michael provide the least amount of service possible to the diners, and argue with the staff while we ate and dried off and then at the end Michael wanted to be paid in cash.

If anything Brussels is even jitter than strassbourg - why did we bring the coats and jumpers?

Next morning our first outing was a visit to Brugge......
- Where we tried to escape the huge crowds on the train to bruge and the coast by sitting in first class - unfortunately got sprung
    *lunch was in a quaint little restaurant atT the end of one of the main canals - where Arthur particularly enjoyed the ambience
- mike climbed the steps of the bell of the church in the main square - all 366 of them
     * mike and Pepper found the wall of beer (over 500 Belgian beers with matching glasses) -twice, with Mike downing a massive I litter beer with photos to prove it - while cate went snooping around the artsy end of Brugge and discovered wasabi chocolate
       * we all went on a boat for a canal tour, which was an excellent way of seeing a lot of Brugge in a short time.
- Dinner was in a cellar restaurant where we were agin told that cards could not be used - we are single handedly contributing massively to the black market
- Plus we found gorgeous stuff for lilypad, and some more sox 

We had a good walk around Brussels the next day......Phil and cate left early to search for coffee and came across cafe run by a cheery African guy who'd fresh orange juice and strong double espressos. We had a good look at the downtown area, found the mannikin pis and the jeneker squat in the pouring rain, as well as AC DC setting up in the main square. Pepper bought some shorts and some some shirts at City2 and Cate tried to buy a lovely shoulder bag, but it was not to be.....We bought a USB gadget to try and connect the iPad to the camera, but it didn't work, so we still have no way of getting photos taken each day uploaded to the iPad   This is now our major shopping objective, although we did get some glue and gaffa tape to fix the handle of Mike's backpack, which we now hope will last the rest of the trip due to good work by Mike and pepper. We had a drink in the oldest pub in Brussels - four generations of the same family have been serving beer in the same spot. For dinner we went back to the tents in place st Catherine and tried the Golden Pig where we once again had unusual service from a complete novice waiter who preferred to clear tables and a maitre d' who spent his time berating the novice. However mike got his first taste of snails, and at least it didn't hail!

Next morning we had breakfast at a gorgeous organic cafe, with muesli elegantly presented in tall glasses, before we left Mike at the Brussels railway station to travel to London. We visited the brussels cathedral and then had coffee in the st huberts arcades, with phil and Arthur enjoying an hour on the iPad sitting in luxury in one of the grandest cafe and Cate checking out the shops.

We had been disappointed to miss Antwerp, so were thrilled when Antwerp diamonds proved to be on special at the duty free at the airport! A great opportunity not to be missed - although we nearly missed the plane to Edinburgh with our dallying! Transfers don't seem to be one of our easiest things to do although the flight to Edinburgh was an easy one - with Cate introduced to Solitaire on the iPad a distraction from there on!!!!!

Well Strasbourg is picture perfect!!! The hotel is in Petit France and the epitome of gorgeous luxury - fruit baskets and free wine on arrival! The rooms are built over a lock with the lovely sound of running water, and beds large enough to sleep a footy team! The houses in petit france are built on canals - gorgeous fairy stories - tall, narrow and painted all colours of the rainbow. Dripping with tiredness we had a lovely dinner under a huge tree with two look alike waiters (or were we seeing double?) then crossed the cobblestones back to the hotel

We crammed quite a lot into a few days, commencing with a desperate search for coffee early the next morning -where we discovered the natives prefer a longer lie in. Still we managed to order coffee and croissants but discovered paying for them was more difficult! And then doubled back to the hotel to wake mIke for a second helping. Despite discovering we had left the tourism guide to srassbourg on the computer in Canberra, we managed to find the tourism office, sort out the tram system, and spend hours wandering the streets and shops.

The highlights of Strasbourg (indeed the purpose of the visit) was a visit to the Kronenbourg brewery, where Mike learnt a few tricks of the trade to help him with his home brews.  We also got to have a taste of their various brews - again and again!! Unfortunately Arthur was badly behaved at the brewery, was photographed by an alliance francais student trying to climb into the fermenting tanks, and again in an inebriated state in the bar. A great day was topped off by a great meal, helpful waiter who spoke almost no english but was happy to try to explain things to us, and the best sweets mike swears he has ever had!

Friday (celebrating phil's 40th year in the public service) we headed off to travel the route des vines, where much grape growing and wine producing takes place. We caught the train to Calmar and had a look around (including in a mini street train) and then a bus to Turckheim (a fairy tale village!) for some wine tasting and purchase a small amount of product. After soldiering on alone to the second cellar for some more wine tasting, Mike and Phil grew weary and were forced to retire to the pub for a couple of local brews. The owner, drinking a beer of his own while serving us, also found time to jump around like a kangaroo after finding out we were Australian.

Unfortunately the to try for a traditional strassbourg dinner was less successful! Boeckhof (a stew of 3 unnamed meats) and sauerkraut with fish are obviously an acquired taste - which Phil sought valiantly to acquire. But we saw the Notre Dame cathedral light up with a very impressive show to celebrate some major strassbourgian event. The whole cathedral was illuminated with many coloured lights synchronised to music and almost everyone in strassbourg must have been there - it was so crowded

We got up early the next morning to take a ride in the Batarama a boat trip along the canals and waterways of strassbourg before we had to leave.. It was gorgeous and we got to see the modern parts including the European court of human rights and the European parliament where we hadn't been. Arthur was most impressed with the canals and the boat trip! We had a last great spread for breakfast, a long look at the luxury we were leAving, a chance to get some Xmas execrations, a heated discussion about the size of the tip for the concierge, and we were off......

After Strasbourg we caught the train to Brussels.

Days 1-4: wednesday 7july to Saturday 10 July -strassbourg

Well the trip was, how do you say, long.

Cate, Phil, Mike and Arthur endured the many kilometers with mostly good grace (and a particular focus on the drinks menu!!). Cate got upgraded to Premium Economy from Sydney tot HK, but for HK to Heathrow joined Phil and Mike right at the back of the plane (with a good spot right in front of the toilets)? The outstanding event that springs to mind is Mike's effect on woman who was sitting to him - she paid an extra £30 to get upgraded during the flight.

We have some photos of Arthur on the plane coming into Heathrow, intently reading up on flight safety procedures, just to be well prepared in case of unforeseen events.

After landing we had an extended and energetic walk to St Pancreas Station - with Mike leading from the front! Even with wheels, the bags seemed to get very heavy. Cate said Phil looked very pale after the walk. Time for another espresso!

The train across the channel was fine, but the low point of the day was missing our rail connection to Strassbourg from Paris. Thankfully we didn't have to pay the fares again, or spend the night in Paris. Instead phil and mike charmed the booking clerk, we had a short and entertaining trip with an irate taxi driver, and sweated in a sidewalk cafe drinking coffee in 35 degree heat!!!

We are now in Strasbourg, and very nice it is too. Will have more to say about this in the next update (Arthur had a big day at the beer tasting and we have photos to prove it. Still working on the problem of connecting camera to iPad, and pursuing Robbie's advice).

Day 1: Tuesday 7 July 2010............travelling  

As our last little activity before packing and cleaning and packing and cleaning and packing and cleaning we are heading off to the theatre to see something that we havent had enough time to even look at the tickets to know... Hope it is good!

Yes this is the first iPad entry. Keyed in from the lounge room in Canberra. Breathtaking stuff I know!

Well- the blog is established, with an undisclosed amount of assistance from Sharnie Bear. Of couse I would have done it my self, except that certain of the potplants were demanding a change of scenery, even if it involved travel of only a metre or two.