Trekkin

Day 30 – Monday 20 June 2016

We departed the Columba Hotel in Inverness this morning at 7.45am & drove the short distance to the Caledonian Canal dock to board our cruise boat, the Jacobite Rebel. We boarded at 8am & headed up the Caledonian Canal to where it joined Loch Ness, yes, we are hunting Nessie, the monster of the loch. All of us had our cameras at the ready, even the captain of the cruise boat put his telephoto lens on his camera. The cruise boat was also fitted with a bottom structure radar, so that not only the captain but all on board could see the bottom structure or anything large swimming in the loch. Loch Ness is on an intercontinental fault line & as a result is very deep, narrow & long, Loch Ness is 755 feet deep at its deepest point with a mean depth of 433 feet. It holds more fresh water than all of the other lakes in England & Wales combined. As we headed out onto Loch Ness the weather started to close in with rain & wind, making it cool right down & cutting visibility. While Ron is ever the sailor, he spends all of his time outside in the elements & chatting with the captain. The rest of us are very precious & enjoy the warm comfort of the boat & look out the big windows. John, our local expert guide tells us facts & fiction about the lake, Nessie & history, when he runs out of stories he bursts into singing & we all join in – he is very good. He is very knowledgeable about the different clans too – he knew exactly where Ron’s Clan the MacIntosh (the MacThomas (Thompson) a subset of the MacIntosh) clan are & he is correct Ron’s great grandfather did stem from about 50 miles from Inverness in Foggieloan, (Aberchirder) if we only had more time he would have told us so much, but the coach awaits us. The mountains on one side of the loch are fairly steep, with rock slides evident down the face & the gorse out everywhere in brilliant yellow flower, with the mist & rain it does look beautiful. Alas, no sign of Nessie & we turn back, then the wind drops, the rain stops & patches of blue sky start to appear. As we pass the junction of the loch where it drops down a rock bar & forms the Ness River & the Caledonian Canal splits off we pass a lone fly fisherman, standing, waist deep in the rapids trying for a salmon in the turbulent water.

As we depart Inverness, at the dock area we see a large number of wind generator tower components awaiting deployment into the nearby North Sea. A little further north from Inverness along the Firth of Cromarty a number of North Sea oil platforms are moored, they are very large. The countryside is very pretty with masses of yellow gorse everywhere, the grass is so green & there are sheep & cattle everywhere in the fields. We stop at Helmsdale for a short break to stretch our legs, it is a sleepy little village on a small river with a small fishing port & a nice old stone bridge.

On the road again we drive along the edge of the North Sea, sometimes high on the clifftops & sometimes low & close to the sea. Now, in addition to the yellow gorse there are lots of small white flowers carpeting the valley everywhere. There are a lot of small farms scattered around, all with views to the North Sea.

We reach Wick for lunch at a small café, the only one we can find open in the small High Street, then head off to the nearby Pulteney Distillery, established in 1826. The Distillery is very interesting as we are shown through the full process for making whisky, fortunately the distillery is having some equipment replaced so we get to see everything with no noise but miss out on some of the process, we can take our time to look around. Our guide is full of information, one of the most surprising is that only 8 men produce 1.3 million litres of whisky each year. The other surprising thing is that most of the equipment used is so old, one of the machines is over 94 years old & used every day in the production process. The two stills used are big copper units, the first called the Wash Still & the 2^nd called the Low Wine Still. The whisky is stored onsite in big oak barrels purchased 2^nd hand from America as they are only used the one time for making bourbon. We walk into a couple of the whisky storehouses, they are very large with thousands of barrels & the smell (what they call Angel Breath) you could get drunk on it. Everyone is smiling when we walk out. There are some barrels that are more than 40 years old. The final part of the tour is the tasting & we taste firstly a 12 year old single malt Pulteney whisky, then a specialty, a very smooth whisky liquor that is very tasty indeed, Tereza even enjoyed it. One interesting titbit, they recommend 2 drops of water in the whisky to release the full flavour of the whisky.

Next is off to the north coast & we drive through John O’Groats, the small town that is the most northerly in the mainland UK, then turn west to the former Queen Mother’s summer home, the Castle of Mey. This castle was built in the late 16^th century by the 4th Earl of Caithness & by the time the Queen Mother purchased the castle in 1952 for 100 pounds, it was in a state of disrepair. She spent time & money to transform the castle into a holiday home & spent time there every summer for the rest of her life (she was 100 the last time she visited). The castle is kept the way it was when she was in residence, she established the Castle of Mey Trust in 1996 & transferred ownership to the trust so that the castle could be retained for the benefit of the local community. Prince Charles stays at the castle in summer each year. The Queen Mother must have had a good sense of humour, there are a lot of quirky little things in the castle that put a smile on your face. The rooms in the castle are nicely decorated with some nice pieces of furniture, ordinary everyday comfortable & useful items. She even purchased a second hand big planter from a local Wick 2^nd hand shop (for 5 pounds) that greets you as you enter. The dining room has a very worn out carpet that her mother-in-law gave to her & her husband (it was already well worn when they got it), when the servants didn’t like to put it in she apparently told them “you can’t get rid of something your mother-in-law gave you”. Our guide told us about the resident ghost & her personal experiences with it, mentioning that other guides have also had visits by the ghost, said to be of a former female resident of the castle called Fanny who committed suicide by jumping from a tower window because she couldn’t marry the man she loved. We didn’t meet Fanny.

Our drive back to Wick was just as pleasant, looking out at the nearby Orkney Islands & we arrived at our hotel with just enough time to organise ourselves for dinner. Official sunset in Wick for the longest day of the year is 10.22pm. Sunrise is at 4.05am. (It is 11 pm & it’s still not dark). Solstice is actually today the 20^th not 21^st June because we had a leap year. Another great day – exhausted again.

Day 29 – Sunday 19 June 2016

We were off at 8am this morning & north over the Firth of Forth, we made fairly good time as there was hardly any traffic in Edinburgh this morning (Sunday). The rail bridge over the Firth of Forth was the longest bridge in the world when it was opened in 1890 & is very distinctive. On the other side a new road bridge is being built as the existing bridge (built in the 1960s) has problems with rust in the suspension cables. Our first destination this morning is St Andrews, the home of golf. We stop and have a look at the ruins of the former St Andrews Cathedral, built in 1158 & the largest church ever built in Scotland. What was a huge church was destroyed around the end of the 16^th century by a lightning bolt & then the remaining rubble pillaged by villagers to build houses over the centuries. There is a considerable amount of the ruin remaining & it is interesting walking around the ruins of this former grand building.

Our next stop is the home of golf & we go for a walk down the 1^st fairway, the grass is very short & almost like a bowling green, it is very well kept. After we finished walking the fairway a team of 5 groundkeepers were out in force repairing all of the divots from play yesterday. The small creek down near the 1^st green is bricked on both sides & impossible to get out of.

We walk back up past the golf museum for a view over the beach, where we view the Witch’s Pool, apparently a cliff where the locals threw people they suspected of being a witch off into the sea below. If they drowned they were innocent, if they survived they were guilty, then burned at the stake. There is also a Martyrs Monument nearby, erected to commemorate the deaths of 4 men burned at the stake because they refused to change religion.

As we pass through Dundee on the northern shores of the Firth of Tay we drive past Ernest Shackleton’s old ship, the “Discovery” sailed by him to the Antarctic on his exploration voyage & now on display in a dry dock.

Our lunch stop is at Pitlochry before we drive on to Blair Atholl & the stunning Blair Castle, unusual from any other castle, it is whitewashed. The castle was started in 1269 when the main tower was built. Added to over the centuries it is unlike all other castles we have seen, this is more a big country home. Upon entry we are struck by the display of armoury in the large entrance foyer, with displays of swords & old firearms around the walls. There is also a full size stuffed stag on display, complete with a fine set of antlers. We climb the magnificent wide wooden staircase, the balustrades are absolutely beautifully turned & carved. The rooms all have magnificent paintings of family members over the generations, with fine furniture on display. There is a lot of embroidered work, all hand-stitched by the ladies in the family over the generations. The castle has a lot of history with all manner of people staying there over the years, including Crown Prince Hirohito from Japan when he was 19. Another standout was the sheer quantity of deer skulls with antlers on display filling (there must have been hundreds of trophy antlers there) the corridors & the Ball Room walls, you wonder if there are any deer left on the large estate. The Ball room is the largest room in the castle (this room was used as a Red Cross hospital during the war).

It is starting to rain as we leave the castle, the mist starts to close in over the mountains & the cold breeze starts to chill us. Just what we don’t need for our next stop at Culloden, a swampy moor where a major battle was fought between Bonny Prince Charles’ Scottish Highlanders & the English in 1746. The Scottish Highlanders lost the battle with more than 1,700 men killed & buried in mass graves, with their fellow clansmen. We walked out on the moor in the drizzling rain & listened to the audio guide as we walked out to the memorial cairn marking the middle of the battlefield. We walked a little further & thought about how miserable it must have been for the men on both sides of the battle. We looked over the museum in the visitor centre briefly, it is well laid out & informative. Next stop Inverness & our hotel, not that far away on the banks of the Ness River that flows out of the Loch of the same name. Our motel is on the Ness River with views out to a castle across the river, our room is at the back with a view over a roof into some backs of buildings.

We had a lovely dinner at the hotel, but left early as we are feeling tired after the long drive.

This morning we woke at 4 am with the sunlight streaming in the window. This morning looked beautiful, blue sky & sunshine. After yesterday’s lovely sunny 14C I thought it can only get better. I wore a short sleeved T/shirt. Well, how foolish was I? We got up to 10C for a very short time & after that it got colder, windier & wetter. The thermals will be back on tomorrow & will stay on.

Day 28 – Saturday 18 June 2016

A lazy 8.30am start for a guided tour around the streets of Edinburgh with a local guide wearing his kilt & surprisingly, a good sense of humour. He was very knowledgeable & pointed out all sorts of points of interest. There are some that state that Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, we beg to differ. The long lines of dark sooty looking (because with age the stone turns dark colour & cannot be cleaned) building that look remarkably similar, crowded together & jostling for space look depressing, they are apparently UNESCO heritage listed. I can only imagine how miserable it is on a cold, wet & windy overcast day. The number of notable people from Edinburgh in the field as literature such as Arthur Conan Doyle, Robbie Burns, Robert Louis Stevenson & Walter Scott is impressive, then there are others, such as Alexander Graham Bell. The new Scottish Parliament House is something else again, even the Scots call it the ugliest building ever.

Our next visit is to Edinburgh Castle on top of a large rock (an extinct volcano) towering over the city. The castle looks impregnable from a distance, up close the entrance is marred by all of the seating being erected for the next Military Tattoo being held in August, with seating for 8,600 people it is not as large as it looks on TV. The views from the ramparts of the castle over the city are magnificent, looking out over the Firth of Forth as well & the distant shores. The building & the stonework in the castle & grounds is impressive & is all in good condition. The oldest building inside the castle, St Margaret, Queen of Scotland’s Chapel was built around 1130 & is a tiny little chapel with a rounded ceiling inside, built on the highest point of the castle ground. The Chapel is still used for marriages, it costs 1,000 pounds to hire, but there is only room for 20 to sit. The castle is also equipped with a brace of very old naval canons pointed out over the city. Also on display is a very large & old (built 1442) siege cannon, capable of firing 350 pound stone cannon balls up to 2 miles. It was used as a siege cannon to blast walls down with sheer power. This cannon was a wedding gift for King James II (there has been umpteen number of kings in the history of the castle). We lined up to see the display of the Scottish Crown Jewels consisting of a sword, sceptre, belt, a necklace & crown (these jewels were hidden from the attacking English in a big chest, sealed in a room & forgotten. A 100 years later Robbie Burns asked the king if he could search the castle & finally the jewels were found, as well there is this unremarkable sandstone block known as the “Stone of Destiny”. The stone was used for enthroning Scottish monarchs, then when captured by the English in 1296 was kept under the coronation chair in Westminster Abbey for 700 years before being given back to the Scottish people in 1996. When the next coronation will happen in England they will borrow it but only for a few days. We also walked through some refurbished apartment rooms. There is this tiny room where King James the 1^st was born to Queen Mary. (I wonder why the small room when there are so many big rooms in the castle).

The Royal Yacht Britannia when it was de-commissioned in 1997 was moored permanently at Edinburgh Harbour & opened to the public. Our visit to see the ship starts in a very large 3 storey shopping centre that was built specifically with the Britannia as an integral part of the centre. The entry to the ship is on the 3^rd floor of the shopping centre & we are given audio guides for our self-guided walk around the ship. We get to see all of the rooms, including the Queen’s bedroom & private lounge, plus items of significance showed prominently around the ship. It is all very well done & it is all in very good condition. The engine room is immaculate & clean, with lots of shiny copper, brass plus white & black painted components trimmed with shiny chrome, very impressive.

The ship was manned by 280 sailors & when the Queen came aboard she bought about 40 of her servants with her. Princess Margaret, Prince Charles, Princess Ann & Prince Andrew all honey-mooned on the ship. Many dignitaries were also guests on her Majesty’s ship. To set the dining room table took 3 hours.

After we are dropped back at our hotel we have a quick snack then head off for a walk in the sunshine on the streets of Edinburgh. We walk up past the statue of Sherlock Holmes, then cross the road & pass the Conan Doyle Hotel. We do a bit of window shopping, have a look inside a large department store, admiring some of their furniture, before turning back, passing a pair of large giraffe sculptures outside an arts centre. There are lots of locals out enjoying the sunshine (yes the sun is actually shining), sitting outside at cafes & bars, or walking with family. A lot of the locals are in summer clothing, it is only 14C. We are enjoying the sun by walking on the sunny side of the street, it is really cold on the shady side.

After a short rest at our hotel we then head off for dinner at the Royal Over-Seas League in a private room on the 2nd floor. The view from the large picture window looks straight out onto Edinburgh Castle, with the setting sun lighting up the cliff & ramparts, it looks great. We have a nice meal & chat again with our fellow travellers, then after dinner we are led up onto the rooftop for a great view from the very top of the building where a viewing platform has been built. As we wander back to our coach we pass Rose Street, apparently lots of bucks & hen’s parties frequent the hotels along this street & we spot a group of ladies with pink sashes, out to celebrate a hen’s night.

We had another full on, but a good day.

Day 27 – Friday 17 June 2016

Another typical English breakfast & departure at 8am where we thread our way through York as they go to work & school traffic. It gets worse as we get to nearby Harrogate & it is a lot of very slow stop-start before we clear the large town & out onto the Yorkshire Dales towards the small picturesque town of Settle. We pass a paddock full of large military golf balls, some form of radar installation. The Yorkshire Dales have one standout feature, all of the sheep paddocks have dry stone walls. There are dry stone walls up dale, down dale & around dale, they are everywhere, an amazing amount of work & time must have gone into the construction of them. There are lots of sheep, most with twin lambs, a lot of blackface sheep with a fair smattering of black sheep amongst the flocks. We have spotted a few long horn hairy cows too. The countryside is undulating low hills & lots of very green grass, with all of the houses, barns & outbuildings also built of stone.

We then start driving through the Lakes District, obviously passing some very picturesque lakes, with the countryside getting a lot steeper, with deep glacial valleys & rocky hilltops. There are lots of small streams running out of the mountains with the occasional series of small waterfalls & cascades. The stone fences are still very prevalent as well as the stone houses, though the style has changed, it appears to be a different type of stone that they build the houses with here. We stop for lunch at Grasmere, the final resting place of the poet William Wordsworth & his family members. We go for a slow walk around the old village, admiring the many stone buildings before stopping & having lunch in the Grasmere Park. Walking back to our coach we called into the local church & saw the gravestone of William Wordsworth before having a look inside the church of St Oswald. Back on the coach we twisted our way down the narrow valley, passing through the area that had the road destroyed 6 months ago by landslides & flooding. The whole area was very pretty. Just north of Carlisle we passed Hadrian’s Wall, built by the Roman Emperor Hadrian to separate England from Scotland to keep the invading Scots out.

Gretna Green, just over the Scottish border was our next stop, at the blacksmiths where so many young English couples travelled to so that they could marry, as the Sottish marriage laws allowed very young couples to marry (without parental approval). The English marriage laws were a lot more restrictive. They didn’t need marriage celebrants only a couple of witnesses, the couples would put their hands together on the blacksmith’s anvil & he would hit on either side of their hand with his hammer & wallah, they would be married. Even now 16 year olds can marry with parental approval. A lot of people marry or renew their vows in the blacksmiths work shop – because it is now considered romantic, it only takes 10 minutes to get married – that’s what I call a quickie.  As we were leaving it started to rain again & we were accompanied by rain most of the way to Edinburgh.

Edinburgh is a very different city, there are masses of long lines of multi-story stone buildings, our hotel, the Crown Plaza is a conversion of a row of these old stone buildings. We booked in at 5.30pm, it has been a long day of travelling.

Tonight we had dinner at Prestonfield, an historic building built in 1687, a short bus ride away. The large stone round stable building has been converted into a restaurant & a stage inside provides room for a cabaret show, the “Taste of Scotland”, running for the past 41 years. We are greeted at the door by a Scotsman in full regalia playing the bagpipes as we enter. We have both now eaten the renowned Scottish dish haggis, & it was pretty good. I had the fish & Tereza the steak & we were both very pleased with our meals. The cabaret show was excellent, consisting of Sottish singers & dancers, a very talented girl playing the violin, a man the piano accordion – he was very good, a great bagpipe player & some young girl highland dancers, the little ones nearly stole the show, especially when one of them sang with the sweetest voice. We were entertained very well, the show was non-stop with one number leading into the next, it was always action, the dancers were so energetic.

When we walked outside it seemed like that it was only around 8pm, however, checking our watches it was 10pm & the sun was in the process of setting, it was still daylight, such a strange sensation for us. From our hotel room I can see the other side of the Firth of Forth, many kilometres away & the sky is still light, at 11pm. Another great day, though long & a little tiring.

Today’s temperature maxed out at 14C, if this heat wave continues I will have to don my thermal underwear – we are so happy to be here in summer.

Day 26 – Thursday 16 June 2016

Well, a reasonable sleep apart from a couple of missed phone calls during the night, then messagebank on the phone letting me know that I had missed the calls. Up early at 6am, though another late start today, we don’t leave until 8.30am, so very lazy to start with. Breakfast is nothing to write home about, nothing too exciting, adequate. We have certainly been spoiled by the European breakfasts. An overcast morning as we leave Stratford turning into heavy rain that is with us for a couple of hours as we drive north. As a result we can’t see very much at all, rain combined with the trees lining the motorway a fair bit. The rest stop roadhouse for morning tea has had part of its roof collapse during the night because of the heavy rain, so there is a section cordoned off. On the road again & as we get close to York the rain eases & by the time we pull up next to Clifford’s Tower in York the rain has stopped.

Our tour director takes us on a walking tour of the old part of York, inside the old city walls, starting from Clifford’s Tower, part of an original fortification on a small man-made hill built by William the Conqueror in 1068. There were some very tame Canadian Geese with their young goslings feeding on the grass below the tower. Our guide gave us a brief history of York, including Celts, Norse, Picts, Vikings, Romans, Normans, Angles & Saxons. York is at the junction of two strategic rivers, the Ouse & the Foss & has been continuously inhabited & fought over by at least all of those groups mentioned previously. We walk past the Yorvik Centre, the site of a relatively recent discovery of a Viking settlement in the centre of York. The next site we come to is a small square where executions by hanging occurred, marked by some pubs with notable names, one pub is called “The Last Drop”, another is called “The Three Legged Mare”, both referring to the gallows nearby.

We then turn & walk up a short street called “The Shambles” reputed to be the oldest original shopping street in Europe. This street was originally a street of butchers where live animals were slaughtered & butchered in the street. We can only imagine the noise, the smell & the blood & guts running down the street, plus the flies. Today it is a street full of old, quirky & quaint shops. We continue up the street & slowly the imposing twin towers of York Minster Cathedral come into view. It is very similar in style to Notre Dame that we visited just 2 days ago in Paris. The current York Minster was commenced in 1220 on the ruins of a number of previous churches on the same site & completed in 1472, over 250 years to build. There is restoration work continuing with scaffolding & a stone Mason’s hut at the side of the church. We don’t think the building is as ornate as Notre Dame. Inside we were disappointed as there was a lot of scaffolding, apparently they were going to conduct some form of musical performance & there was tiered seating erected, light & camera towers that detracted from the whole look of the inside. The fact that they wanted to charge 10 Pound admission each was the final decider.

From there we walked a short distance to the Petergate, one of the original Roman gates of the city & we climbed the stairs to walk around the top of some of the old wall of York. At the Monkgate we walked down a very narrow flight of stone stairs back to the road & continued exploring. There is even a small museum of some Roman Baths discovered under the cellar of one of the pubs.

The Merchant Adventurers Hall is a stunning timber framed building dating back to 1357 & around 655 years later is still in remarkable condition, obviously with additions, alterations & renovations over the years. We took an audio tour of this building & the history is fascinating, the Great Hall is the main part of the building & is a huge room with an unusual wooden framed roof truss structure, all from oak. Off this are some later additions, such as a committee room that contains furniture, collections of silver still in use today by the guild members & paintings that provide a glimpse into the lives of guild members over the years. There is an “Ëvidence Chest” on display dated 1673, it was used to store important documents. Under the hall is the Undercroft, used to house & help the sick & poor, used for this purpose until 1900. There is also a chapel at the end which is still under restoration after a metre of water flowed through it in floods last Boxing Day.

We walked back across towards the Ouse River & followed the street towards the War memorial Gardens where our coach was parked. It was only a short drive to our hotel next to York Racecourse. Dinner in the hotel restaurant where we had the opportunity to talk to more fellow travellers. Another enjoyable day, fortunately the rain held off during our walk & the temperature reached 22C this afternoon before a chill wind set in towards the late afternoon.

York is amazing, they still call things like in the Viking days, such as Ouse River, streets are called ‘’gate’’ e.g. Monkgate, the old fortified wall is called a “bar”, so the place you get drinks can only be called a “pub”. York is such a beautiful peaceful city but it’s blood curdling history through the centuries is shocking.

Day 25 – Wednesday 15 June 2016

A lazy & late start for us today, our bags didn’t need to be ready until 7.45am in our room & departure at 8.30am, so plenty of time to catch up on some banking & bills. Breakfast is not quite as varied nor as good as the European version, although the chef did make a nice omelette for me as I chatted with her, she is Romanian. We have 32 in this group, mostly Australian except 2 from USA. A Canadian Tour Director & a Scottish driver. Our group consists of some older than us & a few younger. This group is just about evenly divided, not like the last tour 20 women & 8 men. Our journey out of London is slow, morning traffic & roadworks holding everyone up & clearing as we reached the motorway north.

Our first stop is Oxford, upstream from London on the River Thames, after only 2 hours. This is an interesting old university city with loads of history & around 50 churches. Our guide showed us the spot, prominently marked in the middle of a road, where 3 bishops from the Church of England were burned at the stake by the reigning Monarch, Queen Mary, because they would not renounce their faith & convert to Catholicism. The university colleges are old & interesting buildings, walled in & a large rectangular shape with a church in one side. There are interesting spires along the rooflines of some of them. In the High Street there is an interesting mix of very old buildings mixed with new. We walked around the town a lot after our guide finished & enjoyed the architecture then we stopped & ate our lunch outside the walls of St Johns College. We dared to walk the grounds & still here to tell the story where Inspector Morse & Sergeant Lewis solved all those murders. We even saw the building where Harry Potter’s Hogwarts dining room was filmed.

After Oxford we drove north again through the countryside, lots of very green fields & wheat crops, with sheep being the main livestock. The sheep are very thick on the ground in some paddocks & seem to be losing the battle of keeping the grass down. We pass through some quaint little villages, most of the houses are made of stone & some have thatched roofs. We are passing through the Cotswold area of England, famous for its beauty. After only an hour we were in Stratford, that Stratford – upon the Avon River, the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

We walk straight to the old house that Shakespeare was born in, no queues, no crowds. It is a delightful old house set up with period furniture, trimmings & people dressed in period costume explaining the various aspects of life in Shakespeare’s day, interesting & thought provoking. There are large exposed beams throughout the house, painted wallpaper hangings & lead-light glass windows throughout. The doorways are very low in parts of the house. Afterwards we walked through the streets of Stratford, firstly along High Street & then down Sheep Street, (most of the people made their living from the back of the sheep) admiring all of the very old buildings still in use today. We are all walking admiring these rickety old buildings, at home they would be condemned as neglected & dangerous & demolished, but here we see them as quaint. We walked to the Avon River, not really that far & admired some of the canal boats moored near the lock, as well as the white swans, ducks & geese on the river. We wandered back to our coach on different streets admiring the buildings, it is something different again.

Our hotel tonight is Alveston Manor, a building with a history dating from before the Norman conquest of England in 1066 when a small monastery was on the site. Today’s Manor has an interesting mix of architecture, dating from the 16th century, with some Elizabethan & Queen Anne styles. A beautiful old building. Dinner tonight is across the road at the Swan’s Nest, another very old building, on the banks of the Avon River. We get a chance to meet & have a good chat with some of our fellow travellers over a nice meal. After dinner we venture back out over the Clopton Bridge, with its very own ancient Toll House on one end of it, down to the canal boat docks then back over the Tramway Bridge to our hotel. In the hotel gardens a bride & groom are having their photos taken.

Day 24 – Tuesday 14 June 2016

Another delightful breakfast at 7.45am, they really do have nice fresh fruit & pastries & bread in Paris. Amazing, we have seen the sun shining this morning. Next a pleasant walk along the Seine River to Notre Dame Cathedral again, this time we are in luck, because it is so early when we get there (our motel is only 15 minutes slow walk) we walk straight in, no queue at all. Notre Dame is massive, the vaulted roof is so high & the stained glass feature windows are impressive, our photos do not do it any justice, it looks better than that. There is only one group of Chinese tourists inside, happily taking photos of everything, but the church is so big there is still plenty of room to move. We walked slowly back to our hotel enjoying our last views of Paris streets, it really is beautiful. The Seine River is still a couple of metres above its normal level & there are men repairing wharves & others hosing & cleaning the mud off the riverside esplanades.

In Paris we have seen Chinese, Japanese (others) brides & grooms having their photos taken at beautiful historical sites (usually the girls are in sneakers). Today we saw a very cold young model (in sandshoes but a man carried very high stilettoes) being photographed by the river. The photographers can’t go wrong, the background is beautiful.

As we walked out of our hotel room it started to rain – again. Our cab picked us up from the hotel at 11am & it was a slow journey to the railway station. At first our taxi driver could barely speak English. We persevered with him on the long slow drive & talked about Australia (amazingly his English became good as we went along) he told us about the lazy French who according to him have the most paid holidays in Europe & how France cannot afford to go on like that. He & his wife would love to leave France to Australia or California (for space, beach, bush & better future for his kids) , he is even considering to go back to Lebanon, but like in France he has his taxi business he wants to work for himself so he is thinking of a good business plan. The taxi driver told us there was going to be a general strike in Paris from midday & then the traffic would be absolute standstill. Lucky timing for us, we couldn’t get to the normal stop at the Paris Nord Railway Station but only had to walk about 50 metres through the stopped traffic to the entrance. Glad we got the station early, by the time we queued & got through the ticketing, French passport control then British passport control, then security, it was a bit over an hour queueing & processing. The train this time is Eurostar & we boarded around half an hour before departure, the seats again are very comfortable & we have 2 seats facing each other with a small table between. We are served lunch just like on a plane, except metal utensils, not plastic. The food was tasty, salmon for me & quiche for Tereza.

We are travelling at 295 km/hr & it is so quiet, it does not seem that we are travelling that fast. 334.7km/hr is the top speed this train has reached on the way to London. The French countryside is beautiful & green, we pass through a few patches of light rain on the way to the Channel Tunnel. The Channel Tunnel is 50.45km long & at its deepest point is 75 metres under the sea level. It took us 1 ½ hours to reach Calais from Paris & enter the Channel Tunnel – a different sensation. We were in the tunnel for around 25 minutes before emerging in England – a very comfortable & fast way to travel between France & England. It is cloudy & overcast in England, we passed over a river & the tide was out, there were a lot of boats stranded on the mud out of the water.

It was raining as we pulled into St Pancras Railway Station in London. We had an Irish taxi driver, he told us that the only place to have a good Guinness is in Ireland, everywhere else it’s a pretend. He said that it is ok for tourists to be impressed with all the history & architecture but it is all the same if you have to work & live with it

We booked into Amba Hotel Marble Arch once again & talked to our tour director Dave. He told us that 6.30 am breakfast starts, 7.15 am baggage pick up & 8.30 am start tomorrow. Here we go again.

We had some emails to catch up with & all the bills to pay (they don’t stop just because we are on holidays). We stayed in our room, even had our dinner in the room & rested after all the walking in Paris & managing to muddle our way through the railway station & getting back to England.

Day 23 – Monday 13 June 2016

A lazy start this morning, no rush, no tours to catch. We didn’t finish breakfast until 9am before heading out on a stroll around the streets of Paris by ourselves. We could take our time, so we wandered slowly towards the Louvre Museum, crossing over the Seine River on a foot bridge full of modern sculptures. The Louvre was in front of us, a grand imposing former palace of a French King, with short boxed hedge gardens behind the high fences so we walked into the large courtyard inside the palace walls & managed to have a look at the glass pyramid entrance from a good angle. We then walked back out & along to the priority tourist entrance & the line was only about 100 + deep going through security. The buildings surrounding the Louvre are also very nice & makes for an appealing streetscape.

We walked out next to the glass pyramid entrance & this had hundreds of people lined up. The palace is very ornate & covered in all forms of beautiful statues on the outside. We had a look through a window of the palace into a large display area of large ornate statues, very effective. Outside again we walked past the gilded statue of Joan of Arc riding a horse, that looked across to the formal gardens of the palace. We then wandered down to a triumphal arch that celebrated the victory of Napoleon over the Austrians that was in front of the Louvre.

The very large garden in front of the Louvre leading down to the Plaza De La Concorde had a number of nice water features and a nice formal garden structure with lots of manicured trees. We enjoyed a pleasant stroll, however, two platoons of heavily armed soldiers walking through the gardens brought a dose of reality back to our lives – Paris is taking security very seriously. A large Ferris wheel was on the edge of the Plaza De La Concorde & an Egyptian obelisk in the middle with ornate fountains either side. This was the site of the guillotine execution of King Louis 16^th in January 1793 & his wife Marie Antoinette in October 1793. From this site there is a grand view up the Champs Elysees to the Arc De Triumph. The Eiffel Tower is also prominent on the skyline.

From there we walked along the Seine to the Pont Alexander 3^rd, a beautiful & ornate bridge with large beautiful gilded horse & angel statues on pillars at either end of the bridge & ornate decorations all along it, this must be the most beautiful bridge in Paris. We turned back & headed to our hotel along the other side of the Seine, had lunch & rested our weary feet for an hour or so.

After our rest we walked along the small backstreets behind our hotel roughly in the direction of Notre Dame Cathedral. The backstreets are full of small art galleries, cafes, creparies, modern design furniture & clothes stores. Needless to say our walk was slow as we stopped to peruse lots of windows. It was good to get a feel for the Paris behind the main streets where daily life occurs, it was very pleasant soaking it all in & experiencing the feel of Paris.

Notre Dame Cathedral had even more people queued up than yesterday, so we kept on walking & rested our legs on a bench in the small park behind the cathedral. Some more armed soldiers wandered past patrolling this area as well. Rested we ventured down onto Isle St Louis again, it is such a beautiful area & we again soaked in the ambience of the street life in this quite part of Paris. Again we took our time strolling back to our hotel, taking another route so that we could see more of the street life & ended up at around 5pm at our hotel for another rest for our weary feet. Looking at the map we estimate that we have walked 12-15 kms. Today.

Around 7pm we ventured out for dinner, looking at lots of different cafes (amazing how popular these side cafes are on the streets the tables were all occupied, if you wanted one of those tables you had to wait) within a couple of streets from our hotel before settling on the Café de Paris for a romantic dinner and looking out at the Parisian street life passing by (most of the chairs are strategically placed so that people can see the passers-by). We both started with French onion soup, now we both knew what it should really taste like – delicious. Tereza had roasted comfrey duck & I had the roasted lamb (French style), the meat on both just fell apart it was that tender & the taste was again – delicious. As always there was too much to eat & we needed more than the short walk back to our hotel to walk it off. Another spa bath for Tereza to soak away the tiredness. It is only starting to get dark & it is almost 11pm.

We both like Paris, it is a really nice city to be in & we are enjoying it more than Amsterdam & even London. We could spend a lot more time here easily. If we weren’t so time poor we would have loved to have seen many of the beautiful churches & museums etc., next time. The people are friendly & polite & not in so much of a rush (we think anyway). Another fantastic day & it only spat light rain on us a few times today.

We needed a breather between our tours, we are very happy that we came back to Paris even if it was for a very short time.

Day 22 – Sunday 12 June 2016

Up at 6am & packed our bags before breakfast at 7am so that we could catch up with our fellow travellers before they all went their separate ways. The first batch left for the airport at 7.30am & Piero was back before 9am to take the 2^nd batch of travellers to the airport. We left at 10am & walked the 700 metres to the Amsterdam Railway Station, a grand building in the middle of town on the waterfront. We were catching the 11.17am TVG high speed train to Paris. We caught up with two of our fellow tour group also travelling to Paris on the same train & had a lovely chat until the train arrived & we got onto our respective 1^st Class carriages & allocated seats, very comfortable indeed.

The train is fast and quite, the first part of the journey was a little slow as we made our way out of Amsterdam, not long after we stopped at Rotterdam & Antwerp, then Brussels a little later. After that it was high-speed non-stop to Paris. To our surprise they handed out refreshing towelettes, snacks, like small pastries, sandwiches, coffee or other beverages. Later lunch, a lovely vegetarian (the one I had) or fish with salads & desert – it was better than the aeroplane meals. Most of the countryside we passed through in Holland & Belgium was very flat with farms as far as the eye could see, with occasional small villages dotted around. In France there were some small hills, lots of farmland & less villages – it seems more spread out. There are lots & lots of wind farms generating power. Unfortunately we had some loud & drunk Irish football (soccer) supporters travelling to Paris for the European Cup who sang loudly, joked & blew whistles all the way. At least they were happy & not violent.

It was a long walk along the platform in Paris to the exit & near the exit there were around 20 police & 3 or 4 armed soldiers (they looked very capable with machine guns in the hand) ready for any trouble. We found a taxi & had a nice chat to the driver (after we made it very obvious that we were Australians, he became friendly) as he drove us to our hotel near the Pont Neuf, a prominent bridge over the Seine River near the Louvre. Our hotel is a very quaint boutique hotel, we are in a private area out the back of the main building, complete court yard, sitting area bed room & bathroom with spa bath. The place is painted in at least six colours, not counting black, white or wood. I wish I would be game to colour our home like this one, the place has so much charm & pizazz. After unloading the bags we went for a walk.

Notre Dame Cathedral was our 1^st destination & as we walked over the Pont de Neuf we had a look at the thousands of padlocks that couples have locked onto the fence on the bridge to signify their ever-lasting love (surprising the bridge hasn’t collapsed under all the weight). The Seine River has dropped its flood level since 2 weeks ago, though it is still high & running fast. The Louvre Museum is imposing along the opposite bank. We turn right & walk down past the Paris Courts, another imposing building, then as we get closer to Notre Dame the souvenir shops give its presence away before we see it. There are thousands of people in the square in front of the church & after a few photos we walked towards the entrance to see about going inside to have a closer look. Forget it, the queue is hundreds of people long, so we walk past & down the side there is another entrance with another long queue.

We walked through the park behind Notre Dame before walking over yet another bridge to the Isle of St Louis in the middle of the Seine. This island is full of the most expensive houses in Paris as it is isolated, quite & right in the heart of Paris. The place has a feel like old Paris. We walk down the narrow shopping street through the middle of the island & find it is full of interesting shops, so we spend a fair bit of time slow walking & looking, with an obligatory gelato of course. After we walked back up past Notre Dame it started to rain a little, lucky we had our coats on, suddenly the skies opened & it started to bucket down, we took shelter along with a lot of other Parisians & tourists next to a shop that sells potted orchids. After the rain lightened off we made our way slowly back to our hotel, thankfully finding it easily down the narrow lane it is tucked away. Tereza then took advantage of the spa bath & had a nice long hot bath & massage with the spa jets.

We reflected back to the paintings we seen of Paris & most of them had rain & umbrellas in it. That’s all we have seen of the weather in Paris, light rain interspersed with heavy rain, with a preceding – its about to rain or, its just stopped raining. Its now past 10pm & it is still daylight outside.

Day 21 – Saturday 11 June 2016

A leisurely start this morning, after yet another magnificent breakfast, we departed at 8.30am & enjoyed very light traffic for a change as we drove out towards Volendam & the Zuiderzee. Our first stop at 9am was a small cheese making & clog making farm. We had an interesting talk on the process for making cheese, with a glassed-in-room behind Wendy, the presenter, showing the Gouda cheese in different stages of the cheese making process. Some cheese was soaking in brine, some was being pressed, some was drying & some was being cured.  Next we went into the clog room & we were shown the art of making clogs by hand from a block of poplar wood. The craftsman is very skilful using very sharp hand tools to shape the clog. The factory they have in a shed outside produces clogs commercially in 50 different sizes, they are finished in all types of colours & designs. The clog maker had a good sense of humour as he presented the benefits of clogs & why everyone should own at least one pair. Next we moved into the shop area with a selection of cheeses for tasting, after sampling some home-made berry flavoured gin. Our tour group bought a reasonable amount of goods to add to the problem of bulging suitcases.

Next we followed the Hoogedyk Road, along the bottom edge of the dyke separating the Zuiderzee from the farmland. The Zuiderzee is a very large freshwater lake (about 50km across) that sits about 6 feet above the surrounding farmland. The large windmill we stopped at next is used to pump water out of the farmland drainage ditches up into the Zuiderzee, to drain the farmlands when it was raining. This windmill was built in 1650 & all the structural timber is still original & it is still used to pump water when it rains. The windmill can pump 65,000 litres of water a minute up 6 feet high into the Zuiderzee. It has a thatched roof that lasts around 100 years before needing to be replaced. All the gears are wooden & the gear cogs last around 80 years before needing replacing. It is an amazing piece of old technology. I climbed up the steep ladders inside to see the working headgear at the top of the windmill, very interesting indeed.

It was only a very short drive into the old port of Volendam & we spotted a group of old sailing ships grouped together & making slow headway in the light winds. As we walked into the old town the port opened up with a collection of old boats, some modern ferries & some very modern & expensive pleasure boats. It is very picturesque, with loads of tourists starting to arrive as we were leaving. We stopped & had a bite to eat on a bench looking out over the Zuiderzee, it was very peaceful. Back on the coach at 12.15 & back into Amsterdam & our hotel.

After a short rest we walked to the Het Scheepvartmuseum, the maritime museum, not that far from our hotel along the waterfront (everything is along the waterfront in Amsterdam). After paying our 15 Euros each we went out first & looked at the Royal Barge, encased in its own temperature & humidity controlled shed. Moored at the wharf is a replica of the Amsterdam, a ship from the old East India Company that was wrecked in a storm on its maiden voyage to Asia near Hastings, England, not really all that far from where it was launched. The ship was very interesting, the hold was set up with typical cargo & had an interactive children’s area. The cabins also had examples of typical equipment & personal items from that time. The space between decks was limited, so we were always bending low to avoid banging our heads. There were cannon from the era on their gun carriages lining both sides of the ships. It must have been hell below decks when the guns were being fired.

The museum was next, on 3 levels & after one stint at the steps we took the lifts, it is a long distance between the floors of the old building. I was a little disappointed with the inside of the museum, it is very spacious & modern, with a limited display of items. Again there are some areas designed for children to interact with the exhibits. There was a display on navigation equipment that was interesting to look at, a display of ancient atlases was also interesting. The problem was, the explanations were all in Dutch, so we could only really look. The paintings from the 1600s onwards was interesting, there were some very good Dutch painters depicting maritime life. There was also a large collection of boat & ship models, the craftsmanship was superb. The display of porcelain, glass & silverware was fairly lame, disappointing overall. The walk back to our hotel tired us out so we had a bit of a rest until our next venture out.

At 5.15pm we headed out for a boat tour around the canals of Amsterdam. The waterways were very crowded as it was a Saturday afternoon & fine weather. We had the glass roofed tour boat all to our tour group & the boat skipper pointed out lots of different features, buildings & highlights as we motored up & down the canals, under very low bridges & through very narrow canals. He explained that the mass of houseboats lining the canals were now worth big money, with the small ones selling for 500,000 Euros just for the slot on the canal wall, then there was the price of the houseboat on top of that. We passed some mansions in the wealthy area, some of the most expensive real estate in Europe with the better ones fetching 50 million Euro. The tour boat finished off by dropping us off near our restaurant.

The Haesje Claus Restaurant was established in 1520 & we had a private room upstairs for the 28 of our tour group. We all had a gin to start with, then some traditional Dutch food for entrees. I had a cold fish platter & Tereza tried the pea & ham soup. For the mains Tereza tried the Dutch Hodgpodge & I had the salmon (delicious) & we both had the same desert, a cinnamon flavoured ice cream with brandy-soaked raisins (delicious). We had a lovely talk with our fellow travelling companions whilst enjoying a glass or two of nice wine. We had to leave the restaurant by 9pm as the people queued up for tables stretched from the bottom of the stairs, through the restaurant & out into the street, it is very popular.

Tonight was our farewell dinner. Most of us got very friendly with each other sharing 18 days of wonderful adventure, finding out snippets of each other’s lives & future plans. We have been very fortunate to have had such great people. We also must give a lot of credit to Brian (tour director) he worked hard organizing our tours, extra tours & also forming a great group dynamics. He made the tour very interesting because of his great knowledge of history, enthusiasm & caring. His language skills are great. We all said goodbye because tomorrow we are all leaving to different places & at different times. Brian sighed a great relief – he didn’t lose anyone, no accidents or health problems or whatever can happen on a tour.

Without Piero’s, (the driver) driving skills we wouldn’t have felt safe.

Another great day, though we are both very tired & looking forward to a good night’s sleep.