Beziers - 22nd July 2009

We did LOADS of things today and are quite proud of ourselves actually for being super ace!

Our first stop of the day was at the 9 Locks of Bezier on the Canal Du Midi.

The locks are a set of 'Staircase' locks on the canal and it consists of 8 chambers that raise and lower boats up and down through the set. Due to the limited size of the chambers, only small boats were able to pass through so a plan was divised!

A giant multi wheeled contraption that looked more at home emerging from the belly of Thunderbird 2 was created. The vehicle was set upon runners above a large slope from the high point of the lock to the bottom. The idea would be that the large boats were attached to the vehicle which was used to stabalise the boat and water would be allowed to flow down the slope. The vehicle would then tow the boat slowly to the bottom.  This was a French invention that has only ever been used twice since (1985?) due to insurance reasons - FAIL.

Beziers was next on the list. I quite like this town and was dragged round it a lot when younger. As usual for French towns there was a lot of dog poop on the ground but other than that, not too bad.

I would recommend staying away from the lower old town, It is very shabby and run down and there is not a great deal there apart from drunks and hobos. As you move up towards the theatre and the old town the streets become cleaner and more welcoming.

We popped into a church to have a look round and ended up having a tasty omelette outside the theatre in the main avenue.

After leaving the city we went to a feature known as the Oppidum d'Enserune, this is a hill top settlement, founded by the Romans in 6BC. The hilltop has views over the former Swamp of Montady. This circular swamp is now cut up like pieces of pie after it was drained for form farmland in the 13th C.

In a very cool coincidence we met a couple of Geocachers here from the Netherlands. We were both standing, looking out over the view, GPS in hand thinking to ourselves “Who are they? Are they geocacheing? Should I speak to them or will they thing I am mad…?” In the end, we spoke and climbed down a cliff face to find a cache. Awesome fun!

Andorra - 20th July 2009

It’s a bit like LA, but prettier, smaller and built in a valley, and with less Americans. It is a long strip, most of the way through the country with shopping malls, cheap petrol and garages.
It being a tax haven, if you want booze, fags or fuel, here is the local place to go.
The fuel really was the only interest for us out of that list so we went for an explore.

The trip over quite frankly took forever, driving along winding roads through gorges and up and down mountains. It was beautiful but very tiring, trying not to drop off a ravine or become crushed against the side of a cheese grater rock face. After what seemed like forever we stopped at a town called Livia, a town in Spain, but in France, but in Spain. It’s an enclave of Spain that is an island in a sea of France. Due to a legal oversight in 1659 within the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Spain, all villages were given to France, Livia unfortunately was classified as a city due to it being an ancient capital, so it was declared part of Spain.

There was a frog in the tree stump hole that should have held a cache, so it wasn’t a completely wasted journey.

Leaving here we continued to Andorra. We had a look in the shops and were completely uninterested really. A lot of the stuff was tacky, to be smoked or to be drank, so we left it. It is a shame really, if we were shopping for items for a new home etc then it would have been wonderful there was plenty to buy, we were just completely in the wrong mood.

Had a great pizza though in one of the department stores. Even if the ordering system was completely nonsensical. Make your choice, pay at the hidden and not signposted till, take your receipt to the bar staff, who then shout over to the pizza chef, who was the first person we’d spoken to in the restaurant. Ridiculous.

As we drove north, through Andorra, the roads widened a little and the traffic lightened. The houses thinned out and the Pyrenean countryside opened up, well, it was pretty mountainous still but hey, we could see green stuff. As Andorra is a tax haven, the customs control at the border is quite stringent. As Brits, the guy looked quite disappointed and a little disbelieving at the fact that we’d only bought a Toblerone. Ah well, maybe next time.

The drive home was a little lighter, there were a lot less cliffside roads and more driving through beautiful (alpine) meadows. We had a short rest stop at the top of a pass, the Col de Chioula, and there was a girl on a donkey. And some very pretty flowers that I’d seen a short report on Countryfile shortly before we came away. I felt very knowledgeable.

Arriving home absolutely shattered, I worked out we had driven about 175 miles in about 8 hours, crap really, but very pretty.

We went for an evening stroll in the town of Lagrasse and I managed to get some ace looking night time photos and then to bed, broken.

I suppose I should mention the thunder and lightning before I get a telling off. We had lots of them, laying awake with the windows open listening to the rain and having the occasional flash of lighting, awesome!

Carcassonne - 19th July 2009

Today we got up really quite early again. Anna swears we are turning into our parents.

Our trip today was to Carcassonne, a medieval walled city about 30 mins away from Lagrasse.

A beautiful Gothic fortified city in the region, it was not always so pretty. The settlement has been around as an important city for trade etc since around 6BC and reached it's height in medieval times. One thing led to another over the next several hundred years and sadly by about 1850 the city was in such a bad state it was condemmed to be demolished. It was saved by public outcry and rebuilt and repaired to a former glory over the next few years.

Now the city is a tourist hot spot. Excellent photographically and it is a lovely place just to walk around and take in the atmosphere.

We got there nice and early and had a look round before the hundreds of coach tourists arrived and spoiled everything, it is very much worth while getting into town early at about 8 or 9am, the air is much cooler and there are a lot less people about.

Giving up with the crowds we explored the town around the city and found a few more Caches.

I’m really starting to get into this Geocache lark, its actually really good fun and it takes you to places that you would never have usually found unless by accident or being guided by a local.

I was less than enthused with essentially trespassing across someone’s vineyard as it was a shortcut to the next cache, but apparently, our defence of “We’re English” would be sufficient to save us from pointy, hurty death. I’m glad that we’ve yet to test this theory, as I’m sure it might not be quite as effective as we think.

Anyway, lovely place, well worth the visit again!

Millau - Friday 17th - Saturday 18th July 2009

Right, I’m getting a bit sick of this Anna,… 4.30am,… this is a little bit ridiculous now, I mean 4.30!... oh, hang on, it was my idea….

A very fast drive to the Shuttle, and early tunnel crossing to Calais, in an effort to save time, we even went without our traditional trip to Auchan (a decision we would later come to regret).

Generally the trip went very well, we got to Calais at about 8.30 local time and drove, and drove. This time we went left out of the tunnel in stead of right, it felt quite odd actually. We drove south on the A16 – A28 to Rouen, south to Chartres, south some more to Bourges, further south to Clermont Ferrand.

It was a very long, grey and mainly rainy trip with a couple of driver changes with Anna so that I could get some kip and not kill us.

The end of the toll road at Clermont Ferrand brought us our first real challenge of the holiday, other than trying to stay awake while driving 800 miles on boring motorways; we got stopped by the Gendarmes, just after the toll booth, I had tanked it a little and saw the oh so familiar lights, little flashing blue ones on top of a Peugeot, “dammit, was it us?” the flicks pulled up behind us and moved to overtake, “phew!” I thought to myself, noooooo, pulling up alongside us I saw a haggard looking policeman pointing towards the side of the road. The car pulled in front of us and we followed him off the motorway at the next junction, finally coming to a rest at the side of the road.

Engine off, got out and watched as the aged policeman walked towards me with his (very impressive) moustache and a strange pair of binoculars. Coming towards me he said “Speed” and pointed to his binoculars. There was a small display on the back and it read “134”, immediately I thought “Well that’s fine! The limit is 130” (as it was dry). I gestured with four of my fingers (not in a rude way) at the chap “Quatre?” The policeman explained to me that after the tolls it was 110 and that I owed him €45 for the fun of it. The policeman didn’t like us not having cash with us (we had €10 and a UK £5) when we asked him if he took card he wasn’t so sure. I gave him my wallet and said “Suivre a l’ATM”. The policeman looked at my wallet, opened it and saw my drivers licence, then my work ID. He walked over to the police car and came back moments later saying to me “Il’ya un cadeux, a gift, where you go?” I told him we were going to Millau and he said “Follow me to main road”….

I got my wallet back and got back in the car before he had a chance to change his mind. I briefly explained what happened to Anna and we drove off, being VERY careful not to obliterate any more speed limits, at least for the next 200 miles.

Sometimes I hate my job, but its good being part of the club!

The journey was partially familiar as we headed down further to Millau. Exhausted, we arrived but decided to head on over the “Viaduct De Millau” and have a look, designed by Norman Foster and completed in December 2004. It’s bloody big too.

It was beautiful (so my Dad would say), all crisp and white and very, very long.

Dropping down the hills from the other side of the valley into town gave us outstanding views of the hills, city and viaduct.

We finally arrived at our hotel, the city centre Mercure. I have stayed here before but not for about 10 years. It had changed a lot since. Our room had an EPIC view and all was well with the world.

Hungry, we left the hotel in search of food. This is where our luck just plain gave out on us.

A short wander round town led us to the only place that sold pizza, and having a craving for said tasties, this seemed like a good plan. I’m sure I have eaten there before and I’m sure that it was good.

Well, we had to wait about 30 mins to be seated, fine we thought, it was a busy night. Then, having waited for over an hour and only receiving one of our pizzas we decided to cut our losses and leave, which was a shame as the pizza that we did get was actually very good! Just to elaborate, we’d worked out that Andrew’s coke (I’d had to make do with just water, as he’d run out of everything else) and the one pizza we did get came to about €12, so we threw down a €10 note on the table and left. As we made our way down the road, little Monsieur Panic McUseless called after us and gestured disapprovingly for us to come back. He said “Is not enough” to which we responded “No, it’s not is it” and told him just how angry we were with the distinct lack of service, having watched what we know to have been our pizzas served by the waiters wife to a table right next to the kitchen as they’d complained that their kids hadn’t eaten and they’d been waiting ages, and then looked rather surprised at what they’d been given as the

y weren’t what they’d ordered and the resulting panic this caused in the kitchen. The wife’s offer for us to take away the remaining pizza was responded too with “Well it’s a bit late now and we don’t want to pay you anymore. BYE” was met with rolled eyes and a look of resignation. Thoroughly disheartened and a bit hungry we went back to the hotel to feel sorry for ourselves.

We returned to the hotel and slept very well until the morning.

The following morning we woke fairly early and went for a walk in search of breakfast. Not wanting to spend about £7 on a croissant and a coffee in the hotel, we went back into the old town to the bakers. A Brioche and two Pain au Chocolats for under €3, bargain!

Before leaving Millau and continuing our trip to Lagrasse we found a couple of Geocaches. One of which was only a mile from the town centre (as the crow flies) but in reality is about 6 miles on switch back roads up to the top of one of the mountains that surround the town. The view from the top was awesome, it was very windy and cold but it took a while to prise ourselves away from the view and on to finishing our trip.

The second cache was at the viaduct visitor’s centre, at the top of the valley where we had begun our Millau experience the day before. Outside the centre is a Norman church that overlooks the valley. Kinda unused for worship today, the simple structure had been reconditioned and was manned for visitors.

Apart from a few traffic jams o the last stretch of motorway full of people visiting the beach, there is not a lot else to report for the rest of the trip to Lagrasse,… oh and it was really quite hot…. And there were roadside whores on the N9… nice. Oh yes! Actual real life, middle of the day ladies of the night! In negligee and everything! Dirty! Now where’s a smiley to indicate a dirty lecherous grin…

We arrived in Lagrasse at the end of a weekend music festival. We went into the town and there were lots of crusty hippy types and they were setting up for the all night party in the town square. A short walk about and then up to the house as the family had finally arrived.

Titisee - Friday 16th May 2009 - Our Last Day.

Our last day in town before the long drive back home.

We thought it might be quite nice to, you know, see the town we were staying in rather than driving for miles. The sun was out and it was a beautiful day so strolling was in order.

We saw the local ice rink, a lake that (in May was far from being frozen) and Anna made friends with small animal!

Triberg Falls - Friday 15th May 2009 - Wet, Really Wet

The Triberg Falls are the tallest waterfalls in Germany, and as we discovered, if you go on the wrog day, they are certainly the wettest.

The day started out okay, a little bit grey and just as we arrived, the sun came out. Brilliant, ditch the fleese nice wander round in the sun,..... well,... we got most of the way to the falls, about a ten minute walk before the heavens opened. The pathways became streams and everything started to steam.

I made the error of going back to the car to get a brolly, i came back soaked.

We climbed down the falls to almost the bottom, it was definately photo pr0n for Katie and myself.

After the falls we headed into Triberg town to get some food. We settled in the only place that seemed open, an underground bierkeller style restaurant for pizza and pasta.

Awesome!

Konstanz - Thursday 14th May 2009

We took the long drive out today to Konstanz and the Bodensee today. I seem to have developed a nice cough,... meh.

Konstanz on the other hand is lovely, its a bit like Geneva but with less banks but it is still filled with rich looking people.

Konstanz is situated on the western edge of the lake where the Rhine enters Lake Constance. The Rhine exits on on the other side of the Bodensee. The city was created in the stone age but takes its name from the Roman emperor Constantius Chlorus. The town is split down the middle on the border with Swtizerland and, at the time of its creation was the only place in the local area with a bridge across the Rhine.

Anyway, back to the day, we had a wander round the city, taking in the sights. There seems to be quite a lot of construction going on at the moment so once again, lots of scaffold.

Amongst the sights were the cathedral (with an interesting masonic symbol on the ceiling) and the harbour (containing some very expensive boats).

It was once again, just a really nice place to be. We ate some food by the harbour bumbled about and had some coffee and cake in the centre.

Andy (who had left his passport at home) had managed to leave the UK, travel through France, Belgium, into Luxemburg, Germany, then France again before ending up in Germany, had no problems wandering over into Switzerland, get in, 5 countries in as many days!

We finished our day with a (cold and windy) boat trip onto the lake.

About an hour later we were in the car on the way back.

Feldberg and Titisee - Wednesday 13th May 2009 - A Day Off.

After the trauma of using public transport and too much walking we decided to have a mid week 'non-day".

We drove a little way up through the hills to the mountain and ski resort of Feldberg. It is a typical small ski resort with a couple of decent looking runs and more to the point, they have cool goats to feed and pet. They're a bit "enthusiastic" about getting fed, though, nearly lost a finger.

Got to stamp about in some of the last grubby snow patches right at the bottom of the hill, so perhaps wearing flipflops was a bad idea!

Browsed around in the couple of souvenir shops full of some disturbing tat and bad booze, all overpriced and crappy.

Deffo worth a trip to again if there is some snow and we are down that way.

We spent the afternoon relaxing by Titisee, watching ducks, dogs and people wandering about. Lovely day!

Freiburg - Tuesday 12th May 2009 - The Cambridge of the Black Forest.

Freiburg is awesome, it is on the western edge of the Black Forest and was only a short train ride away from Titisee, thats right people, i took the train somewhere.
Another cool thing about Freiburg is that it is twinned with Guildford.

We took one of the DB red double decker trains. It was clean, exactly on time and smooth. The view was awesome as we passed through little meadows and over bridges along the edges of mountain streams and rivers until we the land opened out and we entered civilisation.

Freiburg is a university town and also is a Free Market town, which is where the town gets its name.

At the centre of the city is the market place and the cathedral which date well back to the 1500s. When we got in we went straight to the market square to find a craft market up and running selling everything from wooden toys to plants and flowers.
Dominating the market is the cathedral, the sweeney curse was in play as the thing was covered in scaffold,... as usual. I swear one day im going to go somewhere where they have completely renovated a building and it will be gleaming and beautiful, on that day, i guarrantee that i will have forgotten my camera.

We spent the morning wandering round taking in the sights and then we headed over to the hills to the east and began to climb. We climbed and climbed and eventually reached the top. At the summit we found a spire, a tower of doom, step after step after step. Shattered, our group reached the top and looked out, absolutely beautiful. The clouds had cleared and the sun was out and the view went on for miles.... Katie wasn't too keen on the height though!

We returned home tired, shattered and happy at a day well done.

Höllsteig - Monday 11th May 2009 - Cuckoo Clocks, Water Falls and the Freaky Bar.

That a day! It was superb!
Höllsteig is a small place just on the road and rail in the direction of Freiburg. It has a large Best Western hotel on site and is essentially a place for coach parties to stop off, buy glassware and cuckoo clocks and also, as we found with most places in the Black Forest, a place to walk. It is also home to Germany's LARGEST cuckoo clock! (We sweens know how to rock and roll).

The first thing we looked at were the clocks, they were just simply amazing. The intricate details on them really impressed me and almost every one was completely different with different characters and ornaments. One of them even, as part of the workings, had a water wheel on the side with actual running water,... very odd and over the top, also deafening on the hour as all the little hatches opened and the cuckoos appeared.
Under the clock shop was a glass blowers, nothing really special here, loads of lovely, very expensive vases and ornaments.
The main reason for our visit was to walk up the water falls and valley of the local river. The trip took us up gangways and ladders, over tall drops and through thick woodland. The whole trip smelled of wet pine forest and at times the crashing of the water on the rocks was deafening. There is not really much to say about it, have a look at the photos, i took enough of them!
At the top of the river, as it opened out from the forest we came across a bar and guest house. We decided to stop and relax for a bit. Just as we were tucking into our very sexy plum and apple cake (by this time we realised that two portions could feed the four of us) the owner came up for a chat. He was a scary looking fella with tatoos on his arms, a thinning mullet and a biker mostache. He spoke in a very thick accent and i could not make out a single word he said, he would bang on the wall as well, it scared all of us quite a lot, mainly becuase the chap looked absolutely plastered. Luckily he had a friend closeby who was able to translate. Aparently there had been an earthquade in the region two nights before. The owners friend gave us directions and we left pretty quickly, stopping only to blaspheme on the way out.

The rest of the walk took us mainly down hill back to Hollsteig where we rested before the trip back to Titisee.

A Bitche of a Journey - Saturday 9th - Sunday 10th May 2009

As we have with all our holidays, a REALLY early start. This one was an 0530hrs get-up. We got out of the flat as quickly as possible and left to get our new travel buddies Katie and Andy. It was Andy’s first trip outside of the United Kingdom and there was some apprehension as we approached the Channel Tunnel as Andy did not have a passport. We won’t go into it but after a traumatic series of events, he did not have one.

As usual, it didn’t pose a problem at all. Waved through by French border control we continued our onward journey down thorough France, a bit into Luxembourg, a bit into Germany and finally ending up back in France at the beautiful city of Bitche.

Bitche is a lovely town on the eastern fringes of France. The town which was formed by the joining of the villages of Rohr and Kaltenhausen in the 17th century, gets its name from the old stronghold Bytis Castrum. This stood on the rocky hillside 80m above the town.

This stronghold was destroyed by the French and a new Citadel was built in its place in 1740. This citadel was proved impregnable until WW2 when it was occupied by the Germans as a control centre for the area.

The city was liberated by the yanks at the end of the war – History Done!

The city today is very quaint and more akin to being occupied by coach tours of elderly people from all over the region. There is only one decent hotel in the city centre, Hotel l’Strasbourg. We stayed there and it was lovely, expensive, but lovely. The hotel backs onto the gardens that sit in the shadow of the citadel.

We had a quick wander through these gardens, a quick walk that turned into a long stroll with loads of photos! The colours were amazing and there were a number of small art type gardens with lots of different themes.

After the gardens everyone was getting a little hungry so we went in search of food…. Worryingly there was very little to do of an evening in Bitche. There was the over-priced restaurant at the hotel and apart from that there was only a kebab shop in town,.. so,… dirty burgers it was! It was such a shame, the place really needs a nice place to eat and drink of an evening, there is so much potential but it was generally rubbish.

We retired for the evening and the next day we decided to storm the citadel.

Now, the citadel is completely ACE! It is really high up and you can see for miles around, it is a perfect place to defend the town and the local area. The place could exist for months on end under siege; it had a massive reservoir for drinking water and huge grain stores. On site was a bakery and a network of underground tunnels meant there was ample room for cold stores.

We were amazed by the local inhabitants, not the people but the Herons. Circling the citadel, coming into land and having a wander around, I have never been so close to these amazing birds, they are huge and look incredibly powerful.

We collected a quick Geocache and then left the city behind us to make our way over to our home away from home, Titisee!

Titisee on first glance is a lovely little german town, on the edge of lake Titisee and, like Bitche, is FULL of tourists and coach parties. In the heart of the Black Forest, people come from miles around to go on walking, driving and spa holidays, also to row and sail on the lake.

We were staying at the Hotel Alemannenhof, they have some blocks of apartments just up the hill from the main hotel that would be our base for the week. The appartment was huge as they go and the views from the balcony were astounding. You could see all the way left to town, to the right into the Black Forest with the lake stretching from one side to the other in front. With mountains and hills on each side the air was pretty still and and reflections off the water were beautiful.

We explored a little and walked down to the waters edge, where i made a promise to go for a swim, a promise that i would later fail to keep.

We had a quick beer and a bit of cake at the hotel before heading up to the room for a sleep.

Monday 29th December 2008 - Saturday 3rd January 2009

WALES - NEW YEARS ! - Monday 29th December 2008 - Saturday 3rd January 2009

For new years this year we all decided to go to Amsterdam, due to credit crunching issues and a general lack of money all round, we moved it to a small barn in Wales. Cwmpiban is a converted barn on the side of a valley surrounded by fields and trees. It is SO far in the middle of nowhere that there is no mobile reception of any kind, AWESOME!

The barn is near Rhulen, and its main town is Builth Wells.

Builth is a small town with all the essentials. It is one of those places that has a really slow pace of life. It still has independant local butchers and grocers.

We had a week of relaxing, taking photos, eating and drinking. Also Singstar, just to feed the Karaoke Hunger that had developed with no local bars to release the withdrawl.

Sean began had 365 Days of Meat challenge, more of it can be seen here:- http://365daysofmeat.blogspot.com/ .

Im not going to write a full and in depth blog about this trip as we didnt actually do a great deal but we all took some awesome pictures!

Sunday 12th October 2008

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyawwwww and NYOM - Sunday 12th October 2008

Today is a very special day, not only did we have many exciting holiday based travel things to be getting on with, it is my birthday. So, in true birthday style, got up, felt like crap, shit, shower and shave and a spot of brekkie. Same as the day before, that lion bar cereal is ace, I must get a packet tomorrow to take home. It has the tendency to be REALLY addictive.

I got two cards, which was great, one was in German and had a picture of a mouse giving a cake to a giraffe. This was from Sean and Laura and the other said 26 ans! on it, this was in French and from Anna. I love her.

We left the house and started to drive. After about an hour and a half of driving through thick fog, we arrived at our first destination. The Nurburgring! It turned lovely and sunny and the car park, overflow field and the surrounding roads were packed with cars. It was nice to see a delegation from the “Pistonheads” forum there. I found it really difficult to get insurance for the trip round the ring. No one in the UK is currently supplying it as far as I can tell. For the money you pay, it is almost worth getting a ‘ring taxi’ as you will get a great drive round the track and there is no risk of you crashing and having to pay out a crap load of money.

I took some photos and got a souvenir sticker for the back of my car.

We then left to go to one of my favourite German cities, Koblenz. The town of Koblenz sits on the confluence of the Rhine and the Mosel rivers. At the join, there is a huge monument to Keiser Wilhelm (the chap that unified Germany in the 1800s). The monument is a stone built ‘temple’ with a giant horse with Keiser Wilhelm riding. The coolest thing about the horse was that, being anatomically correct, it had mahoosive balls. This amazed everyone standing around looking at the thing and taking photos – made me chuckle anyway.

After the monument we went for a spot of lunch. Between us we had Curry-wurst, Bock-wurst and Bratwurst and beer – the four main German food groups.

The rest of the afternoon was walking round Koblenz in the fantastic sunshine, looking at the wonderful architecture. We saw the palace, it was pretty huge, but in true Sweeney style, the thing was covered in scaffold.

We left Koblenz and went to our last destination of the day, this was the quite frankly gorgeous town of Monchau.

Monchau is really lovely. A tiny German town set in a valley, built out of the rock on the sides of a river. We went there last Christmas with Chris and Faith and at that time of year, it is MENTAL because of the Christmas Markets. October is a little different. It is still really cold but a lot less manic. We had a wander round the beautiful medieval town before settling at a riverside restraint for Schnitzel and more meat! NYOM!

Luxemburg, Luxemburg - So great they named it twice - Saturday 11th October 2008

Sean’s alarm woke me up again at about 8am, (LAURA’S ALARM, NUMBNUTS!!!) I think it is the Arctic Monkeys. Its all good though. Got up and had some of the ‘Lion Bar’ cereal. It was totally nummy. (I wanted to mix it with some Smack, but that wasn’t open yet, so I didn’t. I think you should always start your day with Smack.)
The cats were back today, staring in at us expecting food to be delivered and good times to be had. (The cats that you hadn’t mentioned yet? Noob. There are two cats hanging around the cottage which Laura can’t help looking at and thinking that they’re cute, despite the fact that one has clearly been in a fair few fights and seen better days, and the other is a Siamese, which have looked evil to everyone since the first time they saw Lady and the Tramp. Anyway, they’re annoying.) I thought it best to put an end to this before we broke and gave in. I got a small bowl of water and launched the contents at the feline. Direct hit. The cat has not come back since. (Andy’s trying to sound hard – he didn’t want to hit the cat, he wanted to scare it. However, the thing was too stupid to try and move , and so got a little bit wet. Laura was sad.)

Bastogne was the first on our list for the day. A town that was almost completely destroyed during the second world war, it is now a bustling little town. There are loads of bars, restaurants and cafes. (There was also a bear dog. It was massive, ace, and massively ace.)
At the top end of the high street is a lovely church, I think it must have survived the war fairly well as it looked pretty original inside. (Brilliantly, all the churches round here seem to be Catholic, which means that Jebus actually lives in them. That’s nice.)

We went to a little café and had some tea and cake. On the table we had a blackforest gateau, a chocolate and cream cake, apple cake and a raspberry and custard tart. (We shared them all so that we all got a bit of each. They were pretty darned nummy, although a tad pricey – the four bits of cake, with four hot drinks, came to 25€. Also, there is an issue with tea preparation in foreign climes, in that they just don’t understand how it’s done. I got a pot of hot water with a tea bag on the side, meaning that it never properly infused. Still, it was better than no tea. Also, we actually saw a girl carrying a tiny dog in her handbag, totally un-ironically. I didn’t think real people really did that kind of thing, but apparently they do. The dog was cuter than she was though, so maybe it was to draw attention away from her.

On the subject of ladies, the standard of women in Europe is not nearly so high as you have been led to believe. Be warned.

Having finished our elevenses, we took a short stroll down the main street to the cenotaph, which is a beautiful monument. Less attractive is a sculpture imbedded into one of the wall of one of the buildings, depicting some soldiers helping one of their wounded comrades. At first, we thought it was broken, but then we looked closer and realised that, no, that man’s head was meant to be on the floor, and all the other people were meant to look the way they did. It was baffling.)

Moving on from Bastogne we moved on to Luxemburg, Luxemburg (so good they named it twice). (Driving past the football stadium which would, later that day, host the Luxembourg v Israel World Cup Qualifier. It was titchy.)
Luxemburg is a really ace city, I’m sure it would have had beautiful views as well over the valley below the town, but the fog was SO thick. We could make out a shadow of a church on the other side and some huge town houses at the bottom, but not much else.
We had a good look round. One of the things that impressed me greatly was that they city is one giant wifi hot-spot. Wherever you are, you can turn on your mobile of laptop and get an interactive city guide with video and audio commentary, no Facebook though. (This is good if you are a nerd.)
We had a look round the marktplatz, which was nice. There were loads of pretty buildings and we got some souvenirs from one of the many shops pedalling items to the hordes of American tourists, retracing the steps of their fathers and relatives as they defended the area from the German army.

(Luxembourg is really pretty. Parking was strange, as they have bays marked out on the pavement. Essentially, we didn’t really do a great deal, but walk around, but that was all we needed to do. It was enough to soak up the atmosphere, enjoy what is an undeniably attractive city, and search for a birthday card for Andy. Although the only card shop we found had only very lame ones.

We did manage to find a stein for Andy though. He was extremely excited by it, although got yelled at by the woman who told him that a stein is a stone. She was quite strict and not very nice. But we still bought stuff, as we’re extremely pleasant people.

We ended up having a bit of a Chavvy lunch at Quick, a French burger chain. But we told ourselves it was ok as it was a French chain, and therefore part of the local culture. Despite my not actually knowing any French, really, I managed to order and field all the random stream of questions that fell from the assistant’s mouth, mainly by just saying ‘Oui’ to everything. It worked. Laura, on the other hand, who does speak some French, got a bit flustered and the girl talked to her in English. I felt ace.

Outside of quick, we saw a chap doing some ‘Belgian Jumpstyle’ dancing, it was ace, he was dancing to some happy hardcore coming from a beaten up stereo over-modding to hell, but it was great to see.

We got a bit turned around when on our way back to the car, which meant we found some great statues, but eventually got back and set off for Clervaux.)

I’ve been to Clervaux three or four times now and every time it astounds me how beautiful it is. It is greatly understated. It is not a tourist town like Monchau (you will read about this in tomorrow’s blog) and it is still very cute. I think the whole point of the town and its main industry comes from people on a pilgrimage of their relatives in the army and people on walking holidays. It is strange, it is in the middle of nowhere and I cant see how it was of strategic importance but somehow – it was.

(Clervaux is a beautiful little town in the north of Luxembourg, in an area of great strategic importance in World War II, a fact commemorated by a statue donated by American troops to their brave allies in the town of Clervaux; a museum recounting the Ardennes campaign; and a tank and gun mount, both donated, again, by American forces. Quite aside from the town’s strategic importance, it’s clear to see why forces would wish to be stationed there – the area is completely idyllic, surrounded by heavily wooded hills, and with cobbled streets that seem to amble forever.)

Agreed

After looking around the town, and visiting the beautiful old church, we stopped off at one of the many cafes that lined the streets for a little snack of waffles or pancakes and coffees. I, of course, had tea, which was, of course, ridiculous – this time the bag was at least in the cup, but the milk was hot and frothy. Honestly, I ask you…

I would recommend going for crepes, mainly because they are fresh rather than the semi stale waffle I had.

After our break, I finally managed to find a card for Andy, while he bought himself a box of cigars. (And what cigars they are, I got 24 Coronas for 35 euros) We also found some excessively cheap alcohol – Luxembourg benefits from being a tax haven, and thus alcohol, tobacco, and even fuel, are much cheaper than in the surrounding areas – and began planning a beer run at some point…

After Clervaux, we began the journey back home. On the way there, though, we passed what looked like a supermarket, and decided to pop in to see if we could find something for dinner. We actually found an ENORMOUS hypermarket, with an entire downstairs floor devoted to drink. We wandered round for a good 30 minutes or so, picking up a few little bits, before Andy went downstairs to return some bottles. In the Benelux (and Germany) area, there is a scheme whereby you can return your recyclable bottles for cold hard cash. Having not done it myself, I’ll let Msr. Sweeney fill you in…

Not quite cold hard cash, you get a credit note so that you can claim a refund on the bottles you bring in. If you are a drunk, this is good, you can go round collecting bottles, get your credit note and buy some really cheap booze. Luxemburg is one of the cheapest places to kill yourself through alcohol and tobacco addiction (then drink drive because you can do that cheaply as well).

Thanks.

So, we headed back, and settled in for the evening. Dinner was a simple affair of bread, meats and cheese, which, as I remarked at the time, I would never consider a meal, but somehow, while in Europe, this all seems fine. It was the same in Cyprus – a sandwich constituting the main meal of the day. Maybe I should move here, and possibly lose some weight. And I certainly could – so far, I haven’t been anywhere that I couldn’t live. Luxembourg is a wonderful country, and I could so very happily move there, as was Cyprus, as is Belgium. I don’t know if it’s just because we come here and get away from real life or what, but the whole place seems so much more relaxed, the pace of life so much more sedate. It’s certainly a life I could get into. Same here I think, I’m really starting to love western Germany and Belgium. We are really getting into the swing of the slow and peaceful life. Sean, let me know when you want to move here and we’ll elope.

Oh, and even better, no-one seems fully sure what language to speak. Belgium is torn between French, Dutch, German and Flemish, although you can generally figure out which area you are in fairly easily. Luxembourg, however, was an entirely different matter, with shopkeepers speaking French or German depending who they were talking to. It was brilliant, and gives even a spot of shopping a sense of the exotic. I like that. I like the way that you can swap and change between all the languages and if you can’t remember a word in one language, use another or make something up and make the relevant hand gestures.
Anyhoo, we had a quiet night in front of an open fire, before retiring to bed for a relatively early night, in preparation for Andy’s Big Day…)

My Birthday Trip to Belgium - Friday 10th October 2008

And here we go on another road trip of glory. This time we are accompanied by Sean (hello) and Laura, our destination, Vielsalm in the heart of the Ardennes Forest, Belgique.

Laura and I had arrived at the Sweeney’s at around 8:30pm, Thursday evening – this despite leaving Sale, near Manchester, at just before 3 in the afternoon. The excessive delay was mainly due to traffic on the M6, as some considerate soul had decided to hurl himself from a bridge. Thanks, guy. It would probably have been worse had Laura not known about a secret way out of Keele services, which, although not being for official public use, got us moving again. Upon arrival, we were greeted by an excited Mrs Anna (excited mainly because she normally only gets to greet Andy, and we’re infinitely better), who made us tea. This means she wins, in my world. We headed into Hertford to grab some food, got distracted and had a drink, headed to actually get some food, had to wait for my plaice to be cooked, as I refuse to eat cod (go morals!), finally got food, and then went back to the flat, where Andy was waiting for us. After a hearty meal of fish and chips, we got settled and got ourselves some much needed shut-eye, as Friday was going to be an early start…

Our day begins at 05.30 (see? )to the sound of Sean’s alarm, I cant remember what the tune was but it was enough to wake us up in the next room. (My alarm is a soothing Regina Spektor song. I doubt it was that, but Laura’s annoying noise-racket would certainly have done it.)With a groan, Anna and I get up, get some clothes on (its only polite) and got showered (obviously without clothes on). We roused the others and then we packed the car and grabbed some brekkie.

We left the house by about 0615hrs and began our drive. It was a great drive, we got to the M20, driving up and down hills and through the valleys with the sun rising in front of us. It was GLORIOUS! (The roads were unbelievably clear. I wanted to comment on it but thought I’d just jinx us, so didn’t bother. When we got to Tilbury (Dartford), we learnt all about the big gas holder things, or whatever they are, and all the animals that live in them. Anna was worried that one of the Polar Bears had come with us. It hadn’t though. She is clearly a dumb.) What you learned was that there were four gas containers and each one had a different type of animal in them, one had polar bears, the others had Mongooses, Gorillas and Tigers. We worked out that it was a bit like Thunder-dome, two men enter, one man leaves.

We arrived at the shuttle in very good time and boarded on the 0900 shuttle.

I’ll leave Sean to describe the Chunnel trip.

(The annoyingly 9 o’clock-ish Chunnel trip, even though we were there for an earlier one. Grr.)

Anyhoo, having never been on the Chunnel before, I can now officially declare it the single dullest mode of transport ever created. After going through some incredibly lax border controls, (we don’t care if you are leaving the country) you get on a train in your car (which is quite cool, I admit), the doors shut behind you, and then you sit there while a speaker system speaks to you in both English and French. How very continental. Then, as the train begins to move, you look excitedly out of the tiny, and really awkwardly placed, windows, and watch as you go through what looks like an industrial estate, before disappearing into the dark. It is then dark for the next half hour. That’s it. No view, no trolley service, no piped music, no bar, no smoking salon, no escape from the smell of human emissions if you’re by a toilet.

Well, you do have to look at the advantages, its 35 mins, there are no waves, no sea sickness, no kids running round hitting each other and screaming and feeling sick. It is warm and smooth and you get to sit in your car, have a short sleep (not having to worry about being pick pocketed as you sleep in the bar) or grab some grub that you remembered to pack and bring along with you.

Eventually, however, the sunlight breaks through once more, and you emerge into…what looks like another industrial estate. Honestly, for all the money spent on the thing, you would hope that they might have tarted the entrances up a bit. But they haven’t, and so we dutifully waited for the doors to open. Suddenly, and without warning, the cars in front of us began to move, and we emerged from our carrier, blinking in the light of a French morning.

Saying that, you get to drive out of the train (pretty quick really, it is an ordered queue, no one cutting each other up as you all try and leave at once) and once out, you are on the motorway and up to speed in seconds.

On the other side, we went to Auchan, the uber Hypermarket of Glory. After stocking up on goodies, such as SMACK and other cheese based articles we started the drive. (Smack is not a cheese based article. It is a breakfast cereal, and it has been proven that cereal is the only food on earth that does not go with cheese. FACT!

Anyway, Andy seems disinclined to discus the shopping Mecca that is Auchan. Ere, you can buy pretty much anything. Laura and I got ourselves 4GB memory sticks for 9€, and we are already planning our purchases for on the way home. These are guaranteed to include alcohol and interesting meats – I am definitely getting some snails and horse meat. The horse steaks look unbelievably good, and Laura has said she doesn’t want to try them, so I won’t even have to share. Result. I am tempted to get Jamie and Amanda down for dinner and not tell them what the meat is, although Laura thinks Amanda may cry if she knew she’d eaten Shergar. Meat aside, there is a massive selection of goods to buy, and all at relatively low prices – definitely worth a day trip.)

We drove and drove and drove until we reached the Spa Francorchamps race track. Amazingly there were cars going round the track and it looked like a Citroen 2cv racing day. (I was lucky enough to sleep much of the way, as I was tired from all the doing nothing. It’s a hard life being me. Cars racing don’t massively excite me, although they were quite cool screeching round the track. We also saw some mushrooms which proved beyond doubt the existence of gnomes. Look at that picture and call me a liar.)

Upon arrival at Sun Parcs, our home away from home for the weekend, we went to reception to book in and get our keys. We then went up to our little house to unpack.

The houses are all very similar. The one we had was classified as a cottage, not much in it between them all really. It has a large living and dining space downstairs with a toilet and bathroom. Upstairs it has two double bedrooms.
Things to remember for the future:

1. bring tea mugs, they only have small espresso coffee cups.
2. bring a kettle, no kettle, no tea,
3. bring towels and bedding, we have sleeping bags but would be nice to have sheets.
4. Tea towels and washing up liquid are not provided.
5. To ensure that you don’t sleep in a position where your knee will knock against the ridiculously placed and ridiculously easy to switch on, light switch three times in the night, waking you up.

Sean, Anna and I went for a trip to the pool down the road. I’ve been here so many times now I kinda take most of this stuff for granted, so once again, I’ll let Sean describe the pool and the fun we had there.

(You cannot swim in the pool. It is too shallow and neither the right shape nor boringness to allow for swimming. This is due mainly to the fact that it is chock-full of fun things, up to and including three slides! (one massive twisty one, one tiny baby one, and one where they spray water at your back as you go down a slope) A wave pool! A Magic River! (a circular pool with a strong current running around the outside that just pushes you round without your doing anything) An outdoor section! A Jacuzzi! And much, much more!

We dossed about for about an hour, just playing like kids. There was a disturbing incident when we sat in the Jacuzzi, however. When we tree climbed in, there were three girls of around 15 in there, chatting away in some form of foreign and we sat quietly at the other end. Then a man came to join us who, and this is the disturbing part, had nipples that were about an inch long. Seriously, they were longer than any man’s nipples should ever be. We scarpered fairly shortly afterwards, and continued our fun-time.

Fun-time almost came to an abrupt end after we had left the pool, however, when Andy almost killed himself slipping on the wet floor. Sadly, he stayed on his feet, and hilarity was averted.)

After about an hour, we came back to the house, collected Laura and we drove to Prüm, a lovely town in Germany. We went there last Christmas with Chris and Faith and we went back to the same restaurant.

Now I have to say, as little places to eat go, we can really pick them. This place is fantastic. It mainly sells meat in various forms, with loads of veg and in a really tasty way. I’ll let Anna describe the food as she is my resident expert! The restaurant was called the Posthotel.

NYOM NYOM NYOM

Not as descriptive as i would have hoped but accurate! Snitzel and Steak, was yummy indeed.

Mohne Dam and Bad Sassendorf - Sunday 13th July 2008

I was awoken quite rudely by my mobile today. It had turned itself off in the night because I had forgotten my charger and the battery had gone completely dead.

Even though it was light outside and it was about 9am my body just didn’t really want to work. I managed to sit myself up and the moment I swung my legs out of bed I felt that “WHY!” creaking cracking noise from most of my joints after the total punishment from day before.

I struggled to the shower and stood under the running water for ages, it was nice.

The thought of the long drive home was not one of excitement but there were a couple of things that we had to do before we left.

We met up with Chris and Faith outside the room. Gathered our things and loaded the car. We met the girls who had checked out already in the Kamps on the ground floor for a bit of food. I had the strongest coffee I could find and a Nussecke.

Our first destination was the Mohne Dam. This Dam generates power and holds back the Mohnesee. It was built in 1913. It is 36m high and 777m wide. It was destroyed in 1940 by the RAF – documented quite well in the film Dam-busters with the legendary bouncing bomb.

Now I haven’t been to the Dam since I was about 8 years old. We found parking and walked out onto the dam. To our left was the Mohnesee and to our left was the small town of Gunne. After the lessons learned in 1940, the town now resides on the side of the hill, almost out of reach of the torrents of water held back by only a few meters of stone.
The sun was out, the sky was blue and it was the first really relaxing moment of the whole holiday. The stroll over the dam was warm and there were only a few people about. I think on our return next time, we might have to do one of the countryside walks. It is a contrast to the rest of the region (which is predominantly industrial). There are loads of evergreen trees, and plants and general greenness.

We were there for about an hour, taking in the sight and wishing we had time to have a boat trip.

Our final stop off before the journey home was a small spa town near to the Dam called Bad Sassendorf. Sassendorf is a salt mining town and is locally famous for its salt water baths and ‘Wellness’ treatments.
Parking is not stress free in this town, a place dedicated to relaxing people and keeping people alive, it has the worst parking in the whole of Germany. We spent quite a lot of time gridlocked, waiting for the aged drivers of the town work their way in and out of parking spaces.

After about 30 mins we managed to get parked and strolled into town. The first thing I notice, as I’m sure my companions did as well, was that we were by far the youngest people in the town. There was an organic, natural produce, hippy style market on in the town and the main streets were packed with bumbling elderly people, all looking for tat to buy and offload onto unfortunate relatives……..
We eventually found some Curry-wurst and chips to chow down on and made our way to the Thermal Salt Baths. We paid, changed and got into the salt water pool, it was lovely and warm and felt strangely ‘silky’ and we swam about. Once again, we were by far the best looking and youngest people there, so I suppose, in a way, it worked – we looked and felt fantastic, especially after the stressful day before.

An hour later we were shrivelled up like prunes, changed and ready to roll. We got in the car, got out of town and onto the Autobahn for our trip home.

We did the journey pretty much all in one to be honest and made good time. We stopped for a breather a couple of times just so that I could wake up a bit and get some blood flowing.

The Chunnel was reached in about 5 hours and we were on time for our shuttle so went straight through.

It was an excellent weekend away, the company was ace and we managed to pack loads into a short space of time. At £50 for fuel each way, it certainly beats flying

Koln - Saturday 12th July 2008

Köln, or Cologne as we brits spell it, is to the south west of Dortmund and was our days adventure. When I say Day, I really mean day, we aimed to get into Köln at about noon so we thought, we’ll get up and about for 9, grab some lunch at the Backeri downstairs then be off. Due to our own German style efficiency, we were all in the bakery and eating our various pastries in no time.

We saw a tramp, he had his willy out. Chris and I were transfixed so told the girls not to look, under any circumstances,.. it was really not nice but I wont go into any more detail for fear of hurting Sean’s delicate mental state.
After food, we headed out in the car onto the Autobahns and drove to Köln. I have to say at this point, the roads were clear except for a few German BMW and Merc drivers trying to set a new land speed record.
It was a perfect day, open roads, clear skies, warm weather, could not really be a better day for it.
The journey took us no time at all really. Chris managed to get some more sleep and missed the beautiful Ruhr and the entrance to Koln over the Rhine.
We parked in the Altestadt (old town) near to the cathedral and the riverfront.
There were a couple of objectives for the day, Meet “Swiss Joinee Carla” and see the Kölner Lichter (lights of Köln).
Arriving just in time for lunch we were surprised that there was very little traffic, pedestrian and auto. It was nice. We wandered over to our first stop of the day.

Köln, used to be a Roman city and dates back to 38BC. It would not be a Sweeney family holiday without seeing some ruins – so we did!
The Roman Praetorium is next to the town hall, and underground. The Praetorium would have been the ‘Governor’s Palace’. Excavated in the 50s, it was covered over to make way for buildings. They did however make it accessible via a large underground cavern. As with the Cyprus blog, ruins are ruins, but this was different. Because it was underground and very well lit, it added to the mystery. All that are really recognisable of the old building are the foundations and lower parts of the walls.
There was also a Roman Sewer tunnel (it didn’t smell anymore!) that ran off the complex that could be walked along. This at the time would have been used to carry away waste from the palace towards the river and also would be a secluded place for shady dealing and murders. In later life, during World War 2, the tunnels were used as a bomb shelter to protect some of the locals from allied attack. Shhhh! Don’t mention the war!

Leaving the Praetorium behind we continued on over to the Cathedral. This GIANT cathedral was built between 1248 and 1880 and it is just HUGE, I can not emphasise how big that bastard actually is. It is so big in fact that since 1880 (when they started renovation work) it is still going on. There is a running joke with the locals that when the work finishes, the end of the world will be upon us.
The Gothic Cathedral is 157m tall, and up until the Washington monument, then the Eiffel tower, was the tallest building in the world.
It was filled with milling thoughtless, bumbling tourists that wandered around aimlessly without objective. We went inside and soon left as my rage levels grew. It’s big inside, real big, just like the outside.

Next, a bit of shopping, a trip to the Lego shop and off for lunch in Heumarkt, near to the Rhine. I had a giant Calzone, Anna had Schnitzel and the kids had pizzas. Was nice, the sun came out and we steadily baked in the sunshine.

After grub, the heavens opened and we met with Carla next to one of the riverboats. After a bit of searching we went to a Löwenbrow pub for some coffee, beer, tea and apfel strudel.

Time was killed for a substantial amount of time (about 6 or 7 hours) by sitting around on the grass, sleeping and eating bratwurst and Nutella crepes.

The crowds started descending on the riverfront and soon there was no space at all. The chilled out waiting turned into stressful packed in standing waiting for a couple more hours until the sun set behind us, spilling golden light over Rhine to the bank opposite.

Amplified Schlager music was being played from a concert on the opposite bank, I used to find this very painful to listen to when I was younger but it kinda fitted the situation.

At about 2230 all the lights went out from the banks and the show began, close to 50 ships must have gone by north on the Rhine. Each one displaying strings of the lights down their lengths and atop their masts. They played loud haunting music and most of the people on the riverbanks, thousands of them, lit sparklers as they passed. It was REALLY good.

After the boats passed, they re-positioned themselves and allowed a huge coal barge pass between them into the river in front of us. This barge, usually a cargo barge, was carrying a special load this evening. At 2330hrs the fireworks began. 30 minutes of explosions from the barge and the railway bridge. It was by far the biggest one I have ever seen. (Fireworks display, not bridge).

At midnight, after the festivities had concluded, everyone tried to leave all at once. We managed to get to our car unharmed and began the 1 hour trip out of town, then the trip back to Dortmund.

We were all VERY tired and achy and bed was welcomed. I think next year, different tactics need to be employed.

Dortmund - Friday 11th July 2008

Right, 6am, a good healthy start to the day, well, for real people who are able to get up in the morning,… well, me. The sun was out, shining brightly and a great day was waiting, just in front of us. We were off to DORTMUND for a long weekend break.
My alarm woke me with a start and the first thing I thought as I woke up was “AHH CRAP, I’VE ONLY HAD 5 HOURS SLEEP!” I nudged Anna (NEVER a good thing) but it had to be done as we would never have got going! I left the bedroom making sure I at least had some shorts on for in the living-room- our travelling companions awaited us. By waiting, I don’t mean they were doing it awake, Faith was awake, just,… I think that the thin curtains and the bright sunshine might have destroyed any chance of her getting any decent sleep from about 4am onwards…. Chris on the other-hand was totally sparko.

I grabbed a quick shower and by the time I was out, Anna was up and dressed,… I was shocked, well, pleasantly surprised! Chris was still out for the count.
Anna and Faith both had turns in the bathroom,…. And after about 30 minutes, Chris was still asleep.
A vigorous shaking was in order and in minutes he was in the shower and getting ready. He took forever though – worse than both us girls!
After a quick round of toast and some last minute emailing we packed the car and were on our way!

Traffic was fairly heavy, leaving at about 0710 is generally not a good plan, we might have to make it a little earlier next time.

We got to the shuttle terminal in just over an hour. Chris and Faith slept most of the way… this was the start of a general theme for Chris’s weekend

The thirty minutes on the shuttle was passed by eating bite sized scotch eggs and wiener sausages that we had pre packed (from M&S don’t you know!) This was a handy breakfast as we had pretty much no time in the Terminal to score some cheap foods for brekkie.
There was a really cute small child that touched Anna up and almost damaged his face on my car, but ill let Anna tell you about that later.

Ah yes the child! He was really lovely, all ears and face and stuff. He’d spent quite a lot of the journey waving to us whilst “driving” and then on one of his little walks about the train, he missed the edge of the walkway and smacked face first into the back of the car. Thankfully he just looked a little confused and got straight back up and carried on. On his way back I was leaning against the car and made sure I pressed up to the car out of his way at which point he decided to pat me on the bum, much in the way you would pat someone on the back! It was cute and I thought he was funny :)

Unloading of the shuttle took very little time and we were soon cruising along the roads around CALAIS. We had to make a short stop off at Auchan to fuel and then we headed out onto the open road.

Our route saw us drive out of CALAIS on the northern roads to the west, on the motorway, through France and into Belgium. It always makes me laugh. The road goes from shiny blacktop to rough and bumpy concrete. The streetlamps vanish and the road markings fade. For the trip to GENT, then on to ANTWERP, round the ring-road and out the other side, nothing much happened. It was the same from Antwerp to the border of the Netherlands where the sexy smooth blacktop returned and the roads became quieter. We made a quick stop for a leg stretch and some food at a picnic site and chowed down on some rolls and potato salad.
The rest of the journey was uneventful, Anna found some cool place names that we passed and the usual game of I SPY was won I think by her as well. Wankum, Wickede and Asseln. Some of the best names we’ve seen on signs so far. Not forgetting Koksijde and Dijksmuide (the “j” is silent in both. Snigger). Already looking forward to going to Titisee in May next year!

I was getting really tired by the time we hit Germany and DUISBURG. I checked the Satnav and it said that there was only about 50 miles to go so I stuck it out and we arrived at our first destination at about 1600 local time.

TRINKGUT is by far the greatest and best shop in the whole of Europe. It is floor to ceiling with beer, wine and other beverages and snacks. If you own a bar, or just like to drink, this is the place to be.
I bought a crate of 24 BITBURGER Alcohol Free beers for about 12 Euros and some more local beer for about 7 Euros for 25 1/2L Bottles. They also had three varieties of the peanut crisps that I have a severe addiction to. I restricted my self to just 2 bags, and as we speak I even have half a bag left! Go me! Faith has also been introduced to their wonderment and even Chris liked them. Andy is still rubbish and doesn’t eat them. More for me!
I love Germany, if you take back your empties, they give you a rebate voucher for the crate and bottles, knocking 3 Euros of you price, EVEN BETTER!

Once this was all packed away, we slowly made our way through the traffic to our home for the next two nights.
The City Centre MERCURE HOTEL is pretty much like most other basic hotels. The room is a good size for the two of us and has all the usual expensive drinks and sweets in the mini-bar. And not forgetting the contact card for “Club Amore” – they provide home visits, hotel visits or escort services! Bunch of mingers in the pictures though…

We are out tonight for dinner so will report in later!

That was a lovely night! We had a wander round DORTMUND, which is pretty much a generic German shopping town. It has all of the post war style concrete developments and the shops are similar to those all over Germany. They have Kaufhof, H&M and C&A. All good though, we saw some lovely churches and at the moment they have winged rhinoceros scattered round the city that look like they have been paid for and pained by local businesses. I think they’re related to the Superlambanana from Liverpool.

Dinner was at a restaurant called “Der Thuringer” near to the Hansaplatz. It was definitely ‘SnitzelUhr’ so we all had supersexy meat that was beaten to within an inch of its structural integrity before being covered in breadcrumbs,…. OM, NYOM, NYOM. Salad was a bit weird though, the carrots were cooked and in orange juice, there was an onion and celery soup which smelt like feet. Garlicky mushrooms were yummy, so that helped.

After grub, back to the room for munchies and some German TV.

Night all.

Orford and Aldeburgh - Tuesday 24th June 2008

Ahhh, my first blog since the infamous Cyprus Holiday. After what seems like ages of hanging around working and doing other boring things, i decided that it was time to jump in the car with Ian from work and head out to the seaside for the day.

Anna is away in Leeds at the moment with work so amongst other things it was a welcome trip out to relieve the daily tedium.

Our day began at about 10am when i drove to Stortford to pick Ian up. The weather was beautiful and there was harldy a cloud in the sky.

Quite frankly, the drive over was amazing. I great mix of country roads and motorway that carve their way through the Suffolk countryside edging its way further and further towards the coast.

After about an hour of driving, Ian's ADHD was beginning to surface and none too soon we arrived at our destination.

The small town of ORFORD is just up the coast from Felixstowe. It is a small harbour town that has an average age of about 70. Arriving at just after noon we parked at the lovely ORFORD CASTLE and went to forage for some food. The first place we came across was called the CROWN AND CASTLE. I remember this place from a Jamie Oliver program about teaching bad kids to cook and it seemed really nice.... the menu was not as cheap as we both would like so we continued in to the market square and to a pub called the KINGS HEAD. Stubbers had Scampi (if it was local or not i dont know) with chips and i managed to find a ploughmans. This was not the best one i have ever had but pretty good really. It came with bar far the biggest block of cheese i have ever had in one sitting.

After lunch we headed down to the harbour. We walked through the town, past cottages and small holiday homes to the coast. It would have been really interesting to see ORFORD as a bustling fishing port. It must have been really busy. The harbour (although still used for a small amount of fishing) is now home to the sailing club and a couple of boat tours.

In the distance, just out of the harbour, can be seen ORFORD NESS. This is a spit that extends along the coast over the mouth of the river ORE. ORFORD NESS Was used during the both wars as an airfield, radar and communications centre and secret / atomic weapons development labs. Now it is an English Heritage site and protected as a site of special scientific interest. On the spit there are a number of buildings including a lighthouse and a couple of "PAGODAS". These housed the weapons testing stations. They similar to a greek temple with columns holding in place a large concrete roof. The design was such that if there was an explosion or some other 'leak', then the roofs would collapse and seal in any contaminants.

There were no tours operating to the Ness which was a shame so i think in a couple of months time when the summer really heats up then i'll have to go back to explore.

We walked back to the town and went off to the castle to have a look.

The castle is of cylindrical (hexaganal) design with three corner turrets. It stands atop a small hill overlooking the coast and is surrounded by pits and dips that would not have looked out of place in tellytubby land. The castle was built in 1165 by Henry II to 'Consolidate Royal Power' in the region. It cost at the time £1413 to build and made about £10,000 per year in revenue for the crown.

It seems to be making more than that for English Heritage at the moment so we decided that the benefits of going in did not outweigh the costs at all.

Had it been after pay day, we would not have sounded so tight but hey, maybe next time.

We left Orford following a very old open top Jaguar along more country lanes. At one moment, whilst driving past a field, a spray cannon was pumping out water over the road. The Jaguar couple really had to think twice as they drove very quickly through the spray.

Next on our stop was the town of ALDEBURGH. This is a very quaint seaside town just to the north of ORFORD.

Now, i really love and somehow respect ALDEBURGH, there is one thing that stood out more than anything else. There is no Tesco. We walked from one end of town to the other. They have local greengrocers, butchers, fishmongers, small independant tea shops. The only chain supermarket was a Co-op. Even this looked as if it was in place and was meant to be there.

It was nice to see that there were also book shops and toy shops that sold small wooden boats. I think that it is a classical British seaside holiday town, there are very few of them left that are as unspoilt by 'Cafe Nero', 'Butlins' and 'Tesco'.

ALDEBURGH has a very small, single screen cinema that also has an art exhibition centre as well. Every one of the seats has been sold to a member and it has a plague with their name on the back. Last time i was there i saw Moulin Rouge, and let me tell you, it fitted perfectly with the style of the place. Leather clad, brass rivited seats in and art deco surrounding,... lovely.

We took a small walk along the beach, found a nice pub and sat for a while enjoying the day.

At around 4pm we decided to head back. The journey home was fine. The sun broke through the overcast clouds that had formed throughout the day and we made good time home.

All in all, a very nice day.

Cyprus - Wednesday 21st May 2008

Righto, not a great start to a day that has just turned into the ‘Day of Hell’.
After getting to bed at near on 0330hrs in the morning, the 0745 start was not at all welcome. It would have been better if not for the excessive overnight heat, the chickens at the end of the road shouting at the full moon and the dog barking loudly for what seemed to be no real reason at all. (I slept as well as normally. That is to say, ok. But very hotly.)

I got up, tidied up and thanks to Sean, downed two hot steaming cups of black coffee. This set me up for the morning at least. (Cos I’m lovely, and feel compelled to offer drinks around whenever I have tea. This results in people being offered lots of drinks.)

We hung around at the house until about 10am and then departed in search of breakfast. This was inevitably going to be at fortnights the pub of choice, The Kings Road.

We loaded the cars and left for the pub. When we got there we all sat and ordered. We all had cooked breakfasts except for Laura, who deciding (in her still pissed from the night before state) that a Pepperoni Pizza would be a good plan. We did realise soon after that this would be the first bad idea in a serious of what turned out to be near fatal mistakes for Laura P.

We all tucked into our grub, wharfing down the lush tasty pieces of bacon, sausages and round after round of toast.
Laura began to eat her first slice of pizza…. Over to you Sean….

(The first slice was scarfed down in double-quick time. ‘Mmm,’ said Laura, ‘What a nummy, tasty treat this is! What a delectable specimen of pizza-kind. Nyom nyom nyom.’ With the first slice practically inhaled, Laura then set about her second, while the rest of us looked on amazed, scarcely having tackled our baked beans yet. ‘My word! This slice is just as perfect as the last, if not better!’ she exclaimed, ‘The pepperoni is divine, the cheesy goodness just remarkable, and the…well, hold on just one minute! What on Earth is this?’ At that, she held aloft a tiny sliver of glass. ‘Why,’ she proclaimed, ‘This is glass! I knew I crunched on something just a moment ago, and now I know what it was!’ She then proceeded to turn white as a sheet, imagining the slice and dice job that the innocent silica compound could be doing to her innards at that precise moment. All yours again, Mr Sweeney…)

Thanks Sean, elegantly put there, very Famous Five!

(Thanks. Our breakfasts were pretty good though. I’m a fan of the full English, and the foreign pig-dogs did it fairly well. Andy enjoyed it so much he was going to have two, but we convinced him to hold off a bit, lest he come across as a fat git.)

After having that knocked off the bill and a round of drinks later, Rich and Laura went off for a small constitutional to the Tombs of the Kings.
We sat around in the shade as we knew what was good for us. Time passed and we became evermore sleepy as mid-day came and went. After what seemed like hours of watching VH1 ‘Then and now’, Rich and Laura returned, with ice cream! Laura looked a little pink (probably from the sun rather than the piece of glass firmly wedged in her oesophagus).
We decided that we would move on from the Kings Road as, as they had officially declared war on one of our party, we had to stop Rich from sparking off another International Incident.
We drove through Pafos and out towards the airport to a lovely Taverna that Rich had seen when taking Donna back and we had visited on our last day a couple of years ago.
We found a nice spot on the front near to the road and ordered some beverages. This was Laura’s second near fatal mistake of the day…. Sean, back to you…..

(Plumb’s prandial predicament persisted ‘pon perusing the remnants of her pressed pulp. So let us hie us back to the beginning of the scene, and see what led our heroine to her distressing discovery…

We’d arrived at the Taverna and taken our seats. The waitress was swift to arrive and take our drinks orders, followed just as swiftly by our food orders (All delivered and received, I might add, in near flawless Greek. We really do rock that muchly.) Our drinks arrived soon after, soft drinks and waters, mainly, with a couple of freshly squeezed orange juices, and a beer for (take a guess…) Richard. We sat amiably chatting, as is our wont, eating the toasted bread provided, and partaking of our chilled beverages. When the food arrived, we were all mightily impressed – everything looked superb, and tasted just as good. Laura managed to steal a massive amount of my Carbonara, because she’s a bad ‘un, but given what was about to come, I can forgive that now.

After our hungers had all been sated, we settled back to enjoy the remains of our drinks. Just then, a cry went up to my right: ‘What is that? Ugh! Maggots in my drink!’ We looked at Laura’s drink, and sure enough, the bottom of her glass was a writhing mass of tiny larvae. Laura immediately went a remarkable shade of puce, clasping her hand to her mouth and trying not to reintroduce any of the friendly little critters that may have escaped the glass’ watery clutches back to the receptacle, while Andy went to inform the proprietor. Richard then realised that, in his haste to drink his juice and move onto his beer, he had not paid any attention to the thicker, less juicy part of his drink, believing them only to be pith. Imagine his surprise, then, when a cursory inspection of his glass revealed yet more of our wriggly little friends.

By this stage, Laura had tears in her eyes, and was trying hard (although not quite hard enough) not to imagine what she had swallowed. Our advice, that they were good protein, not at all dangerous to swallow, and that they would only eat dead flesh anyway, fell on less than happy ears, and she continued to have to try hard to control her gag reflex. Andy returned with the owner, who apologised profusely for the problem, and brought us out free desserts and water in an attempt to make up for the trauma caused – which went down fine with us, although I think Laura was probably less appeased. She was a bit happier, though, when the bill came, and she realised that none of her drinks were on it, meaning that, for the entire day, she’s only had to pay for one thing. Result.)

Thanks Sean. So, two culinary near death experiences in less than two hours, the question is, “What is in store for Laura next!”

2216hrs: Here is a first for me, I’m blogging on a plane.
On arrival at Pafos International Airport we dropped the car off near to the front of the airport and checked in. It was something like 11 Euros to upgrade to ‘Speedy Boarding’ so we did that with the view that I would get on board, get a legroom seat and reserve some for Spanna and Goldy.
We waited in the airport for about an hour. Goldy and Myself managed to wangle some free broadband Wi-Fi so I checked the 50 emails I had waiting for me and had a sneaky look at the Facebook.
Our flight was soon called and I got through the gate. I looked back to see a complete maelstrom of writhing bodies as the ‘A’ and ‘B’ passengers crammed themselves into the gate not letting the disabled adults and parents with young kids (special assistance) anywhere near. Sleazyjet need to do something to sort this out. Its not as if it makes the whole thing any quicker, it just promotes Spanna rage. I caught her eye as she was sitting with Goldy through the plastic screen that separated the “EasyJet Elite” from the rest of the plebs. She was not happy, I made a mental note to book us both as Speedy Boarding every time we fly.
I was soon on board our Airbus A321 plane. I had a nice chat with the hostess regarding her current state of employ with GB Airways and her possible moves to either EasyJet or BA. She was not happy with the whole situation and is under the impression that the current staff are being made ‘uncomfortable’ so that they either take the pay cut to work for EasyJet or go somewhere else. It is a sad business to be sure but I suppose that is just the way of things, Shit happens and it rolls down hill.
I reserved seats for G and Anna and they came aboard a few moments later and we set off on our return trip home.

I have learned a number of lessons from this holiday.
1. The human race will die out from either stupidity or laziness (i.e. forgetting or not being bothered about eating).
2. I am a terrible passenger in a car, I cry like a girl if I am not in control.
3. The dishwashing fairy is a hard one to catch on film, it remains outstanding to this day.
4. Strain your freshly pressed fruit juice.
5. Don’t let Richard Bennett anywhere near to any tense diplomatic situation.


Epilogue

Despite our last day being almightily awful for Laura and the transit through the airport being somewhat tense and annoying, the flight went well and touched down on time. Sadly we were not in for a repeat of the speedy exit we managed through baggage collection in Pafos, as we spent a good 20 minutes for the belt for our flight to be announced and this was after having walked the mile or so from the gate to the arrivals hall. Thankfully, once it got going, we were out and on our way back to the car without much delay. The drive home was tiring and involved only one scary drop in concentration from Andy where we veered slightly onto the rumblestrips. It seems as well that the conversion back to a manual car with the indicator and windscreen wiper sticks the right way round again caused a little confusion at times!
When we finally got home, I remembered to check my phone and had a text from Sean to say that they’d had the fire engines and police following them upon landing in Manchester as their plane’s braking system had failed. I can let him explain this fully I’m sure, but no doubt it helped cement the day as one of the worst of Laura Plumb’s life.

Goldy and the Sweeney’s left the tavern about a half hour before us, as their flight was earlier, although we fully expected to see them again through passport control. Our journey to the airport was uneventful, and, as we arrived and parked up, I was surprised to find that we were just leaving our hire car in the car park, without a pay and display ticket or anything of the like. Apparently this is standard procedure, although, of course, I wouldn’t know that. As we bade farewell to our trusty motorised steed and started the short walk to the airport, I could feel the weight of real life coming back onto my shoulders. Bills, jobs, all the baggage of modern life would be picked up at the carousel in Manchester, but they were already starting to settle on me with just the knowledge that I was soon to be leaving my island idyll behind me.

We settled in a cafe (well, tiny snack bar type thing) outside the airport. Richard discovered that by walking just inside the building, he saved about a quid on a drink, then brought it back outside. We discussed the holiday, and what each of our favourite parts were. Laura and Rich came up with one moment, before I reeled off a list of about fifty things. Eventually, it was time for us to join the throng of people at the check-in desk, and wait for our bags to begin the perilous journey to the undercarriage of the aircraft. After a hefty wait, which wasn’t without it’s complaints (from Richard, mostly), Laura’s bag was passed straight through, while Rich’s and mine were subjected to extra scanning and things. We obviously look dodgy as sin. There were no problems getting through though, and we made our way to the departure lounge.

We made a swift move to the gates, where Goldy and Spanna were waiting to be called for boarding. Andy, due to his ‘special needs’ (‘Oh, I’m so tall, let me on first, I’m technically disabled you know...’) had already gone through, but we were able to say our goodbyes to the other two, before going back through to the food and shopping bits. Laura had promised to buy me a present, because I had no souvenir for myself from the holiday, despite having plenty for other people, and we then went to get ourselves a pre-flight snack. One of the biggest slices of pizza in the world later, and we were ready for the off.

The flight was called much earlier than we expected, and we hurried to the gate, only to end up stood there, with a mass of tired holidaymakers, for about half an hour, before eventually being called for boarding. Honestly, Andy was right about EasyJet’s procedures – they really need to get their boarding organised, as it was just a mess. There were all kinds of people complaining that they should have been in a different boarding group, and the lady at the desk, helpful as she was trying to be, seemed to be at the end of her tether. In the end, though, we made it to the bus, and then onto the plane.

Where, for some unknown reason, the couple who had already got the seats by the wing, with the massive legroom, decided to give them up, allowing us to take them, and be able to stretch out for the duration of the flight. This pleased Richard greatly, and he and Laura were able to sleep pretty much straight away. I attempted to watch the film (Mr and Mrs Smith, a great improvement on the tosh served up on the way out), but even I eventually succumbed, and got an hour’s shut-eye. I awoke in time to see us begin our descent while over London. Take off and landing have always been my favourite part of any flight, and I was looking forward to this one. Before long, we were over Manchester, and coming in for landing, when suddenly, I felt the plan angle upwards again, and accelerate noticeably. I thought this was a tad unusual, although assumed that maybe we were having to circle a bit due to congestion or something, until, that is, the pilot came over the intercom to inform us that one of the braking systems had failed. Cue massive eyes from Laura. He went on to let us know that they had a back-up system which they were just checking, and we would be landing shortly. What? You’re checking the back-up systems in flight? I honestly thought all that would have been sorted out before flights began, just in case, but there you go – that’s budget airlines for you.

Well, apparently they were up to scratch, as we once again began our descent into Manchester, and finally touched down with a convoy of fire engines and police attending. We were then held on the plane until they’d ascertained that there were no problems, and the plane wasn’t going to explode, or something (although if it was, I’d rather have been off it and far away when it did), before finally being allowed back onto British soil. As we approached the terminal building, I switched on my phone, and was greeted with a text from a friend of mine rejoicing over the fact that Manchester United had won the Champions League. Oh, brilliant. Thanks for that, mate.

Laura’s dad was waiting for us as we left the baggage reclaim, and we made our way out to the car, and the final leg of our journey home. I quickly fell asleep (there’s me and car-napping again!), and woke up as we arrived at my flat, where Richard and I were disgorged from the vehicle. After a quick goodbye to Laura, and thanks to her dad for staying up late to help us out again, we fell into the flat, and dumped our bags. I made a cup of tea (which would go undrunk), and flopped onto the bed, exhausted. It was 2am BST, 4am to my weary body clock, and I allowed sleep to quickly envelop me, with no thoughts for the worries I would have in the morning, but just happy memories of the fortnight I’d had dancing through my mind.

Some more thoughts, in bullet point form:

· I can’t think of many better people I could have gone away with. There was space for both mental going out-ness, and lovely staying in-ness.
· I can survive in the sun without all my skin melting off, so long as I’m careful.
· I think Greek looks prettier than English. And is probably a damn sight easier to learn.
· The rules of shotgun are immutable. Always look out for reloads.
· Fish are friends. And food.