It is very unlikely that we'll be going very far this year; it's August already and international travel is still a very fluid avenue in the wake of the global pandemic. It was safe to travel to Spain a couple weeks ago, and now it isn't. You might book a holiday in France, Greece, or any of the other 'air bridge' or 'travel corridor' countries, only to have the rules change partway through your holiday and find yourself needing to self-isolate for two weeks when you come home. Even worse, it might change as you board your plane, and you'll find yourself spending your vacation in quarantine instead. Not what you'd call a good use of holiday time and money!
Hopefully we can make up for the lack of travel next year, assuming conditions improve, but in the mean time I thought I would write some throw-back posts to the places I visited last year but never got around to writing about. First on that list is last August's day-trip to our Emerald Isle neighbour, a stop-over before we headed to Northern Ireland to visit friends.
This trip did not get off to a very promising start. A very early flight, horrendous airport queues and a sleepless night meant Sean and I were snipping sharply at each other at Luton airport and by the time we dropped our bags off at the hotel in Dublin, we were barely speaking. Despite that, we headed to Trinity college first thing, walking about 20 meters apart the whole way there. Sean wasn't all that interested in seeing the college or the library in the first place, and I was too angry and upset to appreciate our surroundings or summon the patience to wait in the queues. We lost each other (unconsciously deliberately, perhaps?) as we wandered around the grounds, choosing not to buy tickets and reaching a boiling point. Ultimately, we had a blow-out row in the square (in hushed voices and restrained body language, in true British fashion) and, still feeling a little prickly but decidedly less angry, left to find breakfast - together this time. #couplegoals
Dublin castle was next on our list, and we were much more relaxed around each other for this tourist site, though still subdued and tired. Dublin castle was a strange building, not really resembling a castle in the way you would normally expect. Much of it was relatively new (compared to the original stone keep) and painted in bold primary colours on the outside that in no way resembled any castle I had seen before. It was a really interesting historical building though, and I enjoyed learning a bit more about Ireland's political and social history. I know plenty about Ireland's folklore and not much else, so I learned plenty new on this trip.
When you travel as a couple, it's a very different experience to travelling with friends or on your own. I don't know about anyone else, but I spend a lot of the trip worrying that we're not getting to do things that Sean might want to do. I tend to choose the sites we visit, how we get from place to place, the order we do things in. It's mostly because I like to have an itinerary when we travel and for me, part of the build-up of excitement before the trip comes from the planning and working out of how to do and see all the amazing things. Sean tends to book the flights and the accommodation, as he's much better at finding great deals in lush places than I am. He's rarely involved much in the itinerary side as he's much more relaxed when he travels: he likes to arrive and see what looks good or interesting, to leave things open to do what might take his fancy as and when. I love the idea of this, but in my experience (with both friends, and even travelling on my own), this inevitably leads to endless loops of 'what do you want to do?' 'I don't know. What would you like to do?' The flip side to planning an itinerary though, is that I feel like I'm dragging Sean all over to places he's not really interested in seeing. It has led to a lot of tension in the past when we travel, and unfortunately Dublin was no different, because he's happy to go with the flow and I'm constantly hounding him to tell me what he wants to do.
I can often be paralysed with indecision over silly things and don't have a lot of patience. Sean and I are both very stubborn too, which usually makes our arguments impressive, to say the least. I also don't do well on very little sleep, nor do I say what I want to do because I don't want to inconvenience anyone else, which, understandably, drives Sean crazy. None of this makes me an easy person to travel with - especially not when I care very much about my partner enjoying his holiday too. The two of us have got quite a bit to learn about reacting to each other before we can have a blissful totally tension-free holiday. Though perhaps I'm just doing that classic social-media thing were I assume everyone else has those blissful tension-free holidays so I must be doing things wrong. Do other people argue with their partners over missed trains, unpurchased tickets, and confusing airport queues too? Despite our lack of sleep, we packed a lot into our single full day in Dublin. After the castle we made our way to St Patrick's Cathedral, where we wandered with hushed steps and voices around the cool stone building, lingering in patches of coloured sunlight from the stunning stained glass windows. If you only have a day in Dublin, I definitely recommend St Patrick's Cathedral over Christ Church. Especially if you're a Literature fan - St Patrick's is where Jonathan Swift was Dean and there is a whole section devoted to his history and involvement with the church.
Next on our list was the Guiness Storehouse, the only site in Dublin that Sean had added to our itinerary. Certainly it was his favourite bit of the Dublin day, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was mine as well. The tour was really interesting and well worth the ticket cost (€25 for the Guiness Uncovered package) and there was so much to see in the building itself that we wandered back through it after the tour. The ticket we bought included a 60 minute session with a 'taste specialist' and a tasting session. I found it fascinating to listen to, but wasn't as keen on the tasting part (I am not a beer drinker). I did sip it before passing my portion on to Sean though. We also got a drink ticket which we could redeem at the Gravity Bar on the top floor, with panoramic views of Dublin. We enjoyed the views and the drinks, moving downstairs to the restaurant when it got too crowded in the Gravity Bar, and ordering a few more drinks to enjoy at a window table, with a still-stunning view of the city. It felt wonderful, and is probably where we both finally completely and utterly relaxed around each other again. I highly recommend a visit to the Storehouse if you're in Dublin and you or your partner enjoy the Irish stout.
I can't quite remember exactly when we went back to the hotel for a shower and a nap - it was either before or after the Guiness Storehouse. Probably before, as I think our check-in time was 3pm. Those two things went a long way to soothing any residual tension between us. Have I mentioned I'm really not great on very little sleep? The afternoon nap is probably a significant factor in why I found the latter part of our day in Dublin so much more enjoyable.
Meal times are always a tricky one for us when we're on holiday. I think I mentioned how indecisive I can be, but it's usually down to me to pick a place to eat - and food is the one thing I always neglect to include in my research and itineraries. You see, I'm a bit of a foodie so Sean likes me to choose restaurants because I'd care more about the food than he would, but I then agonise over whether or not there is something he can actually eat and would enjoy eating on the menu, given his intolerance. After some agonising indecision and menu perusal on my part, we settled on a French-style market shop with a café that served a surprising range of hot food called Dollard & Co. The food was really tasty and, by a stroke of luck, they had a singer and musician who started performing shortly after we sat down. And they were celebrating their birthday and served free cake to all the dine-in customers there that evening.
The other thing both Sean and I really wanted to do was have a few drinks and listen to some live music somewhere on Temple Bar. After all, what trip to Dublin is complete without a visit to Temple Bar and some good live music? I We may have stopped at our hotel again to change before making our way to this famous street. I think we actually ended up in The Temple Bar - titular pub on the street. We were lucky and got there early enough that we could get seats right in front of the band, and settled in for a couple of hours of listening and slow, casual drinking. Though we didn't stay out particularly late, it was a really mellow, iconic way to end our fractious but generally wonderful day in Dublin. Tags
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Hever Castle has been on my to-go-to list ever since I discovered how close it is to where I (and now we) live. The Tudor period is probably one of the areas of English history I know the most about, so the thought of visiting Hever Castle, home of Anne Boleyn - the second wife of Henry VIII and the woman who helped encourage him to break with the Catholic Church - was very exciting for me. As you may know by now, one of the many things I love about living in England is being able to stand in the places that I have read about and studied in school.
Hever station is only a short train ride from where we live - about forty or fifty minutes direct from London Bridge - and from the station it's a relatively short, easy walk to the castle. It takes a little over ten minutes if you take the public footpath through a couple of fields (make sure you don't mind dodging sheep and their poop), or about twenty minutes if you walk along the roads, though there are no pavements and the roads are fairly narrow. Trains along the London - Hever route ran hourly, making it a very easy day trip for us. Hever Castle also did not disappoint. I'd read about it's award-winning gardens and then, of course, there's the historical side, but there was actually a lot more to keep us busy that I expected. The first thing we did after buying our tickets (only £16.75 each) was to walk through the Kent and Sharpshooters Yeomanry Military Museum. It's a tiny little building immediately by the entrance - hard to miss thanks to the tank parked outside and the delicate red poppies growing along the outside of the building. The Castle is much smaller than I expected, only a portion of the main building open to the public. Still, there was enough to see: exhibits ranged from the Boleyn's story, both the improvements Anne's father and grandfather made to the castle, and a bit about Anne and Henry's courtship, to the various films that used the castle as a site and setting, right the way to the Astors, the American family who bought Hever Castle in 1903 and spent $10 million restoring it. Some of the rest of the Castle and outer buildings have been converted into luxury accommodation, as apparently Hever is also a wedding and event venue. There was actually a wedding reception at the castle that afternoon, down by the lake. Sean and I scoped it out before they closed it to the public, and it would make for a stunning venue though probably a horrendously expensive one.
The lake is actually where we made our way after the Castle, having paused briefly to have some of our picnic. We went through their Italian garden, where Sean told me he would patiently walk slowly while I took all the photos I wanted, and came down to the portico where they were setting up for the wedding and also where they had rowing boats and pedalos for hire. We then wound our way back up to the main castle via the rose gardens.
Sean was particularly excited to try the mazes. The water maze was our favourite. Though it was completely open, the aim was to reach the tower in the middle without getting wet and there was only one dry route through the maze. So Sean and I channeled our inner Indiana Jones and negotiated the slick paving stones between the little streams, dodging water jets and pretending to step on the pressure blocks just as the other was stepping over the fountain spouts. Children in bathing suits dodged around us, delighting in getting wet. One generous boy was pointing out all the bits we wanted to avoid if we didn't want to get wet, and showed us how to avoid tripping the jets on a few of the bridges. We made it to the middle dry, but Sean insisted we do it again since we had technically cheated and not actually found the dry route through the maze. It was a lot of fun. The second one, a 100 year-old yew hedge maze - was much more straightforward. I think we only dead-ended twice before we found our way to the middle. Definitely not like that time when I was sixteen and got lost in a corn maze on Halloween. I'm not sure if that was just because this maze was smaller or because of Sean's better sense of direction. We did end up in a debate along the way over whether 'labyrinth' would be a more accurate name for the two puzzles. I thought both were technically labyrinths, because you were trying to get to the middle and not get to an exit. Sean argued that a maze had multiple routes, some of which dead end where a labyrinth has only one route you can follow. Does anyone know what the real difference between the two is? Let me know if you do!
Apart from the mazes, we went for a forty-minute walk around the lake, stopping at the Japanese tea house built over the water and at the two WWII pill boxes we saw along the route. We also paused to admire the gorgeous meadow flowers that were blooming everywhere and then again at the waterfall we passed, which had Sean clambering over tree roots and rocks to get as close as possible and me following and taking lots of photos of him (and the waterfall, of course. But mostly him.)
The afternoon wound down with the two of us finding a bench on a stepped patio with a stunning view of the castle and picking at what was left of our picnic lunch while he tried to explain to me what makes a castle a castle (given that Highclere Castle is not, apparently, actually a castle). If you think you have the answer to that one too, let me know in the comments! On the way out of the grounds, we did a quick walk-through the playgrounds, specifically the Tudor Towers playground, which is an enormous wooden castle with slides, ropes, nets, and swinging punching bags with knights painted on them. Sean and I lamented the fact that they didn't have those sorts of playgrounds when we were growing up, and we jokingly agreed that we'd have to bring his nephew with us when he was old enough to give us an excuse to play in the castle as well.
Another short walk through the sheep fields (and an unfortunate, painful brush with stinging nettles) and we were back at the train station, headed home. It was a fantastic way to spend a Monday, and a relatively inexpensive one as well. Weekends would have been better as they have jousting and archery demonstrations on Saturdays and Sundays during the summer months, but even without that it was still well worth the trip. Tags
This year I seem to be making a habit of going along with a trip, with no specific idea of where I’m going, only to find that I’m consciously planning to go back to that same area about a week later. It happened over the Easter holiday, where a bus tour I had booked skirted the villages around Stratford-Upon-Avon instead of the originally advertised, more widespread locations, and then I made my way back up to Stratford-Upon-Avon a few days later for an overnight visit.
This past May holiday, it was the South Downs, an area of outstanding national beauty in the Souh towards the coast. It started with the celebrations for Sean's mum's birthday: his sisters organised a weekend in Chilgrove at a cottage in the middle of the woods in the Kingley Vale Nature Reserve. We had to drive along a deeply rutted and uneven dirt road that seemed to be taking us nowhere, twisting through heavy green trees until we finally came to the end of the road and the high, thick, rabbit and deer-proof gate that protected the 11th Century cottage (fortunately much renovated and modernised since then). It was a slow weekend, as there was not much to do in the area given that I am not insured to drive in England (or in Canada anymore, for that matter), but it was beautiful. There were multiple public footpaths and bridleways that spread, web-like, around the cottage, and the fields and woods surrounding us were home to roaming pairs of deer. Mostly we stayed in the enormous garden, though, reading, chatting, and entertaining Sean's toddler nephew. There were lots of games played, much sunning, and even more pastries eaten. We were all debating the relative merits of actually owning a cottage in the middle of nowhere and, while we all thoroughly enjoyed the peace and quiet, all agreed that we could not happily live in such a quiet retreat all year long. I think that's partly why the unexpected highlight of the weekend was our stop at Arundel Castle on the way home. We'd had enough of the silence of the woods and cottage and were ready to be doing something and surrounded by busy people again.
Why was it so unexpected? Well, because of rail replacement services, Sean and I had to catch our train home from Arundel rather than Chichester, and since Jackie and Jo were giving us a lift there anyway, the whole family detoured to visit the castle. It was only fifteen or twenty minutes by car, and well worth the visit. The best part for me was how excited Sean got, and the way all his stress and frustration seemed to dissipate as we entered the main castle and made our way to the original section and its battlements. As much as I love visiting castles for myself, I enjoy them doubly so because I get to watch Sean be excited and delighted.
We had a quick wander around some of the grounds as well, but since the others weren't quite as interested in touring the extensive castle and grounds, we cut it shorter than we would have otherwise, out of consideration for the fact that they all also still had a very long drive ahead of them. If we had gone on our own, we could very easily have spent an entire day there. When my summer holiday finally arrives (hopefully with the return of some of the twenty-plus sunshine that we had this past spring) I am considering hopping on the train back down to Arundel to explore the grounds and gardens much more thoroughly. There is so much else to see in England though, so we shall have to wait and see if I do, or if I decide to go somewhere new instead!
Now for the return visit:
Anneka and I had been talking for ages about booking a quiet country holiday, perhaps at a spa hotel, for a few days over the actual May half-term holiday. We decided to get together after work on the Monday following my weekend in Chilgrove and actually book something. Originally we were planning to head slightly north-west, and book somewhere in the Chiltern Hills, but when we were struggling to find somewhere we liked there, Anneka suggested the South Downs. We managed to find an excellent deal at Goodwood Hotel - we got full access to the spa facilities and gym at this four-star hotel, and a cooked breakfast both days, for less than we would have paid for an AirBnB! Goodwood was where I really, properly unwound and finally managed to switch off. Funnily enough, that's a very similar pattern to my double trip to the Cotswolds - the first visit I was still running on high stress mode but by the second I was completely relaxed. I think it probably helped that I was on school holidays for both of the second trips. In this case, the spa also helped - the sauna and steam room in particular softening all the physical tension, then the hot tub melting away the stress. It was wonderful to be out in the fresh air all day, wandering the parks and woods on the Goodwood estate, and then come back to the hotel and soak away any muscle stiffness. We had such good luck with the weather too - no rain! Just sunshine and balmy skies. The food and drink at the hotel was excellent too. Expensive, but tasty. We couldn't justify eating there all the time, given the cost, but if I could have sampled everything on their menu, I would have. And we didn't even go to the proper restaurant on the estate - just the hotel bar! We did go to the restaurant for drinks on the last night, and I really wish I had taken a photo of their cocktail menu. They were smooth as anything, and dangerously tasty. Again, if I could have afforded it I (and if my liver could have handled it) I would have sampled one of everything. The best cocktail I had was at The Kennels though. Funny story about the Kennels. Anneka and I couldn't find this mysterious bar anywhere on the estate. We could see it on the map, but the map wasn't very good (and neither Anneka or I are very good at reading maps to begin with) and the guy who we asked directions from wasn't very clear either. It was supposed to be a twenty minute walk from the entrance of the estate. Over an hour later, and having tramped through the ivy and rubbish on the side of a narrow road for nearly ten minutes, we finally stumbled into The Kennels. It turns out we'd passed it multiple times, but there seemed to be a wedding party outside so we assumed that couldn't be it! By the time we found the bar and ordered our drinks, we were laughing at ourselves for not having arrived significantly sooner. I had a ginger cosmo and Anneka had a glass of red wine that she is still fondly reminiscing about. I don't drink wine, so we'll have to take her word for it that it was truly excellent. Once again, this trip wasn't all about sightseeing. We had meant it to be days of country walks, and being healthy and gently active, but while we did have a few small walks of a couple miles it was much slower-paced than that. On the first full day there, we were planning to wander the Chichester Harbour area for the day, walking along beaches, through villages, and around the natural marina. We started at West Wittering beach but only got as far as East Head. We only stopped to read for a little while and eat our sandwiches but we ended up reading in the dunes for three hours. We watched the tide come in and gradually lift the boats that had been beached when we sat down before deciding that it was time to walk back and find ourselves a pub for some drinks and figure out what we were going to do for dinner. It was so refreshing to not have to worry about when and where we were going to be, and to not think about much except my book and good food. I did learn something surprising about myself though: I am not a spa person. I love going and having the massages and facials and other treatments, and I love using the hot tubs, steam rooms and so on. But to go to a spa for the day, without a treatment booked, is rather...boring. I had a book I was reading and enjoying, and I did enjoy using the facilities. But I was restless after a couple of hours. Something for me to remember next time I'm planning a spa break: make sure there's more to do than just the spa! Tags
In August Sean and I got to play host and tour guide to my best friend and her parents, as they came over from Canada to explore London. I loved it; I got to see Jenn, share my love of London with her, get to know her parents more socially, and Sean got to know Jenn better. It was a winning combination.
Aside from pubs and museums and other landmarks, we also took a day to visit Windsor Castle. I’ve been to Windsor before and even if you aren’t interested in the Castle it’s a beautiful town to visit. Great pubs, restaurants, shopping, and a stunning riverside. That being said, the Castle is well worth a visit. As grand and extravagant as the interior is, I enjoyed being out in the grounds much more. The walkways are a maze of roads and paths between buildings and through gardens. The Castle is built into the side of a hill so as you walk along you are at times taking in a stunning panorama of the town and at others hemmed in by towering stone walls and steep hills of immaculately maintained gardens. tags |
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