Our Travel Blog

Well, here we go again! This trip coincides with our 50th Wedding Anniversary on Oct 23rd!

After a very quick trip, just over 6 hours, we arrived in Paris from Ottawa. Top ground speed I saw was 1086 km/h, for those of the imperial persuasion, it was fast! We now have a 3 hour wait in Paris before boarding a flight for Athens. We have a couple of days in Athens before boarding our cruise around the Greek Islands and one stop in Turkey.

We had pre-booked a ride to the hotel, and although we didn’t have voice plan on our European SIM the driver was able to contact us by voice on WhatsApp and give us instructions on where to meet him. Isn’t technology wonderful!

The temperature was around 24C (for those from Alabama that is cool for the rest of you warm to hot). We made it to the hotel in about 30 minutes. The hotel is in the center of Athens and is…. well, different. You enter via a store which resembles very closely the bedding department of Ikea. The hotel itself is quite modern, we even have a balcony over looking the street.

After getting settled in, and a quick(ish) inspection of the inside of our eyelids we got ourselves sorted out, and went up to the roof garden which gives a good view of Athens.

Acropolis in the background

Wall art on the adjacent hotel.

In the evening we went off in search of a Greek Restaurant recommended by the hotel staff, not too difficult a task…… or was it. Unfortunately being a speaker/reader/writer of English we may have well been in the middle of Outer Mongolia as far as street signs go. They were more like a math equation from high school. However, we didn’t totally fail, we found an Italian restaurant with outdoor dining.

Outdoor Dining

Time to hit the sack soon, hopefully we won’t be up too early. Tomorrow we have a brand new, to us, two wheel adventure.

I have some time to kill before the airport shuttle arrives so I’ll close out this adventure.

Overall we had a great time, BUT we are slowly beginning to realize that too much activity is not good these days. The problem I (we?) have is that it is counter intuitive to go on holiday to new countries and then sit around doing nothing. We may need to reset our thinking on that one! All that to say, we are both ready to head home for a rest!!

One great thing we liked in Europe (sorry Americans) was that not once were we asked / expected to tip in restaurants. There wasn’t even provision on the credit card machines to allow for this. This took away one level of “stress” no more “should I tip”, “how much should I tip” etc. In Europe restaurant staff are paid a living wage so tipping is not required, if only this would spread across the pond. Unfortunately, nearly every American (probably out of habit) would tip cash. This I am sure will eventually spread the tipping culture into Europe.

We have been very lucky with the weather, with one exception where we got drowned on a tour. Even Iceland, although cool, hasn’t been too bad. It is still odd to wake up at 2AM and find it light outside.

I have recovered from the shock of being reintroduced to British driving! Once I got the feel of the size of the car things went better (and faster). Roundabouts in the UK are very prolific and work very well. In most cases way better than 4 way stops or traffic lights. Why do they work so well…. drivers know how to use them. In North America they are relatively new and appear to scare the living daylights out of the majority of drivers. Hopefully that will change with time.

Our next trip will be to celebrate our 50th anniversary. In October we are taking a cruise around the Greek islands.

Well, I said yesterday that we were making a rare visit to a museum!

Well it wasn’t that one!!

It was this one.

After breakfast we headed out to the local bus stop, we had tickets for the Hop-on Hop-Off bus as well as the Perlan Museum. The museum is all about Iceland and has some great immersive type movies.

We caught the bus and headed off to the museum. Time slots were issued for entry, so we expected huge crowds, wrong! We were early, but it wasn’t a problem, we were just slotted into the next tour. Unfortunately, for the most part, photography was not allowed.

The first movie was just a “normal” movie on the geology of the island over the last 40 million years. The next was an Imax type production showing an eruption of one of the volcanoes in 2021.

The third was a planetarium showing of the aurora and the science behind it.

The final part of the tour was to an ice cave. Representative of caves around Iceland, it was made of real ice with a temperature of -15C. I’m sure some of you in the UK would like to visit that right now!!

One photo we were allowed to take was of a cliff face with hundreds of (model) birds on it. Find the puffin in the picture below.

There was an observation deck at The top of the museum, so we headed up there to get some pictures of the city.

Above is Hallgrímskirkja, it is the Lutheran Church of Iceland built between 1945 and 1986.

Yesterday I mentioned the roadsides were full of lupins, but the pictures didn’t come out too well. Here are some more lupins!

We had lunch at the museum, then headed off to the bus for a tour of the city.

Above is the Harpa, the Opera House / Music hall of Iceland

Above is the Reykjavik Town Hall, built out into the lake.

After the bus trip we took a walk along the bustling shopping and social area of Reykjavik (the tourist office words, not mine). It was pretty deserted, with more small restaurants then shops!

I had one final thing to do, find an Icelandic Geocache. Luckily there was one about 300 meters away, which I found.

This is our last night in Iceland, we head off to the airport tomorrow morning. We’ll have some time to spare there, so I’ll write a summary then.

Yesterday we drove from the Cotswolds to Gatwick Airport. We weren’t sure what time to leave as part of the route involved the M25 motorway. This ring road around London is often referred to as the largest car park in the UK. I guess we were lucky, we had about a 5 minute slow down where the M3 and M25 motorways meet and that was it. We arrived too early and we had to wait about 90 minutes for check-in to open.

Arriving in Keflavik, we got the airport shuttle to the hotel, the first thing we noticed was the temperature…. cold at 12C. We later found out that 12C is the normal temperature for June! In July you expect 15C. 18C is a rare heat wave.

We’re back in the land of late sunsets and early sunrises. On the solstice last weekend the sun set around 30 minutes after midnight and rose about 2:30 AM.

This morning we took a tour of a few tourist spots inland from Reykjavik.

First stop was the UNESCO site of Thingvellier National Park. This was an area that used to be the capital of Iceland back in the 8th century soon after the country was settled. On the way we passed hundreds of lupins along the road side.

The park sits on two tectonic plates, the North American and the Eurasian plates. This accounts for the volcanic, earthquake and thermal activity here. Evidently there are 600 minor earthquakes a day here, most go unnoticed. These 2 plates move apart by approximately 2cm per year. Below are some general views.

Next stop was Geysir, from which the word geyser was derived. This wan an area where boiling water comes to the surface. In most cases it just showed as steam vents and puddles, but there was one active vent that would blow every 7 minutes sending hot water about 40m into the air.

Above is the steam blowing away after Strokkur had done its thing. Below are some general views.

Apart from the steamy activity we also saw a white wagtail!!

Iceland has put all the geothermal activity to good use, it is used to run electric power plants and most houses are heated by hot water piped in from the active areas. The water is also used to heat large green houses in the winter, which together with artificial light allows vegetables to be grown all year around.

After lunch we headed off to the Golden Waterfall. Never did find out why they were called golden. Just pictures.

Not as big as Naigara, but still impressive.

We headed back to Reykjavik and the hotel. Below is a street in Reykjavik city

Tomorrow is hop on hop off day, and for us a rare museum visit.

We woke up to another great summer’s day. This is our last day of touring as we have to get to Gatwick Airport tomorrow for the flight to Iceland.

After breakfast we headed off to the South West this time. Lyn had drawn up another route from our 50 year old AA Book. Unfortunately the map, the roads and the GPS didn’t play well together, so we got a little uncertain of our position at times.

We had to put fuel in the car for the first time. We have been averaging around 65 MPG, which isn’t too bad.

As before much of today trip was about the scenery, but we did stumble across some interesting places. We found some military aircraft the other day, today we found some dead aircraft. There is an airport at Kemble which is effectively an aircraft breakers yard. For some types of aircraft (not particularly old ones) there is a shortage of parts. The airlines have found it cost effective to cannibalise some of their fleet to keep other planes airworthy.

We moved into the county of Wiltshire, which has a number of “White Horses” These are horse shapes carved into chalk hillsides, leaving a white horse. The one below at Cherhill dates back to 1780.

At this stage we were having problems getting the GPS, roads and route to agree on where we were. Lyn eventually got us back on track and we headed off to Avebury. Avebury is the home of the largest stone circle in England. Unfortunately as this is the Summer Solstice weekend the place was mobbed with people dancing around the stones, so we were unable to stop. The pictures below were taken by me sticking the camera out of the window and blindly taking photo’s.

Next stop, lunch. Our first stop didn’t serve food! Second stop was better and we had a meal. Time was getting, so we headed off after lunch to spend the afternoon with friends.

Back at the hotel their were a few classic cars in the car park.

I’m not sure when the next entry will be, probably Tuesday evening.

Yet again I managed to avoid the “Full English”! Our plan today was to visit a wild life park to make a change from driving.

After breakfast we headed out to the car park to find the damaged wall from the other day being repaired. This wall has no mortar and is only held together by the placement of the stones on each other. The stone mason had been working for about 90 minutes and already had half the job complete. We spoke to him for a few minutes, his is a dying trade. The youth of today weren’t prepared to put in the work needed to learn the skills required. As he put it, all the youngsters were interest in was jobs that could be done on their mobile phones that paid a lot of money!!

We then headed out in the car and followed the main roads this time and found the park. It was crazy, even at 10:00 the car park was mobbed and there were people everywhere. We decided to abandon that plan.

Being interested in aircraft and knowing RAF Fairford was home to a number of large military aircraft including B-1’s and B-52’s we headed off there. Obviously this has been a popular destination, there are literally hundreds of no parking cones along the roads surrounding the airfield. Obviously these little cone can be moved, thereby creating a “legal” parking spot. We did NOT move the cones, but someone else had, so we parked there for a while. Even then it was difficult to see the aircraft through the miles of razor wire.

It was only after taking a few shots that I saw this sign ….. Oooooops

From there we headed into the local town to buy some essentials for home. Bars of Cadbury’s chocolate and Penguin Biscuits!!

We meandered around the area looking for lunch, we did take a couple of back lanes in the process but I survived. We found a country pub so pulled in for lunch. We grabbed an outside table and I went into order. On the way out I had to negotiate a rather heavy spring loaded door while carrying 2 pint glasses. I was so pleased to get through without spilling anything that I didn’t notice the next door was only 5ft 9 inches tall. I’m 6ft. Ouch!!!! but I didn’t spill anything.

From here we just took a lazy route back to the hotel for some down time. Vacationing is so tiring!

As we entered the car park we noticed the wall had been finished!

Once back I decided to wander into the village to look for a geocache, and to take some photos. I couldn’t find the geocache so I stopped at the village green to watch some cricket!

We’ve never stays at a 5* hotel before, but now we have stayed at a 5* inn. Look carefully, you can count the stars on the bottom of the black and yellow sign.

Last night we noticed a large BMW in the parking lot, in front of the BMW was the remains of a stone wall. Hanging around the BMW were an elderly couple (beyond my age!) and a collection of walking sticks. My first assumption ws that the said BMW had an argument with said wall. However this seemed unlikely as at the front of each parking spot was one of those long concrete beams to stop forward motion. Puzzling, until I looked closer, the concrete beam ws about 2 inches shorter than the distance between the inside of the front wheels! Amazingly there was very little obvious damage to the BMW.

This morning I avoided the temptation of the full English and went for poached eggs and toast (and maybe a sausage). I am beginning to live in fear of the scales when we get home.

Today Lyn had planned a circular tour of the local area. It may be boring for you, but we are happy driving around looking at the scenery rather than stopping off in towns and museums. Lyn was a little worried as this tour came from the AA Book od the Road, 1978 edition!

Many decades ago I was perfectly happy bombing around the countryside and country lanes at the legal speed limit (or more!). At the start of this trip even half the speed limit was enough to give me white knuckles. Slowly the confidence has returned and I’m up to about 80%. Below are a few shots of the roads, they are about one and a half times the width of car in the wide places, narrower places can have the hedges on withe side brushing the car. There are “passing places” every few hundred yards. Passing places often being defined as worn down hedgerow either side of the road where a car can squeeze into. Below may look like driveways to peoples houses, they are not, they are two way roads!

As we are in the Cotswolds, which is a range of hills, we had some amazing views across valleys, unfortunately I find these views are not well reproduced in photos (I need lessons!!)

At one place we stopped we found a flock of sheep just sleeping in the field. They were totally oblivious to us humans.

We also passed an old Abbey, built around 1248, so we stopped for a few pictures.

The oldest gravestone we could decipher was from 1762

Of course every Abbey needs a Manor House

And every Manor House needs a (green) horse and carriage.

We had lunch in a village pub and then then went off in search of the Cotswolds Falconry where there were a number of birds of prey. I won’t bore you with lots of bird pictures, mainly because it’s beer o’clock!

You’ve got to love the village names around here, we’re in Lower Slaughter, so of course there has to be…….

Collectively known as the Slaughters.

Settled into the hotel OK last night. We’re now just getting our head around the price of things over here, they are HIGH! At breakfast (price included with the room) the first item on the menu was a “Full English”, eggs, bacon, sausage potatoes, mushrooms, tomato and black pudding. I forwent the black pudding, you can google it if you want, it’s too gross to describe here!! After the cruise, I was determined to cut down on size of breakfast, but………

After breakfast Lyn did a bit of route planning and off we went. The goal today was to meet a school friend of mine who I have known on and off for about 67 years! Again we toured the back roads to get there and back. We met up in a town called Witney. The Cotswolds towns are a mega tourist attraction evidently, however we survived and met up with Barbara.

As usual I will be lazy and dump a whole load of pictures, may be more interesting to those across the pond. Our first stop was Bourton-on-the-Water

From there we drove onto Whitney, which was a bit of a zoo. They were digging up the high street and there seemed to be a market in progress as well. There were cars and tourists everywhere. The only thing lacking were parking spaces. Many years ago when we lived in the UK it was no problem parking the car in a space only a few feet longer than the car, now I need about 3 car lengths of space to park!! Below are some shots of Whitney.

As you can see in the last picture, they have a strange habit of decorating mail boxes!

After a very pleasant lunch with Barbara we headed back to the car, which had exceeded its allotted parking time by 30 minutes (without penalty), and went wandering along some more back roads until we passed through the village of Churchill where we stopped for a wander. Churchill was typical of many of the villages in the area. Again more photos.

Above is the style of wall found around the area, it is used to delineate boundaries, both private properties and large fields.

Tomorrow will be more touring.

After docking at Southampton we took an Uber to the train station. then by train to Gatwick airport to pick up the car. When I first looked at cars it was around $1200 for 9 nights, sort of what I was expecting to pay. I then checked Expedia thane price dropped to $459 with free cancellation.Much better. I realised the day before picking up the car that I had booked it too early and that they may not hang on to it. Tried changing with the hire company, but the only way to do that was to cancel and rebook, with the chance of no cars being available. I checked again on Expedia and the price was now $350 with cancellation, but wait a minute, we’re here, we don’t need cancellation protection. The new price $243. I booked it then canceled the old one! When we picked up the car it was a hybrid, to book the hybrid would have cost twice as much. I was very happy with $25 (Canadian) per day!!

We spent a couple of nights with friends, then headed down to Christchurch, on the coast for the reunion. We had great time catching up with people we hadn’t seen for 50 years, it was a huge success! We headed out this morning (Wednesday) to make our way up to Little Slaughter, in the Cotswolds (Jim and Ruth this is the home of Midsommer Murders!!) We took the back roads, the traffic was fine and the scenery was great.

We arrived at the hotel, an old Manor house type building with what appeared to be a number of cottages associated. It turns out our room was one of these cottages with living area downstairs and bedroom up. Quite luxurious, and reflected in the price of meals in the dining room. We’ll try some of the local restaurants while we’re here I think.

Tomorrow we’ll do some more touring, and we’re meeting up with an old school friend of mine for lunch.

Ok, trying to get back on track. Yesterday we arrived in another new country, Norway. It was a fairly short stop as we arrived at 0800 and departed (in theory) at 1530. We may have been a little late!

As you should know by now we are attending the 50th anniversary of my graduation from ATC college next week. One of the course members got married to a Norwegian girl while on the course. He emigrated to Norway 40 years ago. Unfortunately his wife is have problems walking so they had to cancel, fortunately they live in Kristiansand, so we spent the morning with them. They have a beautiful apartment about 10 minutes from the terminal overlooking the water. We had a good time reminiscing!

We had a quick trip back to the ship for lunch, then off on our final excursion. Again, a simple sight seeing tour round the local area, then off to a vintage steam railway for a short ride through the country side.

Leaving Kristiansand there were still areas that had the old wooden houses, other areas were brick after fire consumed many of the wooden structures.

Below is a church on the outskirts

We followed a river for many miles, the scenery here was very similar to the Scottish Highlands

Of course as we approached the railway station the rain started! The railway is about 120 years old, it used to connect the valley area with the town, a distance of around 48 miles. Since it closed in the ’60’s about 8miles of the track have been saved to allow the train to run.

Today’s useless trivia, for the 8 mile journey the train consumed 1000 liters of water and 250kg of coal.

All carriages were 3rd class!

The picture above was typical of the many rapids we passed. At the bottom of the picture running right to left is a “flume”. It is a wooden channel constructed to hold flowing water down which trees are sent to the lumber yards. Today all the trees are transported by road, and the flume has been converted to a walking path.

For some reason at the end of the journey they gave us 45 minutes free time. We were in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do!! As it turned out this didn’t leave us enough time to get back to the boat before the “all aboard” time. We were about 20 minutes late. As this was a tour organized by the boat company we knew we were not going to be left behind!!

This pretty much brings the cruise part of the trip to an end. We’ve enjoyed the trip, a smaller ship would have been preferable, but we survived! Visiting the Nordic countries had been on our bucket list, and we weren’t disappointed. Overall the weather behaved, let’s hope that continues. A serious diet has to start soon!

Tomorrow morning we dock in Southampton, and then take a train to Gatwick Airport where we pick up a rental car. We then spend a couple of nights with friends, a couple of nights at the reunion then it’s off to the Cotswolds next Wednesday. I’ll start the blog again in the Cotswolds.