It used to be an annual tradition that my best friend and i would spend at least one day in Blackpool each Summer. This year we decided to restart the tradition! We stayed in the Draytonian Hotel. It's one of the cheapest b&bs in Blackpool. Whilst the hotel rooms aren't huge and the bathroom is shared, the warm welcome from the hosts more than makes up for it! We'd requested veggie breakfasts and upon arrivals, they made sure each of the ingrediants were to our liking. As we'd arrived quite late, we decided to go for food before hitting the prom. [View Full Entry]

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I know this was only meant as a short get away, but i couldn't believe it was time to leave already! After checking out, we made our last trip through Gennevilliers to the station. We had a few hours to spare before needing to be at the airport, so went to see The Arc du Triumph. Afterwards we had lunch at a realy nice Italian restaurant nearby. It was a nice relaxing end to our holiday before heading off to the airport. Once again, I was surprised at how easy the trains were to navigate and find our own way back [View Full Entry]

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Feeling more confident in our journey to town made the walk to the station feel a lot quicker this morning. Had we arrived as planned we were going to go to Eurodisney this afternoon to see the 15th anniversary celebrations. However having been there last year we decided to do more sight seeing instead, so we headed off to The Louvre. I love looking around art galleries and could have spent the whole week in there! I was surprised that they didn't seem to mind people taking pictures, even of The Mona Lisa, which did make me wonder if it was [View Full Entry]

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As soon as we woke up, we went to ask at reception how to get into the centre of Paris, the receptionist looked a bit concerned, mentioned they were building a Metro, but at the moment, we'd have to get a bus into Gennevilliers then a train. The bus stop was directly opposite the hotel, but from looking at the timetable, was designed for workers at the dock and had a service arriving early in the morning and leaving after 6 at night. feeling a bit down hearted, we decided to try and walk into the town centre instead, following the [View Full Entry]

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Arrived at the airport that morning to find the flight to Amsterdam had been cancelled. Although we were flying from Manchester, it worked out cheaper to go via Amsterdam than directly to Paris! So instead of wandering around Paris this afternoon, we were stuck at Manchester airport trying to get on the next available flight. The poor assistant on the KLM desk looked stressed to the max as she had to deal with a lot of angry customers and had apparently been there since 4 AM *eugh* Managed to get on a direct flight at no extra cost (?!) that night, [View Full Entry]

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Before going to catch the plane home, we went to look around Croke Park. The hardest part was actually finding the entrance, we must have walked around each side of the park before working out how to get in - I hope its easier for the fans on match days! Again it wasn't a guided tour, so we spent the morning leisurely browsing the displays which included several visitors. for an extra fee you can take a guided tour which includes going out on to the pitch and into the players dressing rooms. The place is steeped in so much history, [View Full Entry]

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One of the first things I spotted on the guide we were using was The Oscar Wilde house. after walking around we managed to find it, but was disappointed to see if was only a plaque on a house rather than an actually museum. So after admiring the plaque and the statue in the park opposite we went to have a look around the National Gallery. The exhibits here were very varied and i could have spent hours looking around it properly. We then had a couple of drinks in a lovely pub we found called the Hairy Lemon, which [View Full Entry]

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The next day we set of to explore explore Dublin. We left the bus on O'Connell street and started our Irish adventure with a look around Carroll's gift shop - Rupert is still amazed at the amount of tat I buy, but at least I can claim to have a magnet to remember each holiday by and we needed some oven gloves anyway! We stopped for lunch at a pub on the side of the River Liffey. The smoking ban had already kicked in in Ireland, so we were amused to see how the different pubs had been adapted. In [View Full Entry]

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The flight from Manchester toIreland was scarily quick. by the time we'd sat down and read the paper, it was over! We took a taxi from the airport to the hotel and were scared that the taxi driver knew the hotel name straight away. We were staying at The Regency Airport Hotel, which is about half way between the airport and the town centre. Both were only a short bus ride away. After checking in, we spent the rest of the day lounging in the bar area and ate in the hotel restaurant. The restaurant wasn't very busy so the service [View Full Entry]

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Waking up this morning was painful, my leg muscles were still very sore and achy from the run, so I opted for a lie in and to leave checking out until the last possible minute whilst Kath went off to explore. We met at Starbucks on the mile, where the English/Scottish accents led to me buying a latte in a paper cup and when asking for it in a mug, being given a mug of milk! Way too confusing for me having only recently woken up! Once the caffeine had kicked in we went to Camera Obscura. I'd never heard of [View Full Entry]

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