Kylie C

We set off on our last holiday before two becomes three late Saturday morning. Which was a nice change compared to our last trips, which required very early starts. Our destination was Southern Italy, Puglia. After a 45min delay to the flight and then another 45min delay at the other end picking up the car, due to some fussy Russians, we didn't get on the road until just after 7pm. Our short journey down the coast from Bari was fairly easy and we were soon in Polignano a Mare. This town, like most of the others we stayed at, was surprisingly pleasant. Really this was supposed to be a convenient location away from Bari before going further down the coast. It was a very pretty town perched on cliff tops, with a sweet little cove beach. ... read more

We spent a fantastic few days on the coast of Portugal just outside of Lisbon for the first May Bank holiday for the year. After a celebrity spot at Heathrow (Richard Quest, from CNN Quest Means Business) we were on our way to Lisbon. It took an extraodinary amount of time to get our hire car, just the pace of the place. It only took around 90mins for us to hit the coast line just north west of Lisbon. Dramatic cliffs and soft yellow sand, with waves slowing rolling to shore. The hotel we spent the first two nights maybe the best we have stayed at; Oreias do Seixo Charm Hotel. The architecture was exquisite - very natural but very modern - with a wonderful view of the cliff dunes and ocean. The bathroom needs a ... read more

Easter couldn't have come soon enough with the lack of sun and slow appearance of spring in London. We had originally booked this trip to Madeira with Adam and Myles, however they were back in Melbourne enjoying the sun there. It was an early flight, departing Gatwick at 7.10. Unfortunately the spare seat next to me was taken by someone else as easy jet had separated a family. Oh well, got the spare seat on the way back. The flight was just under 4hrs given there was a strong headwind. This of course paid dividends on the way back with just over a 3hr flight. We were staying up in the hills surrounding Funchal at a place called Choupana Hills Resort and Spa. It offered amazing views out across the Atlantic Ocean and down to Funchal ... read more

So Adam, Myles, Scott and I burned (or should I say crawled!) out of London at 4pm on Friday and still managed to hit some fierce traffic. It was our last mini-break before Adam and Myles head back to Australia, Melbourne. The journey took near on 4hrs to get to our accomodation. Which was the quaint Three Choirs Vineyard in Gloucestershire. We were staying in the Lodges that were nestled amongst the vines near a small pond; very picturesque. The following morning, after a hearty breakfast overlooking the vineyard, we headed into Hereford to visit the little town of Ledbury. It had cute little streets with tudor style houses. Next stop was Great Malvern to tackle the Malvern Hills. Just as we started the accent the fog cleared and we had beautiful blue skys to gaze ... read more

Back in late Augsut I secured tickets up the Shard, The View, for Scott's birthday for the opening weekend. The first day of opening was Friday 1st Feb, and it wasn't a very nice day. So we were rather pleased to awake to a blue sky and sunshine on Saturday morning. The clouds did start to roll in, however it made for a dramatic sunset of west london and Battersea Power Station which was dripping in flaming light. The entry all went rather smoothly for the second day of being opened. Only slight hiccup was you couldn't use the E-ticket on your device, they printed the ticket out. There were two lifts up and it was all done rather nicely with murals and videos while you waited and in the lift. Mind you we didn't do ... read more

I was hoping for a weekend of bright blue skies and sunshine, but we got snow on our winter beach weekend in Selsey. Which was just as lovely! Mum and Dad who are over visiting for January and took the family away for a long weekend. As the weekend approached it became clear it really was going to be a wintery weekend with snow storms hitting right across Europe. Rather lucky we hadn't booked anything that needed a plane ride and that we weren't going north as we would not have left London. In the end our trains were only delayed around 90mins on the way down and back so not too bad considering. The beach house we stayed at was perfect, 4 rooms, 3 bathrooms and a large dinning/living space. It was called Lands End ... read more

It was an early start to our Wintery Christmas get away. By 5.30am we were zipping along the quiet London streets towards Stanstead. Remind me never to go to Standstead again, such chaos, and as we found out on the way home £22.50 each to return back to London. But this was the only way to get to Solvenia. We were travelling with Adam, Myles, Tony and Craig. A team that required a large people mover to get us around. Scott was on point driving and I managed to squeeze into the fold out seat in the back with all the luggage. Our hotel for the first night was in the heart of Ljubljana. The city only has a population of ~250k, so it had a lovely relaxed feel. It was very Chritmassy with lovely lights ... read more

It was an early start to our Japan holiday, by 5.45am we were making our way to Heathrow with potentially London's worst driver. Nearly side swiped three other vehicles and hit the curb. After a Bloody Mary in the lounge, always a fine way to kick start the day, we were off. The journey was rather good; a couple of movies and good 4hr sleep and we touched down at Haneda Airport around 4.30am. It was a breeze getting the bags, customs and then a monorail later we were walking along the quiet streets to our hotel. We were staying in Ginza around 20 floors up and our first view was the sun rising over Tokyo Tower. We couldn't check in for a while so after freshening up we headed out to the newest and biggest ... read more

It was a bit of a dramatic start to our 1stwedding anniversary long weekend when upon arriving into Croydon we discovered because of a person under the train at Gatwick there was no way of getting there by rail. After only a 10-15min wait we were soon taxi sharing with some South African’s and heading towards Gatwick. We ended up arriving with more than enough time to enjoy a glass of wine before heading to Venice. Both Scott and I have been to Venice in the past, I was with a girl friend and Scott was in the camp ground. The hope was for a more romantic experience without any need to run around seeing all the big sites. We didn’t arrive at our B&B until 1am or so and we arrived by the slowest water ... read more

So we headed to Andalucia in southern Spain to soak up the last of the summer sun. Soaked we were, for most of the time. Sadly there were flash floods in the region after 6 months of no rain and some people lost their lives. We were on a late night flight to Malaga and stayed in some cheap, but clean place walking distance to the train station. It was an airy morning; completely dark at 7.30am and very still. Half way to the station it started hammering with rain and did not stop the whole way to Cordoba about 50mins away, we could not see a thing outside. Our hotel was lovely, situated over an old Roman ruin in an old style building with beautiful designer touches inside with Arabic flare. We were able to ... read more