Blogs from Southampton, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 7

And Through Portugal We had a lovely time driving slowly up through Portugal with some lovely and some not so lovely weather. We managed to pop into Lisbon when it was wet and it doesn't matter then. It is still a great place for a short break. We discovered history in Mafre, Tomar and Obidos. And some religiosity in Fatima where we got wet. After that we moved further north to a small campsite near Oliveira dos Hopital past Coimbra where we cycled and stayed for a few days before finding Braganca which was beguiling, a real find. This was our last stop in Portugal and we took to the hills to find Spain. Asturias and Cantabria, north Spain But we were a bit heavy perhaps as we overheated our breaks coming down into Spain. We ... read more

Getting ready for a winter trip to Europe We are planning to go to Spain and Portugal this winter leaving on Tuesday 27 January. Lesley also fancies catching a ferry over to Africa and touring Morocco. An interesting adventure for us to new places. Otherwise we shall visit some of the same sites we stopped at in 2008. We shall update this blog as a card to our friends on an occasional basis. If you don't want to get notification of this blog then let me know and we shall stop the emails. Meanwhile we prepare slowly to get ready to go. Regards. Michael and Lesley... read more

Geo: 50.8998, -1.39561Sunday 11/01/09 The day's finally arrived; we left home by coach at 10:15 for the uneventful 3 ½ coach trip to Southampton docks. Onceat the berth there was as expected the snaking queue of hundreds of people all with the same thought on their minds; lets get this over with quickly, and I must say I was pleasantly surprised, the process from joining the queue to opening the cabin door was just under 30 minutes, not bad at all. The cabin's fine with plenty of storage space (which we'll need for the next 3 months) it's positionedamidships and on level 9 as originally booked which places us pretty much dead centre of the ship which I anticipate will lessen the impact of pitching and rolling in heavy seas. (I checked the weather forecastfor the ... read more

Well, Paris is over and we have moved to England. Lots of Fog and lots of sunshine and of course, today, lots of rain. we are in England though, we shouldn't expect anything different, or so we have been told. However there are a couple of late shots in Paris that we mush share with you. Birthday was great and the weather was absolutely beautiful for most of the time we were there. England and Scotland is about family roots again so this will be another sentimental journey. Nothing like starting out with family and finishing with family. ... read more

Hello everyone, Not long to go now. I'm getting very excited! I am flying from Heathrow to New Delhi in India at 5.20pm. It will take about eight hours to fly to Delhi. The time in India is 5 1/2 hours ahead of here in england so I will arrive at about seven o'clock tomorrow morning Indian Time. Thorny... read more