Blogs from Europe - page 5

Another glorious day of blue sky sunny weather on Sunday. I concluded the best place for us to be were some lovely gardens rather than perhaps too busy beach areas with famililes taking advantage of the sunshine. So we headed for Rosemoor RHS Gardens. A real delight. So different from the wild gardens of the day before. These with lots of formal areas but also swathes of wild flowers with narrow mown paths down. Had a really lovely walk and managed to only buy one plant in the superb plant shop before we left. Had to include more than one photo of the magnificent peacock who so very kindly put on a full twirling display for us. Took lots of photos as I'm enjoying checking out my new camera (Panasonic Lumix DMC G8) as as I ... read more

We finally reached the Azores Islands today and we were docked in Ponta Delgada when we woke up this morning. The Azores are actually composed of 9 islands, with this being the largest. They were all made by volcanos long ago, but none are active any longer – we hope. We went to the breakfast buffet and again someone helped Janet with her plate. They are beginning to spoil her and David is going to have to step up his game in the future. Anyway, we had breakfast while the people on excursions were lining up for their buses. The ship was cleared to let people start disembarking about 9:30, so we went back to our cabin to let them get out of the way. We did not have an excursion scheduled today. There was a ... read more

We were not quite ready to leave the building this morning when the fire alarm went off. Oh, no! Is it a test, is it for real? It’s only the alert alarm isn’t it and not the whoop, whoop for evacuate?? Cathy went to check the lift which had put itself into Fire Only mode. OMG, should we walk down six flights of stairs to check with reception? Before we could make a decision, the alarm went silent, Bernie checked the lift again and it had re-set itself to normal operation. Phew! Let’s just carry on with our packing and keep our fingers crossed that the lift is still available when we need to take all our luggage downstairs! After three glorious days in Dublin with the weather much warmer AND drier than we had anticipated ... read more

We woke up Saturday morning and were VERY sad that we didn’t see the Northern Lights, but we did get to see the White Cliffs of Dover. You can’t see them from a plane or from land, but you can see them from the water. They are beautiful and so tall. Our excursion isn’t until the afternoon, but they have a shuttle that goes to town and to Dover castle and got inline for that. We waited and waited but that might have been good because one of the security personnel started talking with us and told us to skip the town as everything has moved out to a local shopping center. So, we went to the castle. Unfortunately, since the shuttle alone was over an hour round trip, we just took the 10-minute stop at ... read more

Wednesday 24th April 2024- Got the bus with no trouble, well apart from having to pay a bus station tax of 2 euros per person, as well as give the driver of the coach 2 euros each for our cases!! Beautiful scenery, just as well it was sunny today! After Budva, we took the road we should have taken yesterday to Cetinje and onto Podgorica. Stopped for 10mins toilet break and then took the E762 to the Border crossing. No hold-ups this time, and apart from having to get off the bus 2x (We could have walked as it was only about 100 metres!!) we were into Albania in about half an hour!! Carried on, past another part of Shkodra Lake, viewing the mountains that still had snow on them, to Shkoder. Saw the castle that ... read more

What glorious weather. If it goes on much longer there will be a national hosepipe ban. No rain for 3 days ?? No blog for yesterday as we went down to Launceston to visit my sister and spent a lovely day there with her. A really pleasant drive there and back too as the weather is so good and everywhere is filled with the most amazing sudden bloom of wild flowers in the equally suddenly arrived gorgeous sunny weather. Also great for bringing on quite an attack of hay fever. Thank goodness for antihistamine. Now know that there has been a lot of rain in other parts of the country late Sunday but fortunately not here on us blessed ones in North Devon. We may get a bit tomorrow but counting ourselves very lucky so far. ... read more