28/02/2011 – When I was given the opportunity to travel to Barcelona through work to attend a Philips product event I took it up straight away. Especially since I was recently trying to find time to visit Barcelona, so I asked Philips to extend my trip for an extra night to take advantage of being out there already. After now having lived in Europe for over 3 years this was the first time I was even visiting Spain. My colleagues and I went straight to Heathrow Airport from work to catch our British Airways flight into Barcelona. We arrived around 7:30PM and were taken to our 5 star hotel, Hesperia Towers by a Philips hostess. Once we checked in I headed to my room on the 23rd floor, it was incredible, a very nice hotel with ... read more

The plan for today was to head out to the South Coast of Iceland towards the glaciers Eyjafjallajokull and Myrdalsjokull, to get a good close look at the famous Eyjafjallajokull volcano that recently erupted. That was the plan, and after throwing on layer over layer and eating breakfast downstairs our tour guide from Volcano Tours arrived in his large 4x4 jeep. The majority of the morning was driving, I didn’t realise it was so far away and apart from a very short stop at a greenhouse to see banana trees with no banana’s we didn’t leave the car. Eventually we stopped at a small roadside café where we had lunch. Our tour guide recommended trying some traditional horse meat, however Hannah and I decided against that and went for hot chips and a sandwich instead. I ... read more

31/01/2011 - Iceland seemed to be the place that everyone really wants to go to but for whatever reason isn’t often considered when planning a holiday. We chose to visit during winter to try catch the Northern Lights and timed our visit when the Moon was darkest to increase our chances. Although after constantly checking the weather forecast it was likely to be a very cloudy, very wet week in Iceland. So today we headed to Heathrow Airport to catch our 1PM Icelandic Air flight into Keflavik International Airport, not far from Reykjavik, in the South-West of Iceland. After a smooth flight we took a shuttle bus into Reykjavik which dropped us at our hotel, Hotel Reykjavik in the early evening. It was quite chilly so far however no-where near as cold as I thought it ... read more

Hannah was heading over to France to attend a family friends wedding in Bergerac this summer and at the last minute I also booked a week of work to spend it in sunny Southern France. Since Hannah and her parents were really here to attend the wedding most of the week was spent relaxing by the pool, very little else was done, but I was keen to get out and explore some of the country while I was here. So Hannah, her mum and I drove to a small French town called Beynac about 1-2 hours away from Bergerac. The town of Beynac was a beautiful, peaceful place which sat beside the Dordogne River. So we decided to hire some canoes and make our down a particularly picturesque part of the Dordogne. We jumped into the ... read more

As painful as it was when my alarm went off I forced myself to get up and watch the sunset over Monument Valley. Out on my balcony I was still just astounded by the incredible view of the mittens. The sunrise was gorgeous despite being a little cloudy and once above horizon I headed back to bed. A few hours later Hannah and I woke up and got ready for our drive onto the magnificent Grand Canyon. We met the others and spent a couple of hours on the road before we reached the Grand Canyon. Our first stop was at a fantastic lookout tower built right on the edge of the canyon. It’s hard to grasp the size and scale of the Grand Canyon from incredible view right on the edge. We spent some time ... read more